Global Cooperation

Wow. global cooperation is the coolest thing since sliced bread. The idea behind working with students and teachers from around the world is an exciting thing to bring into the classroom. I feel that students will be really receptive to global projects because they are involved in something bigger than themselves. The two global cooperation sites that I like the best were The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, CIESE, and Global School Net, GSN. CIESE is the one I would use in my classroom because it is science based. It had great projects that really have a meaning and purpose. Another great feature about this site is that for each project it gives the national curriculum standards and the New York State standards that each project correlates with. GSN was more diverse in the types of projects and areas of study that it offers. However for a variety of their projects they only offered one registration period, where as CIESE usually offered a Fall and Spring window for each project.
In my classroom I would probally be more inclined to use CIESE. CIESE has several projects which take students out of the classroom and into the community. One tool I could use in conjunction with a global cooperation project is flickr. I would love to start a flickr account to post pictures of the students collecting data and working on their project from start to end. At the end of a classroom project it would be a great way for the students to reflect on the work they did visually. I'm really excited about global cooperation and hope to the students will be as excited as I am.

Videos in the Classroom

I think it is so important to appeal to the variety of learning styles that our students have. Using videos in conjunction with a lesson is a great way to interest the visual learners in our classrooms. I think having a video list located on the classroom blog is an easy and seamless way to incorporate them into a lesson. It is also a place I could post a variety of extra videos that the students could view outside of class for extra information. The Why Earth Science video that I posted would be a great introduction to Earth Science on the first day of school. It's a good video to get the students thinking about all the science that happens around them every day.

My twitter

When I searched for people to follow on twitter I looked for people that were tweeting about science. After lurking for a week I have been exposed to some of the coolest science links that I probably would have never found. It was easy to skim through the tweets and click on links that interested me. I definitely think I will continue to check my twitter account in hopes of finding links I can use in my classroom, and to keep myself current with the Science community. I don't think I'd ever use twitter to update people that I'm sitting on my couch eating ice cream, but definitely would use it to share links I find interesting. This is my favorite Earth Science site I found by lurking on Twitter : )

Microblogging in the Science Classroom

After lurking in the shadows of the Twitter world, I have mixed feelings about using the tool in the classroom. I think kids these days are used to immediate satisfaction, and Twitter can certainly deliver it. Twitter could be used to answer quick questions or post links that might be helpful or interesting to students, however it would be a lot of work for a single teacher to keep up with if the students became dependent upon the instant feedback. It might be a tool that a collaboration of science teachers could update as a team. As a negative, "not every student is excited to see a professor's message on his or her cellphone", and at the high school level it may be inappropriate to have such close communication with students.
Two tweeter tools that could be useful in the classroom are Hashtages and Tweetbeeps, both allow users to search for specific topics of interest. As a project, students could search a topic and find someone who is tweeting about it, then write about what they learned from their tweets.
I think with the time restrains in a high school setting, and a set curriculum, twitter would be too time consuming to keep up with and use effectively. However, a class that has more freedom may find twitter and all it's tools a great communication tool.

http://www.noupe.com/tools/25-incredibly-useful-twitter-tools-and-firefox-plugins.html
http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i25/25a01501.htm

Sakura-Jima, Japan

I love checking the volcano word blog. Today I read up on the new volcanic activity going on in Japan. This post is really great because it has a link to more information and some really great pictures.

http://volcanoworld.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/sakura-jima-japan-17/

The Learner

To me a Learner is like an unsorted pile of rocks. Like a pile of rocks it comes to class with chunks of knowledge already gathered. Some of the "rocks" were obtained as a part of formal learning and others as informal learning. People gather knowledge from a variety of places, however in this fast paced world it seems that places like the internet are becoming major influences on our knowledge. "Informal learning is a significant part of our learning", however sometimes it can lead to wrong conclusions and misconceptions. Teachers are the sorters of the rocks, keeping what is good, and tossing what is incorrect. Like a learner, the bag of rocks has empty spaces that are continually being filled. The learner is part of a "social element", which is constantly evolving. As the environment around the learner changes, so does the learner, just as a pile of rocks changes with it's surrounding environment.

Siemens, G. (2005, January). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMcTHndpzYg&feature=PlayList&p=3E43054A8703F57A&index=0

Earth Matters

Earth Matters is a ning social network that brings together people who want to help save the earth and it's biosphere through green initiatives. It has 1703 members from across the globe. As an Earth Science teacher I want to educate my students on green options and issues facing our society, this social network is a great source of information.