Week 4 Reflection

Week 4 blog

   The comment that stood out the most for me was “Use the technology to teach, don’t teach the technology”. This is always good to remember- I know I have spent hours  trying to figure out a technology tool, or how to download info, or sign students up or …..   We don’t have the time to teach the students how to use complicated technology tools- although granted, most, but not all, of them pick this stuff up faster than I do.  I do like the argument approach to learning- it fits in very nicely with the other things we have been discussing, especially the 21thc skill set and inquiry learning. I like the approach Sampson and Grooms took and will try to use a combination of their approach and “Whiteboarding” which I read about in Frank Noschese’  blog- “The $2 Whiteboard”. Although in an ideal class I would have all the students with tablets instead of whiteboards,  that would be able to be projected on a screen.  I think whiteboards would be a better to use than posters from an eco-friendly stand point.  Of course you could always use Glogster too- but when I have had students do Glogsters they can get caught up in the bells and whistles and the content tends to suffer, with whiteboarding  the content is paramount. I have also found a few good online sites for data- The amusement park site has physics lessons and simulations on building your own amusement park rides. In my brief exploration of this site it sounded like a good intro to kinetic and potential energy.  Another site was from the Fermi labs. They give you data from their labs to use in different lessons. This may be good for gifted students or those in A.P. classes.

   I added many of the sites mentioned in our textbook to my livebinders-a few I had heard of before, but many more sounded very interesting , and I will have to check out before I cover those concepts in class (like the virtual optic bench).  I have used several of the pHET simulations before and found the students really do like them- it helps them visualize what is going on.  Another site- which isn’t necessarily online data, but does have some good animations that can be manipulated is the  Physics 2000 site. One last  site  I will mention is the EPA datafinder site. This is an entry point into the data that the EPA collects.

 I like the whole idea of having students enter data into a global network. This spring in my environmental biology class I found a site, where the students posted simple test results from a water sample that could be shared with students around the globe. I had a problem uploading the data, but that was after we did the tests. We tested the Colorado River water and I felt the students felt more of a buy in and conscientiousness in the lab because they knew it was going to be shared with a global audience.  I’m starting to wonder if this whole idea of having an audience isn’t an intrinsic motivator for some of our students.