The ChemCollective

The ChemCollective is a free educational download. ChemCollective is a virtual chemistry lab and it falls under the ‘Synthesis‘ category of Bloom’s Taxonomy. It is synthesis because synthesis includes produce, create, and experiment. Chemistry labs are full of producing and creating new things and experimenting with different chemicals and elements. The virtual lab combines acids and bases and tells what elements are in the mixture as well as the molarity of it all. ChemCollective is a very helpful technology for all Chemistry teachers.

*ChemCollective allows you to download instructions as well as the lab. You can also upload students’ homework to it. But, you may need to download Java if you do not already have it on your computer. Go to http://www.chemcollective.org/vlab/vlab.php to find out more about ChemCollective.

This is a screenshot of ChemCollective from my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briannadoyle/6338207224/in/photostream

PhET Simulations

The University of Chicago at Boulder (http://phet.colorado.edu/) offers simulations in just about all science areas to increase understanding in the area a student is having trouble with as well as in math. For the science activities, they show things having to do with Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The simulations can be used to reinforce understanding of things learned in class. The best part about it is the fact it is free. An example of this is in the Physics section. The activity is ‘Wave on a String’. It falls under ‘Analysis’ in Bloom’s Taxonomy because students will use it to point out the parts of a wave, and to analyze how the wave actually moves. All of the activities on the website are the same way.

This is a print screen of ‘Wave on a String’ from my personal Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briannadoyle/6315109295/in/photostream

 

Creative Commons PPT

Technology and Education

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The Mission of The University of Findlay

ClassParrot

ClassParrot is a free service that allows teachers to send text messages out to students and parents while keeping the teachers, parents, and students numbers completely private. The teacher creates accounts for each section of the class and gives a unique code to the students and parents in order for them to be able to be a part of that specific class to receive the messages pertaining to them. This could be very useful in my future classroom because just about all high school students have phones with texting and so do their parents. I could send out reminders of when homework, labs, or major assignments are due ahead of time so my students will remember to do the work. By sending the message to the parents, I would have another person outside of the classroom to remind the students to do the work. This could be a very beneficial technology.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/briannadoyle/6220469444/

To learn more about ClassParrot, go to http://classparrot.com/.

Educational Podcast

I listened to the bi-weekly science education podcast called ‘Lab Out Loud- Science for the Classroom and Beyond’. Dale Basler, a physics and physical science teacher and Brian Bartel, a chemistry teacher are the hosts of the podcast. They discuss topics in science news and science education by interviewing many people involved in science. I listened to episode 57- Preventing Bad Science in the Classroom. In this episode, they were joined by Dr. Ben Goldacre, the author of the book Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks. They talked about his book and how the term ‘miracle’ is used in science and medicine and how there is normally research and evidence to back up the ‘miracle’. They also talked about science teachers in the classroom and student time constraints when they are in the lab and how teachers in a way encourage bad science in the classroom. I never realized that science teachers did that but after hearing what they said about it, it makes sense. If a student messes up on the lab, the teacher tells them they are wrong but there is not any time to redo it so they tell them to focus on one or two specific sections of the lab. They talked about planning more time for labs and to discuss the mistakes.

A link to Episode 57 is here: http://laboutloud.com/2011/01/episode-57-preventing-bad-science-in-the-classroom/

RSS Readers in the Classroom

RSS Readers can be very beneficial in the classroom, especially at the high school level since my future students will more than likely be proficient in technology. RSS Readers are great for teachers that teach one particular subject like me and science. They allow people to subscribe to a lot of different feeds and you can read all of them from your RSS page. For students, I could have each of them make an RSS account and have each of them subscribe to different blogs and websites. From there I could assign current events, or just some reading that relates to what we are doing in class that day. From their RSS page, they would be able to easily find what I assigned.

I am currently using Bloglines.com and I am subscribed to five other EDUC 260 blogs:

http://danelleshaffer.wordpress.com/

http://jessiefee.wordpress.com/

http://brandonpickett5.wordpress.com/

http://damonhowe.wordpress.com/

http://lloydbt.wordpress.com/

Technology in the Classroom

Technology in the classroom is becoming more and more common. I believe if schools have enough money to pay for them iPads would be very beneficial in the classroom both for the student and the teacher. iPads have many different apps that can help students grasp the understanding of science. Whether it is an app for  flashcards to help study, a periodic table, or a unit converter; the iPad has the app. By the time I am teaching in a classroom, textbooks will probably be available on an iPad and that would make students happier to take the book home and bring it back to school because they won’t have backpacks weighing twenty pounds. For me personally, everything that makes the student want to learn  makes things easier on me. Students are more intrigued if they get to use something other than a pen and paper. The iPad would be a great addition to every classroom!

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Why Teachers Blog

I am hopefully going to be a high school science teacher, so I am looking for three teachers who blog in my subject area.

• Biology in Action- Outside of books. Outside of the classroom. A learning community about science in real life.

Biology in Action is a site for the students of Mr. Bird in central New Jersey. He designed his blog to create classroom discussion about Biology. He blogs sometimes, but it is mainly used as a place where all of his students can blog about Biology as well. Many pictures and videos are posted to the website so all of the students can gain a better understanding of the subject.

There is no picture of Mr. Bird himself on the website, but this is the picture that viewers can see when they visit the site as the banner:

Link for Biology in Action, and why he blogs: http://biologyblog.edublogs.org/about/

• Blogging4Biology: Using Blogs in Science Education

Blogging4Biology is a blog by science teacher Stacy Baker who teaches Biology in the northeast United States. She began her blog in 2006 to post class information. After 2006, she started to let her students blog. According to her “it has greatly increased student involvement and science literacy in my classroom”. She also uses edublogs to talk with other science teachers.

Picture of Ms. Baker

Link for Blogging4Biology, and why she blogs: http://blogging4biology.edublogs.org/about/

• Reflections of a Science Teacher

Reflections of a Science Teacher is a blog by high school science teacher Sandra McCarron from Massachusetts. Unlike the previous two bloggers and teachers who blog for their students, she blogs her thoughts about teaching and hopes for conversation with other blogging teachers to gain more knowledge and insight.

Picture of Sandra McCarron

Link to Reflections of a Science Teacher: http://sanmccarron.blogspot.com/

Why She Blogs: http://www.blogger.com/profile/16673400806932702851

• My Views:

Like these three teachers and the numerous others in the blogging world, I too believe that blogging can be important and useful while teaching in the classroom. Blogging can be useful for helping students gain more knowledge. Science is difficult and only getting to help my future students one time during the day during class may not be enough, so I can create a blog just for them to see more examples of the material we are learning that week. They can look at it and use it as they please. I also love the idea of getting advice from other teachers throughout the country and the world. I will be a new and inexperienced teacher looking for all the help I can get in three years and there are teachers worldwide that would love to give insight.

Delicious and Flickr Account Names

My delicious account’s link is: http://www.delicious.com/BriannaDoyle.

My Flickr account’s link is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briannadoyle/.

Enjoy the websites!

-Brianna