Reflection ("There I am," we said.)

1. My favorite tools are blogging and Google Earth, with which I plan to create a clue-driven scavenger hunt for different landforms during our Earth Sciences unit.

2. My thinking has been transformed in that I now see that taking the time to teach my students to utilize different digital tools will save me (and them) time throughout the year. They will have far more tools with which to approach and solve problems, complete projects, create study aids, etc...

3. I was surprised that I was introduced to so many useful resources that I had not heard of, let alone used.

Tool #11: Digital Citizen Kane ("...rosebud..!" said his final email.)

1. What goes into a school computer stays in a school computer. Don't write, click on, respond to anything that you wouldn't want your parents or director (principal) to see.

2. Just because you found info and pictures on the internet and not a book doesn't mean you don't have to cite your sources. The internet has a very casual feel to it. We browse and surf, copy and paste without realizing we are plagiarizing. Oh, and Google and Yahoo! are not sources!!

3. Bullying via Facebook, Instant Message, etc..., is just as real and damaging as bullying someone face to face. Enough said.

To teach digital citizenship I would form small groups and give each of them a few prepared roll-playing scenarios. They would then act them out and as a class we would pick what we thought were examples of good and bad citizenship. We would also come up with ways to better handle each situation.

They then sign their lives away via Faustian digital conduct contract.

Tool #10

NASA - dynamically updated information, images and videos from various online NASA sources. Users can access NASA countdown clocks, the NASA Image of the Day, Astronomy Image of the Day, online videos

NASA Lunar Electric Rover Simulator - experience what it might be like to ride a rover around a lunar outpost!

NASA 3D Sun - rotate the sun and see all views. Look at flares and sunspots up close. Three-dimensional version constructed from real-time photos & movies.

To me the big benefit of the ITouch and IPad is that they are easy to travel with. Students can be working anywhere in the building and move to a new site. This would greatly add to field trips and field work where students could be researching additional information in relation to what they are physically experiencing. They would also be able to record data in a dynamic way (instantly plugging data into a graph, averaging data in a spreadsheet, etc...)

Tool #9

Jing could help students save and communicate their ideas more easily when they are doing computer research, especially during a group project in which members are working from different laptops.

Skype is a tool I frequently use from home so that my parents in Ohio can see my daughter.

In the classroom I have used it to record student presentations and would like to use it to complete a lab simultaneously with another school. Maybe even a long term project in which the two schools Skype to report progress and results. Recording the student presentations was a good experience which the kids responded well to. The particularly liked recording there work in private and then screening it for the class.

Tool #8

http://www.hulu.com/watch/23352/nova-welcome-to-mars

This video does an excellent job of showing what an incredible feat it is to put a rover onto Mars. It provides a human aspect (the sadness of a failed trial; the elation of successfully putting a rover on Mars) that I haven't often seen in science-fact videos. It really helps the kids connect with the technical aspects of the material.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghn4lEtdusQ

This is a Steve Spengler video from YouTube. It's a short demonstration that, as a hook at the beginning of a lesson, goes a long way toward getting kids excited about convection (believe it or not). ATTENTION: This video will get blocked if you use any web browser but Internet Explorer.

Tool #7

The photostory process itself is very user-friendly, with voice, text, and images being very easy to upload. However, I can't seem to get my photostory (which I did save as .wmv) to be viewable on my blog.

Update: Well, apparently others can see it but I can't. Don't know why, but that's technology for ya.

Tool #6

I used PB Works last summer to plan the curriculum for the 3-5th grade summer school. It was great because all teachers and administrators involved could add work, suggestions, comments, etc., and then when we met in person everyone was on the same page and up to speed on where our individual work toward the whole was at. This made our physical meetings much more focused and productive.

In the classroom PB works, or any Wiki, would allow group work to happen at different computers, but have all contributions go to a central location. This could go a long way toward teachers being able to keep track of who is pulling their weight and who is not (something I have trouble discerning, at times).

Tool #5

http://www.learner.org/interactives/physics/index.html

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

To organize my bookmarks I used the labels "Science" and "Search Engines".

Social bookmarking will be useful by providing a central location for all links germane to my class or specific lesson. The tags allow for easy student access and identification of appropriate sites for assignments.

I'm having some difficulty in getting my Google Chrome bookmarks to export to Delicious. It keeps saying "upload in progress" but my bookmarks aren't showing up. Any help is appreciated.

Tool #4

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8y2q2uyd4bpMThhNTQ1OWQtNGJmMS00MzliLWE2NTUtMjg0OWQ3YzhjMzlj&hl=en

Google Docs is a great place to store and organize data by type and to edit things with your peers without having to email things back and forth.

Google Reader is nice because of the up to the minute updates it provides. I can also find all the blogs I'm following in one spot. No searching through a bookmark or favorites list. The benefit for my classroom is simply that it is a time saver, allowing me to focus on more important things than blindly search for info I need quickly.

Tool #3

Big Huge Labs Movie Poster

This tool could be used by students to create easy to read anchor charts around the room.

WORDLE is great for assisting struggling readers in finding main

ideas and important points in a dense article or other print source.

Tool #2

1. In building an online community we can create instant, reliable access to and help from others in our field. Hopefully, a comfortable, supportive and symbiotic relationship is established; one that directly impacts our classes.

2. The point was made that by creating a PLN we are setting an example of collaboration for our students that they will hopefully come to model. PLNs are another tool in our belt that helps us construct active, interested and participatory students.

3. Amy's House

Wegs Online

E1even Too1s

Ms. Lee's Thoughts

vrhTechStudent

Tool #1

I've created a blog before so the process was relatively painless, though I had difficulty getting Voki to send me a confirmation email.

The blog format can be used in my classroom to record student thoughts, questions, reflections, etc... It could also be used to create a more fluid conversation between teacher and student when evaluating student work. Sometimes face to face is intimidating and just writing teacher thoughts on an assignment is a one way conversation.