Teaching old school

The week before spring break I was showing a video on natural selection to my first hour and then went to switch to the document camera and my projector bulb burned out!! This really is not that catastrophic except for the fact that our Techie is not in our building on Wednesdays!! Okay, I had to think quick, use the white board. One problem was that I have a promethium board and the rest of the board is covered with stuff. Okay, whip things off the board and use a marker!!! Now what do I do about the other classes and the video? No one has TVs anymore!! Thank goodness Suzanne was out of town with her students and no one was using her room. So my students got to experience science in a different room. Once I was in there her doc camera didn't focus so I did have to use the board. This was a very odd feeling because I haven't had to do this all year. I was teaching old school, does this make me a techie teacher?

Using the tools more

I have found that the more I use the tools we have learned to use in class the more comfortable I become with them. I use google docs to keep track of my GEMS attendance and our teacher and mentor hours. It certainly makes life a little easier. I don't have to create something new every two weeks when these items are due. I have been trying to get my husband use this to share information between himself and a friend that lives in Omaha! He still isn't convinced this could be easier!

I am also finding that the students seem to be becoming more comfortable with technology and online research. Students are discovering that Wikipedia is not the end all be all. They are actually looking at the references and checking them!! During my project I did find that many of the students are getting better at not copying and paraphrasing!!! Some still don't get it though:(

Had to laugh

My sister and I were talking this past weekend about some health issues with our grandmother, she's fine. She was talking to our mother and getting the updates on our grandmother. Our mom was surprised that she didn't know what had been going on with grandma. My sister made the comment that it wasn't like she Twitters grandma or anything. I found the comment to be funny a bit relevant to our class:o)

Data bases

I like the thought of showing my students how to use data bases for their upcoming research. I think I may also give them the option of using google docs to post some of their work. I will need to bounce some ideas off of my esteemed colleague, Suzanne, for some help incorporating tech into not only the research but also the process.

Gotta go quick!

I don't know if I can do this without running out of juice on my computer. I do want to say that I moved my document camera from in front of my desk to on my desk. Boy that has made a difference!! I use it all the time. I did use it before, but wow. I have used the camera more in the last week than I have the previous two months.

On a different note, I am starting to construct how I want to put together my research project. I am trying to give students a lot of practice in constructing the pieces for the project. Now I have to find a focus, area of the world, that I want them to research ecosystems. I have talked to my Humanities teacher to see where in the world she is right now and for how long she will be there. I came to find out that she is in Asia, okay rather large!, I just need to see if it has all of the ecosystems I want. She, the Humanities teacher, will be working on Asia for about a month or so. This may work out well!

And by the way, I did run out of juice before I could finish. Luckily when I plugged it in I came right back where I was:)

Milli Meeting

We went over copyright and fair use with items used from the internet. This was interesting because we, Suzanne and I, just received pictures from a parent of one of our GEMS parents. He is an artist and we got his permission to use his pictures.

Getting Back into the swing of things

Getting back after two weeks off is sometimes a little tough. Boy I forgot how tired I can get and the amount of things to do in a day. And now my laundry is piling up!

I just need to make a list of things to do. Maybe this will be my New Years Resolution:) I will put that on my list of things to do!

Using Pictures for class

Last week and the week before I was using many pictures that I got off the Internet. When I found the picture I just copied and then placed it into my presentation. Later I was thinking that I should have wrote some type of reference for each of them. I should do this for two reasons; 1. I should reference any material that I use and 2. it is good to model for my students.

My students just turned in a project in which they had to display the structures and functions of different organs from the plant. A couple of students decided to do a power point presentation and used pictures from the Internet. I forgot to ask them to provide their references and did ask them to go back and do so. I still got www.google.com as a reference!! My oh my, I need to do some work on this.

Passing it on

This week my teammate is starting research papers with our 8th graders. She has scheduled time to work with the students in the computer lab. I told her about using data bases in addition to search engines. We went to the MPS website and went through the student resource options. She thought this was fabulous. I can't wait to see the results!

Technology

Okay, so I haven't blogged for awhile, but I have had just a ton going on personally. I will have to say I am having fun on Facebook. I have been able to reconnect with some people I haven't seen forever. I have also been interacting with images from google and using them to reinforce my curriculum with my Promethium board. My students will be doing a project soon, not research, and I am trying to figure out how to give them a tech option for it. They will be displaying the structure and function of a plant.

Facebook Fun

I joined Facebook about 2 weeks ago. I am having a great time finding people and reconnecting. My high school class has a page and we are updating each other quite a bit. I also use it for networking. I like that it can be almost like text messaging, but on-line.

Wasted Time

I was planning on working on going through some of the "Things" this past weekend, when our Internet went out. Kaput, nothing, blah!! We that worked out as well as a lead balloon. The most frustrating thing was that my husband was out of town over the weekend and when he got back today, he was able to fix it!!! Oh well.

Reading

I read the article from "Thing 1", Truth: Can You Handle It and I agree and disagree with some of the points. One thing was that the author believed that Wikipedia was bad. Although later in the article they compared Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Bratanica and found it was nearly as reliable. I really think it is a great starting point students. Especially when they do not have the research skills needed to find more reliable sources. Also for a middle schooler it can be very hard to muddle through a scientific article.

work

I've been working on a presentation for my students for this week. Actually I am writing labs for them to write in there lab notebooks. I am sooooo used to working with word and I like the way it sets things up, especially when you have to add objects. I just finished uploaded it to docs. Unfortunately it doesn't look the same:( Oh well I need to play a little more.

The change over

The change over has been relatively painless. I had to do this a little different seeing that I already have a blog for my girls and their grandparents! After our training this past summer I was really inspired to use blogging as a way to keep my in-laws involved in my daughters lives from Texas.