As a high school science teacher, I have often been asked how I find time to integrate technology into my life. Good question, when you consider the amount of time it takes to be an effective teacher. Well, for one thing, I don't look for technology— it finds me. I work to improve learning in the classroom and increase collaboration between teachers. Our world is always changing. Adapting to new environments often requires mastery of new technologies. One can easily become a dinosaur if you neglect to change. Avoiding extinction is my motivation.
June 21st, 2008
I’m currently with my family on vacation at Walt Disney World so today’s Boing Boing post titled, “Disney’s 10 rules of theme-park design” really grabbed my attention.
You can listen to the podcast outlining the ten rules or read a summary.
After spending a day at the Magic Kingdom, these rules made me wonder, “how can teachers use a little Disney magic when they design their lessons?”
June 3rd, 2008
I’ve tried to read Moby Dick several times but I’ve always been interrupted. I start off strong by reading a little every night but then I skip one night. From there it goes down hill and I never finish.
That’s why I was happy to find DailyLit. Here’s how they describe their service:
DailyLit sends books in installments via e-mail or RSS feed. We currently offer over 750 classic and contemporary books available entirely for free or on a Pay-Per-Read basis (with sample installments available for free). You can read your installments wherever you receive e-mail/RSS feeds, including on your Blackberry and iPhone. Installments arrive in your Inbox according to the schedule you set (e.g. 7:00am every weekday).
With DailyLit, a short installment of Moby Dick shows up each day in my Google Reader. Each installment is short enough to read in under five minutes.
May 28th, 2008
Final exams are next week so that means many of my students are anxious about reviewing the semester. In the past, I’ve given students a packet that outlined the learning objectives for the past semester. From the students’ perspective, this is quite the passive experience.
This year I’m trying something different. I created a rough outline that students can add to, update and modify online. It is essentially a ‘Wikipedia’ for my semester review.
I’m using the wiki that our school’s SharePoint service provides; it allows me to track what changes are being made and who’s making them. It also let’s me see which students are actually looking at the study guide.
However, you don’t need SharePoint to do this. Here are two other places you can get started with your own wiki.
May 21st, 2008
Recently I’ve had two separate conversations about blocking cellphone signals in school. Some teachers are a so frustrated with the interruptions caused by cellphones that they would like to put up cellphone jammers in their classrooms. Fortunately, this is against FCC regulations as outlined in the Communications Act of 1934.
I can see where all this frustration comes from. Students get addicted to their cellphones- particularly the text messaging feature. They’re sneaking it out under their desk to get a glance at the latest gossip, note from their sweetheart or even the answers to next hour’s quiz. Some student’s are even skilled enough to reply back by tapping out a message on the keypad without even looking down. Those with poorer texting skills just ask for the bathroom pass to type out their messages.
To make matters worse, there’s cyberbullying. Students are being harassed and threatened throughout the school day via cellphones. With problems like this, one can easily sympathize with schools that wish to put a stop to cellphones entering our schools.
However, sometimes new problems are actually not that new. To me, texting is like any other distraction in the classroom. In the past, students would pass notes. I know that some notes were used for cheating, many where love letters and some could have been called paperbullying.
Another example is graphing calculators. With enough memory to store games and cheat notes, the graphing calculator presented a new set of problems as they became more powerful.
My point is this- cellphones are not the problem; it’s the inappropriate usage. Banning cellphones to stop texting is about as practical as banning paper to prevent note passing. The cellphone is not going away. As smartphones become more mainstream we will see our students surfing the web from their phones next. You thought texting was disruptive? Wait until they start updating their Facebook status via their Internet connected phone.
The good news is that we’re getting more technology in our classrooms. In many ways the cellphone can be a great classroom tool. It’s time we put those phones to work for learning. Here are a few ways to get started:
Cellphones can be used in the classroom but only if you set the ground rules first. While they do present some new challenges, I think cellphones can be part of the classroom just like calculators and notebooks. We just have to give them a chance.
April 30th, 2008
March 14th was Albert Einstein’s birthday. I always like to do something Einstein related for the day. In the past, I’ve had students write short reports about his life but this year I decide to try something different.
I had my physics students describe Einstein by creating his Facebook profile. Since we can’t access Facebook at school, I had my students create a mock-up of the profile using Microsoft Publisher. I provide the students with a Publisher template, some screenshots of actual Facebook profiles and links to Einstein information to get them started.
