Today is last day of class for me since I'll be in New York next week for that forensic science workshop I'd mentioned in an earlier blog. So I have a few last things to wrap up.
First, I am completely done with my classroom website, Mrs. Peretich's Place! I added a Newsworthy page last night with links to different articles or videos about my students (past and present). Today I compressed my classroom folder ("zipped" it) and uploaded it to the PLP. I had to find and put all the images on my website into the images folder - I guess I'd just been using Picasa a lot ... oops! In case you're wondering what my organization of the classroom folder looked like, don't worry - here it is:
I can't just leave this blog with a boring post about my classroom folder being uploaded to the PLP, so here's a comic to summarize how I'm feeling right now. It's from one of my favorite websites from graduate school, Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comics!
For my final blog post, I found a really awesome website, Animoto, where you can transform photos into little 30 second music videos for FREE (anything longer than 30 seconds costs $money$)! You can use pictures from picasa (where I used mine from), facebook, flickr, smugmug, photobucket, or upload them directly to the site. You can add your own music (mp3's) or choose from their collection of music clips. Although what you can do is limited (it's FREE for crying out loud), it is a different take on the slideshows or static photos found on so many websites.
I used some of my favorite pictures from the hilarious LOLcats website, icanhascheezburger.com. If you love cats and funny captions, you'll love this site! Although animoto cut off some of the words, and they moved through very quickly, it still turned out to be a pretty cute video. What do you think?
This is an appropriate ending as I "animoto-boat away" from TPTE 486 and head off to enjoy the last five weeks of my summer vacation. I have learned so many new things during this class that I hope to use in the (near) future. I am even thinking about making my own interactive spreadsheet (we didn't get to do that this semester as in the past) for chemistry! Of course, the biggest problem with all of this technology stuff? TIME. Here's hoping I have lots more of it to be able to incorporate even more technology in my classroom!
I'd definitely like to use more technology in my classes, especially this new forensic science course, in which I plan to have plenty of labs and lots and lots of collaboration and group work, so I can see myself showing this video as an intro to copyright laws and fair use (what a great discussion-starter).
If you haven't ever watched it, and you're interested in copyright laws and fair use, it's worth the 10 minutes of your day to check it out:
As this summer session is wrapping up, so is our Secondary Science Wiki. I've really enjoyed using this wiki this summer because it was very easy to use and would be a great idea for collaboration amongst teachers in Knox County Schools. I'm not sure how hard it is to actually set up because ours was set up for us, but I can't imagine it would be too difficult. It would be great to have a wiki for chemistry teachers, for biology teachers, for physics teachers, etc. to share websites, documents, PowerPoints, pictures, and more. My biggest problem with the wiki is that anyone (with access, of course) could erase something by accident. Other than that, it's been a good learning experience with wikis, and now I have a better understanding of how wikipedia works, too!
Since I will be missing the last two days of class to travel to a forensic science workshop in Scotia, New York, I spent today working on the final project for this class: an iMovie! After collecting some great pictures off the internet and making a storyboard (which was pretty much just what text I wanted, what photos I was going to use, and the order of everything), I was ready to rock 'n roll!
After spending a month with my lovely Apple computer, Limbo13, in the computer lab at UT, I still prefer PC's. The Mac has grown on me a little bit, but I think it's mostly because I love that guy (Justin Long) off the Mac/PC commercials! I'd heard horror stories about this project and using iMovie, so needless to say, I wasn't super excited to get started all by myself. However, the program wasn't terrible to use (after visiting the help section numerous times), and I actually really enjoyed this project.
I decided to make my movie on an overview of forensic science. I included the four standards for the forensic science curriculum I submitted to the state department of education this past spring and photos to accompany the topics for each standard. Using TelevisionTunes.com, I found the theme song for Law & Order for free, which is always good. I'm pretty darn proud of my movie, and it only took me a day to make. Hopefully, I won't have to make too many changes when Dr. O'Bannon gets back on Thursday ...
If it didn't take so long to make this "story", I would definitely use this technology for the classroom more often. I LOVE LOVE LOVE short little video clips and music videos. However, I think it would probably be easier to use videos that other people have made when I'm running short on time (which is pretty much all the time ...). Some of my favorite chemistry videos come from Mark Rosengarten, and he has them all on YouTube for free! The lyrics are original and useful, the images are accurate and sometimes funny, and the songs are catchy and creative. Either way, the idea behind using short video clips in the classroom isn't new to me, and I would love to make more movies in the future (especially now that I feel like I have conquered iMovie!).
Be sure to check out my first attempt at making a video with iMovie:
Yesterday and today we worked with the amazing program called Inspiration. We had to create a diagram using this program, which was actually more of a concept map.
I chose to do a concept map on something for the forensic science course, so I think it took me longer to find the information to include than most people. I chose to do Illicit Drugs, which was really kind of interesting to research last night. I was very frustrated with Photoshop Elements 4.0 though because it kept crashing every time I tried to fix some of the images. Maybe it's because it's an older version of the program. Or maybe it's because I'm having to work with a Mac, ugh.
