This type of lesson structure has obviously captured the imagination of others in our group. I was intersted to hear about Paul’s and Matthew’s thoughts on the subject.

When I was on practicum I was lucky enough to have an in-service course on moodle. This is also designed to create effective online learning communities. I would be interested to hear if if anyone has done a comparison between these two tools.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidcampbellimagery/2340864753/

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtn-mosaic/25618521/

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyboyce/2731359415/

Coming from a different profession I find it hard to believe that people are prepared to give away their intellectual property without asking for anything in reward!

I guess for a teacher the knowledge that other students will benefit from their effort is reward enough.

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickyr76/1499280445/

I have just been reading Mark’s blog on POE’s (Predict – Observe – Explain) . I am a big fan of POE’s and have done a number of them in science class. My favourite is the Alka Seltzer rocket. Each student is given a film canister an alka Seltzer tablet and some water. They simply combine a quarter of the tablet in some water and put the lid on the canister. They place the canister on the ground and wait for the explosion!

This is a great introduction to many physics concepts including chemical reactions, Newton’s laws and projectile motion.

This can then be followed up with a session in the computer lab where students graph their findings on excel and experiment with variables.

Image:http://www.flickr.com/photos/samwibatt/2876550911/

This is an idea that I used for year 11 students studying DC circuits. All of the students worked in cooperative learning teams of 3 (Killen 1998) and had the opportunity of using the equipment to create a circuit. It was at this stage that I could have moved to the text book, but instead decided to use the knowledge they had learned in the physical world of DC circuits and move to a computer simulation.

Students worked in the same teams of 3 in the computer lab using the LEARN (leading English education and resource network) website OHM ZONE . This computer simulation had a number of advantages over the physical breadboard; namely that the students could set up circuits more quickly, could source more components than we had available in the laboratory and, most importantly, could actually see the direction and intensity of current flow in the circuit.

With the combination of work in the laboratory and on the computers students were able to identify relationship between Voltage, Current and Resistance in their circuits that they might not have done by using only one of these approaches.

Using these two approaches meant that students with different learning styles had the opportunity to maximize their learning.

All teenagers are familiar with mobile phones and the majority of them would have spent many hours using them, but I suspect that not many of them have even thought about how they work and the consequences of using them. To me this is the opportunity to formulate a good lesson that is relevant, will engage the students and will build on their prior knowledge.

If the class started by viewing this “You Tube” video the teacher could continue the lesson by facilitating a brainstorming session on the questions that arose from watching the video eg “How does popcorn pop in a microwave?”, “How does the mobile phone transmit signals?”, “What types of energy are used in a mobile phone?”, “How much power does a mobile phone use?”etc. generating genuine discussion amongst the students.

This brainstorming session could then lead into inquiry based learning. Inquiry based learning helps students construct knowledge based on new information and data collected by themselves in an explorative learning environment . As Johnson (2008 p6 ) puts it “people don’t want to be spectators, they want to be participants or players”

Students could be divided into groups and follow up one of these questions experimentally, using the library or the internet. Students could then report back to the class on their findings.

Jane and I have been working on Webquests for our immersion activity. This is a term that I had never heard of before and I expect would never have come across but for this course.

As a prospective maths and science teacher I can imagine this type of activity benefiting everyone in the classroom.

But it has to be an authentic Webquest. As Tom March points out in his article students must search for information on the web and then transform it in some way to promote the “aha” experience. It is not just cutting and pasting – each student is assigned a role, carries out their investigation and then the team use their new knowledge to form something new.

There are heaps of webquests that have already been desined and are ready for use – take a look at bestquest and WebQuest.org.

We do need to be realistic about our futures. As beginning teachers we will be responsible for preparing and teaching around 15 lessons each week many of us have families and other commitments in our lives. How much time will we be able to devote to the preparation of technology lessons?

I am having a great time viewing all of the videos on Teacher tube and wanted to share one that made me smile, but the above embedded link symbolises my lack of ability with much of this technology.

After following Matthews very clear instructions on how to embed a video in my blog (over a dozen times) all I can manage is a black screen with a curser! After many more hours of producing a podcast on my old version of garage band, I am still struggling to upload it onto edublog.

This is probably a bad time to be writing a blog (it is my birthday today and I have been writing assignments for most of the day) but I think we need to compare the amount of effort that is put into a project with the actual outcomes.

I had had some fun with it so I went home and gave my son a 5 minute introduction to “Garage Band” and then headed into the study to complete yet another assignment.

My son had been asked to do an assignment at school that day on the questions they would ask an athlete if they were at the Olympic Games, so he went about researching the athlete, writing a script, recording both voices and saving it on a flash drive to play at school the next day

Made available under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Licence:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/817669/

As Harel puts it “We know that when our kids make something of their own that can be shared with others online (and offline), they feel so good about themselves that they want to go further and do more.”

Made available under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Licence:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/817669/

But then I think about my own childhood and think about the number of hours I spent sitting in front of the TV! I can sing you the theme songs from “Gilligan’s Island” and “Astroboy” and know all of the names of the Brady Kids. Admittedly these can be useful at trivia nights, but very little else.

At least with the playstation the child is thinking about strategy, making decisions and using (very complicated) fine motor skills. In fact, according to Dr James Rosser Jr, director of the Advanced Medical Technologies Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, “Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, he says, basing his observation on results of tests using the video game Super Monkey Ball.”

So I am off to buy my son a copy of Super Monkey Ball!