I also provide the following requirements:
Most of my students had fun with the activity and it was a way for them to bring a little bit of their recreational world into the classroom. Here is an example profile.
It turns out that this activity can work for objects too. Right now my ninth graders are creating profiles for the element they’ve been assigned. A few students even realized that their element (a noble gas) can’t have any friends.
April 28th, 2008
I love tumblr.com. It’s such an easy-to-use site for sharing things that you find online. So I was disappointed when my school’s web filter started blocking the site.
I can see why our filter has tumblr on its blacklist; tumblr will let you post anything to their site. Students could use tumblr to chat or view inappropriate material.
But we’re not talking about students; we’re talking about me- the teacher.
Our schools roll clips like Did You Know Shift Happens and use terms like flat-world during staff meetings. Yet, they can’t come up with a process to filter teachers that is different from the one they use for students? In one breath it’s, “prepare our students for the 21st century” and in the next breath its, “just don’t do it on a school computer.”
Andy Carvin at PBS’s learning.now put it best when he wrote:
“…for educators who aren’t trusted to use their professional judgment, an important opportunity to teach their students about 21st century citizenship is being squandered.”
However, ranting usually doesn’t get me anywhere (I often feel better though). This time I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Using tumblr’s API and some php scripting I created my own page that can post to tumblr. Since my all the work is done from an approved site, my posts sneak right past the web filter.
I know it’s a small victory but it felt good to gain back some control for a change. (By the way, here is the script if you’d like to use it on your own web site.)
April 23rd, 2008
Today’s Green Fact: The average employee prints 6 wasted pages per day, that’s 1,410 wasted pages per year! [learn more]
I think a lot of that wasted paper comes from people printing pages off the Internet.
Below is a quick video with some page saving tips when printing with Internet Explorer.
April 22nd, 2008
Here’s a green fact: a 26 Watt compact florescent light (CFL) is as bright as a 100 Watt incandescent bulb and only uses a quarter of the energy. To top that off—the CFL can last 7-10 years longer.
That’s money in the bank. Why wouldn’t you buy the CFL?
Some people are concerned about the mercury in florescent bulbs. It’s a legitimate concern; mercury is a toxin. However, the mercury is manageable. If you break a CFL, get out of house and let it air out for fifteen minutes. When the bulbs burn out, they need to be recycled—don’t throw them in the trash.
The folks at LighterFootsteps.com share five ways to recycle a CFL. They suggest Earth911.org as a place to lookup recycling centers in your area. However, I found more success by calling my county’s local waste and recycling center.
Finally, in case you need a celebrity endorsement to change your bulbs, here’s an interview with Bill Nye that Brian Bartel and I did for the National Science Teachers Association. (He talks about CFLs 16 minutes and 10 seconds into the show.)
April 21st, 2008
Last month PC Magazine had a Green Issue that featured all things green in the technology world. So in the spirit of Earth Day this website is going green for the week.
To start things off I’d like to point you to PC Magazine’s Green Coverage. Here you will learn about:
Kudos to PC Magazine for its Green Coverage. They’ve put together some great resources that I think are perfect for consumers and work well in the classroom too.
For example, I put their 48 green facts into a slideshow for students to watch as they shuffle into class on Earth Day. Below is the slideshow or you can download the PowerPoint version to use in your own class.
Happy Earth Day!
April 18th, 2008
With Earth Day just around the corner, several television stations are serving up informative and conservation-friendly programs. Unfortunately, next week is also Turnoff TV Week. (I’ve ranted about this before; I’m not a fan of the cause.)
It appears that the folks at the TV-Turnoff Network have broadened their focus since last year. They’re now calling themselves the Center for Screen-Time Awareness (CSTA). This seems like a step in the right direction but did they have to run Turnoff TV Week at the same time as Earth Day? I suppose that turning off the TV will save energy but you might miss some great learning opportunities too.
So, in the spirit of “screen-time awareness” I like to suggest TV Guide’s website as a way to start “taking control of the electronic media.” TV Guide’s website has an excellent TV Listings page that allows you to customize the view and show only the channels that you want to watch with your children.
Find an Earth Day program that is just right for you. Perhaps PBS or The Science Channel might be a good place to start.
Between fatherhood and teaching science, Dale Basler is an independent consultant, podcaster and web page designer who specializes in work for institutions and organizations in education.
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