Inspiration was incredibly easy to work with, and I was amazed how simple it was to learn. You can add headers and footers to appear when you print it out. You can add notes (I have notes for the standard, a definition of presumptive tests, and definitions for the different types of drugs). I could spend all day working with this program to create all kinds of concept maps and diagrams that I've been previously doing on Microsoft PowerPoint. Unfortunately, I know we don't have this program at school, and with the budget being so tight, I don't really forsee getting it in the near future. However, I would like to make another concept map or two before this class is over (maybe in all the spare time I have, haha).
Here's an image below of my Illicit Drugs concept map. Click on the image to open a larger version. And if it was actually opened on Inspiration (or an Inspiration Viewer), you'd see links to websites on all of the different drugs!
Today we did a "digital photo scavenger hunt". I worked in a group with the other science teachers (Rachel and Jimmy). I was really excited about it because I love to take pictures and be outside. Unfortunately, there were a few things that ruined the experience. First, it was about 95 degrees and absolutely sweltering out - sweat anyone? Second, I think that we had the hardest list of things to find (especially since we were the last ones back to the classroom). Third, our list was all about "science in nature" and geared towards the life sciences (while the three of us all teach the physical sciences).
However, we completed the assignment (everyone can't love every assignment). Instead of heading across to the agricultural campus (probably about a mile walk) in the extreme heat, we started off towards the biology and ecology departments. With all of the construction going on around campus, it was hard to find things that were on our list. We found a lot of posters in the ecology building (Hess Hall, I think), so we took some pictures of a picture. We couldn't get into any of the labs that worked with frogs or lizards or salamanders because the Animal Safety teams were here today for inspections. Even though we had to take pictures of things that weren't actually living (our list didn't say it had to be ALIVE), we had everything we needed and headed back to class.
After downloading the photos onto the computer, resizing them in Photoshop Elements 4.0, and uploading them to a new album in Picasa, I was ready to make a Google Presentation (part of Google Docs). I did have to take one or two photos from the internet because our digital pictures didn't turn out perfectly. Google Presentation is like a simpler form of Microsoft PowerPoint, except internet-based and with less options or bells and whistles. I do like the template I chose - it's a notepad (school) sitting in grass (nature), and I think it enhances the point of the scavenger hunt. Check out my final presentation:
As for the usefulness of this assignment, I definitely think it could be adjusted for the classroom. I would create a list that involves more creativity in the scavenger hunt - instead of finding a frog, students would find something green (or something with four legs, or something that moves). Part of learning is creativity and originality. After hearing how the math group was searching for pictures of "parallel lines" and "angles", I was jealous of how much more creative and resourceful they had to be to accomplish the assigned task. But overall it was a good learning experience.
Today we learned all about the different ways to obtain digital images. You can use:
* original photos taken with a digital camera
* scans of anything (printed photos, book illustrations, drawings, etc.)
* images from a CD/DVD clipart or photo collection (such as the Big Box of Art)
* free images on the internet
* screenshots
After collecting all five digital images, I uploaded them to Picasa Web Albums and shared them with my teacher.
This was a fun activity and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Big Box of Art collection. I found over 60 images to use this year in forensic science of all different types (black and white photographs, color photographs, clip art, and something I didn't know about - photo transfers - which are basically images that look awesome). I really enjoyed this and can definitely see myself using most of these different types of digital images (except for scanned images because I don't have a scanner easily accessible at home or at school).
Here's a taste of some of the cool images I saved from the Big Box of Art today:
Yesterday we worked on a curriculum connection assignment. We created an abbreviated lesson plan and a research guide (for both the student and the teacher). I chose to do a research activity on fingerprint analysis for my forensic science class. I really enjoyed this project because I created an awesome product that I am actually planning to use in the fall. It was somewhat time-consuming because I had to find good, usable websites at an appropriate level for high school students, but the first time you teach a course, there's always a lot of legwork involved (unless you have some great people willing to collaborate!).
Check out my final product on my classroom website here.
Before this class, I thought I knew what a WebQuest was, but I was clearly mistaken. Simply put, a WebQuest is a type of inquiry-based, on-line learning activity. However, not all WebQuests are made equal. Before we could go analyze WebQuests in our subject area, we first did a WebQuest about WebQuests.
WebQuests will normally have the following parts at a minimum: Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation, Conclusion, Credits/Resources. We formed groups of about 5 students to evaluate five different WebQuests in the high school math/science field. Each student had a specific "role" tied to what they were looking for in a great WebQuest. There was the Efficiency Expert, the Affiliator, the Altitudinist, and the Technophile. I was the Technophile and examined the different websites for attractive color scheme, working links, useful links, links to interesting sites, animated gifs, and anything technologically related. The Efficiency Expert looked for a website that gives the most educational "bang for the buck" (the most information in a decent amount of time) while the Affiliator looked for individual learning in a cooperative setting. Finally, the Altitudinist tried to find the level of higher-order thinking on each WebQuest. And believe me, WebQuests come in all forms: the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.
This activity was useful because we each had an individual role that we then shared as a group to come to a final consensus. It was very quick and easy to do (it was especially easy to pick out the super bad WebQuests!). I can see myself using this in the classroom to evaluate the pros and cons of any WebQuests that I'm thinking about using. After looking for a WebQuest in my subject area, I found an AWESOME one! It's called Bones & the Badge and I am already planning to use it as an introductory activity in my forensic science class this fall :)
Finally, a really great, searchable database for WebQuests is QuestGarden.com. Be sure to check it out if you're looking for a good (or maybe not so good ...) WebQuest!
