Teaching Science with Technology

This week we discussed using technology in teaching science to elementary school students. We began by looking at all of the different strands of science taught in elementary schools within the four main science branches. We looked at various scientific processes and how technology can help explain things and make them more "hand-on" for students to see.
We looked at CameraScope, a free UVA program used to hook up to a digital camera, webcame, or digital microscope to record data at different speeds. We saw how this technology allows students to study things that are too small, too slow, or too fast to examine with the naked eye. Some examples were looking at clouds, plant growth and movement, blinking, a firecracker exploding, and amoeba.
We also examined Gizmos on Explore Learning. These are simluations students and teachers can use to explore various aspects of science that they may not normally be able to create or touch. An example was looking at how viruses spread and infect cells in a simulation. Another was using many kinds of pulleys in class, which many teachers will not be able to set up.
We also spent some time examining our assistive technology assignments and discussing lesson planning with these topics.

The topics from this class will easily be used in elementary classrooms. First of all, these tools would be great ways to introduce topics in science that are difficult to examine by eye alone. I think it would be great to use a tool like CameraScope to slow down or speed up things like cloud movement, plan movement, and objects at a cellular level.
The Gizmos would also be great for similar reasons. There are topics in science that students often learn without seeing or examining closely. Using this site will give students the feeling of studying science in a more hands-on fashion than normal.

The question I have from this week is if there are certain sites that are good for finding videos like the clouds or plant we saw in class without having to film them all ourselves. Are there resources that are reliable for finding tools like this to use in class. Is there any Fair Use that comes into play with things like this?

Using technology to teach content

The first thing we worked on this week was learning how to embed files into our websites. We began by looking through our Pod-O-Matic account to see our podcasts, and then we learned how to stream them through our own websites. We also learned a similar technique for our digital stories. We will use a tool like Photobucket or YouTube to embed a video player on our websites as well.
Second, we spent some time looking at websites to help teach language arts with technology. Two of the sites we looked at are Read Write Think and Starfall, which both seem to have some educational value. There are many tools and games throughout these sites to help teach language arts.
Third, we looked through a few online activities to help teach math with technology. There were a lot of activities to use manipulatives on the website. These sites are similar to the language arts ones, in that they help plan activities and lessons relating to specific content knowledge.

One thing that I took from this lesson that will be helpful when I am teaching is using lessons in different ways and through different methods, like using online games. I think that these would be good tools to use with students occassionally to teach certain lessons or continue work on those lessons in a fun, interactive way.
These websites also give some good ideas for lessons themselves. Even if the website is not used, teachers can use the resources and lesson planning ideas from the sites to create their own activities for class.
Another useful thing we realized this week is that we need to be careful to examine the websites we may use with students carefully. As we saw with one of the sites, there is no way to save work in progress. This would be a problem if there is limited time in a computer lab or if a student is pulled out of class for another lesson. It is a good thing to keep in mind and be prepared for when using sites like these.

The only question that came to mind this week was regarding that site that seems to not have any save capabilities. I wonder if there is a reason for this, or if anyone has suggested adding the capability to the site. I think that it would be much more widely used if it were more 'classroom friendly'.

Podcasting Part 2

This week we spent most of class working on our group Podcasts. Since the recording took longer than expected, class was mostly dedicated to this and we will continue with the rest of the planned lesson next week. So, there weren't the same 3 types of big ideas this week as usual, but I would say that I came away with a few big thoughts. My group is working on a podcast on fire safety.
Audacity is a little bit complicated to use sometimes, as we saw when we tried to line up all of our wav files. We noticed that when we tried to line up the various wav files, we had to listen to the full sound all together to move them around more than we thought we would have to. We worked to overlap some of the files more than others to have a more smooth transitioning sound file.
Everything seemed to go really smoothly with our script writing and even recording the script, however we did run across some problems when it came time to put everything together. Somehow, everything sounded great as we played our file back in Audacity and we were feeling confident that our podcast was well on its way to being finished, but when we exported it and listened to it elsewhere, the beginning part of our podcast repeated itself, looping back over and over again. This was very frustrating and we could not figure out what had happened to cause this repetition. We found that technology can cause some problems and frustrations in this lesson.
A third thing that came up while we worked, was the concept of Fair Use. Luckily, we have already discussed this concept in class, but we did have some questions about our song use. We wanted to use a theme song from a tv show, but realized that the whole theme, while under 30 seconds, is copyrighted, so we had to make some adjustments.

These ideas can be used in our classrooms, or should at least be considered. We do need to be very careful about Fair Use laws with our students if we have them creating podcasts and finding music/sound effects to go along with the podcast. Even thinking that we were clear on the rules, we found that we were not quite sure about some things. This is a concept/rule that we should review again as teachers and relay carefully to our students.
We also need to keep in mind that technology can cause some issues and frustrations, as we saw in our group. As teachers, we will need to be very knowledgable about these possible issues and how to troubleshoot them. We will also need to watch students carefully for frustration levels and help out when needed.

The question I still have refers back to our repeating loop problem of our sound file. I don't know if this was just a kink that we somehow created or if this happens often with Audacity, but I am wondering what causes it and if there is a better way to fix it than reseting the whole podcast, as we did.

Podcasting

This week we spent the class learning about Podcasts; what they are and how to create and use them.
We started the lesson by learning about what Podcasts do. They are audiofiles that talk about something, teach something, or give people something to listen to. For example, we watched a Ninja podcast which explains or teaches something to its audience.
Second, we talked about tools we can use to create a Podcast for others to view/listen to. We discussed Zoho Writer, Audacity, and Pod-O-Matic. Zoho Writer is an electronically based word processor, which we will use to collaborate our lesson we will teach with a podcast. Audacity is the tool we will use to record our voices and add music or sound effects. It is an open source sound editor which will be the basis of our podcasts. Pod-O-Matic is the podcasting service we will use to host and distribute our audio files.
We also discussed various ways to subscribe to a blog. I thought it was interesting that we can subscribe through iTunes...something I never realized or noticed before this class.
We were then able to practice using the tools. We worked with audacity to learn how to import/export our audio files, how to split tracks, record multiple tracks, and give our sound different effects. We also worked with Zoho Writer to collaborate a lesson with our groups that we will teach using a Podcast.

This lesson can be applied in classrooms once we are teaching in a couple of ways. It would be fun to have students create podcasts as reviews of various lessons taught in class. We listened to a few examples of this in class. I think students would be reviewing material in a new way be creating these podcasts. They could also create podcasts for fellow class or school-mates to teach a lesson. Perhaps students could break into groups to become "experts" on a topic and use a podcast to teach the rest of the class.
I also think that the tools we used could be used in the classroom, separate from podcasts. Zoho Writer would be a great way for students to complete group work in class and be able to work on group assignments from home.

I liked the idea of calling into a podcast, as a teacher we discussed often does. I think that it is very helpful to be able to record over the phone at a time that may be convenient for you, although I'm not sure how I would do recording while driving! I think it would be hard to think about the topic of the podcast clearly without being totally focused on it. My question about this is if a podcast is already posted/hosted somewhere, can the creator still go back in to change it as they want, even if it is already being viewed?