Podcasts

This podcast includes ideas on how to use audio technology, such as Audacity and Garageband in the classroom.

Using Google Maps

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The above map would be used for high school students in an Earth Science class that are learning about plate tectonics.

While covering plate tectonics in my college geology course my professor would rattle off locations of plate boundaries and would stress that we needed to know what physical features formed at each boundary with examples of each. As my prof talked about the Himalayan Mountain range I would just sit in class wondering where exactly those were at (especially since my geography skills are not at all what I wish there were). My mind would be distracted wondering where exactly the Himalayas were, instead of being able to keep on following my prof and the lesson. If my prof had used a mashup, like the one above that I put together, I would have been able to put pictures to words in my heads. Of course the Himalayan Mountains are at a continent-continent boundary, you can see that from the map, there are no oceans present. Understanding the concept and seeing the picture makes it easier to relate the two facts and translate them into one.

Specifically in biology, I could use mashups to show different biomes and biospheres, such as the tundra and rainforests. I could include important facts on the map that I want my students to relate to the physical location. While it is a little tedious at times, I do think that students would also enjoy this technology. I would love to assign my students a project in which they create a mashup as the assesment for a unit (say on Biospheres) where they include important facts and information about each biome.

These are just some simple ideas I have to use map mashups in my classroom.

Google Calendars!!!

Click here to view my mock biology classroom calendar. The calendar includes important dates for students and parents alike. I have included what we will be focusing our lessons on for the week, important after school study sessions, field trips and parent-student-teacher conference dates. For each of these events I had the option to include reminders. For the field trip and PST conference dates I selected to send several reminders (a week in advance as well as a day or two in advance).

For information on how to go about using the calendar, see the jing video here.

RSS Feeds

RSS is an internet-based tool in which you can subscribe to a webpage and through sites, such as Google Reader, you can keep track of every update to the page (or in the case of Podcasts, you can be alerted every time there is a new episode).

For my CEP416 midterm, I created a "student" blog in which the student kept track of her science project by making observations verbally, manually and through images. As a teacher, I could have all of my students keep track of the progress of their projects through blogging and subscribe to each of their blogs. This way I am aware of every update. This would serve to save me time, as the teacher, because instead of going to every blog, I can have the new posts be sent to one place and would know immediately who was taking care of their assignments and who were not.

Also, I can teach my students who to use RSS in order to help them and their learning. While doing projects, students may find it useful to subscribe to science-based websites, blogs, podcasts and etc. to further their learning.
Perhaps I could keep a blog of assignments due, class lectures, online study guides, etc. that my students could subscribe to. They will be notified every time there is an addition to the site. Also, their parents could subscribe to keep track of what the students need to be doing, as well as keep me, as the teacher, accountable to teaching their children.


As an educator, I was able to find many blogs that will further my knowledge on using technology in the classroom, both in a mainstream, general idea, as well as specifically in the science classroom. (The screen shot above is a picture of the blogs I've found useful in subscribing to.)

These are just a couple of ways I envision this technology to come in handy when I am in my future classrooms. I hope this was helpful for you!

BBP Presentation

BBP Presentation (aka Beyond Bullet Point) is a type of PowerPoint presentation geared to allow the audience maximum learning and understanding. Below I have embedded a sample BBP presentation of my own. Enjoy!




Below, the same presentation is embedded this time WITH AUDIO!!!! (for maximum clarity and understanding, of course!)