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Thang 25 Maps

I explored some different map sites this week. My favorite site was http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/ I liked this site because it was more than maps. There were some pretty cool interactive maps (like the one that showed the spread of the black plague). It was also fun to explore the solar systme and see photos of the surface of mars and read facts about other planets.
The other site I liked was
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
These maps were a bit more traditional and not interactive, but there were some typical map features like land use, topography, and population. But there were also some cool history timelines. I know there are lots of other map sites, but these were two of my favorites.

Sharing the good stuff

My wife is currently teaching an intro to religion course at Hamline and I have turned her on to 21st century literacy skills and she is using them in her class. Many of their readings are on line articles so they are using reliable resources weekly. They have a final paper due at the end of the term and she set up their paper using the RPC with all of the intermediate steps. She then had the librarian do a session with the students in a computer lab showing them how to access reliable resources through the Hamline library. The librarian said what she had done in setting up their research paper using the RPC was the best she had ever seen for a research paper. My wife is planning to share how she set things up in class with the rest of the religion department faculty.

Thang 21

I registered a YouTube and looked for videos that might work in my classes. My son then found a program which will down load YouTube videos onto my desktop called vixy converter BETA. So when I find a video I like, I copy the web address, then open up the download program and paste the web address in and it downloads the video into a format I can use on my mac. The same program has download options for other types of platforms. Then the videos are easy to paste into a power point or just show.

Thang ? Delicious

Delicious was yummy. It was easy to use and I was able to quickly download my bookmarks into the file. There have been a few times where I needed an address that was on another computer and didn’t have access to it. So the delicious file will make it easy to find all of my addresses. The google documents lesson was also very helpful. I had written a google document before, but I had never worked on one with other people making changes. It was helpful to see how that worked.

Only one of my thangs after number 16 has a link. Are the other thangs going to have a link or are we on our own to work with them?

Thang 16

The MnLink tutorials were easy to follow and made everything very clear. Mnlink is great but for some reason my library card bar code doesn't seem to work. But, I was able to search for items anyhow. I searched for Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" The book is great and the videos are awesome. I have used them in class before. It is amazing the number of resources that are avaiable through MnLink. I will definitely have to turn my students on to this resource.

Thang 14

I didn't find the librarian index very easy to use. There are some science resources I do use. One is called Steve Spangler science. It has great demonstrations and experiments that you can see and then do in the classroom. I also have a couple of sites which show molecules in 3 dimensions that students find fun to use. With my beginning science students the sites with interactive periodic tables are really good for helping the students learn about different elements.

Thang 9&10

I reviewed the plagarism quiz and feel very comfortable with my understanding of the topic. In the avid program they practice a discussion technique called philosophical chairs. A issue is brought to the group and they choose one or the other points of view by standing (or sitting in the philosophical chairs) on opposite sides of the room. Then the discussion begins with one person on one side stating why they chose that position. Then a person with the opposing view point has a chance to speak, but before they can present their position, they must paraphrase what the person with the opposing viewpoint said. It seems like this is a great exercise in helping students develop paraphrasing skills which are necessary to avoid the plagarism issue.
I also tried to embed a video clip in a powerpoint presentation and ran into some problems. I have a number of video clips saved on my desktop which I downloaded from United Streaming. They are in a windows media format. When I go to powerpoint and click on movies and sound to put a clip in my presentation and go to my desktop the windows media files which I downloaded from united streaming are not highlighted and as far as I can tell are not accesible to be put into the powerpoint. Does any one know how to make those video clips accesible?

Using power point

My student teacher is planning on using power point instead of the black board or an overhead for his classroom teaching. I have questions about that because power point is very passive. It is prepared and there isn't any way to engage the students interactively and write down notes of that interaction. My wife suggested using something like word as a way to do this, but in chemistry trying to type out chemical reactions in real time is very difficult because of subscripts used in chemical formulas. So, my question is, does anyone have any suggestions of how to use the laptop and LCD projector in an interactive way with students where you can record that interaction?

An incredible thang

Last night the caucus event was truly an incredible thing. Traffic on Summit and Grand was backed up from Ramsey Jr. High (2blocks west of snelling avenue) to Dale st. Even though they had multiple doors open we waited in lines that were blocks long just to get into the building. My precinct which met in a small classroom in the basement of the building had over 300 people come to vote for the presidential preference and over 100 stayed to show preference for the senate candidates. My precinct went 87% Obama, 12% Clinton, and 1% Edwards. It was an incredible night.

No Thang new

My students are in the writing phase of their research paper. One of the problems is the lack of access to computers in our school. My IB prep class is doing ok. but, my regular chemistry classes are complaining about not having enough time in class to work on the project. But, with computer access a problem, I can't come up with time in class that would be productive. Certain departments or people in my school sign up for the computer labs a week at a time and that makes it really difficult for someone who just wants a day or two to get in. Does anybody have any ideas about how you have solved this problem in your schools?

another new thang

This week I used the Inspiration program to do a concept map of motion concepts with my 9th grade class. It just so happens I have a student teacher whose university supervisor wrote a dissertation about the importance of the connecting phrases you use in the inspiration program to connect the concepts. So I used the program on the LCD projector and we created the map as a class and the students generated the connecting phrases to go in the map. It seemed to work pretty well. Here is what we came up with (oops it won't upload the image because it isn't a supported type). Well, you will just have to go and try to use inspiration yourself.

Electronic bibliographies

rThis week my students were turning in the bibliographies to show that they are working on their research projects. On Monday I did a lesson reviewing where and how to use the electronic bibliography programs. Students really paid attention and in a quick review of what they have turned in it is clear that many, if not most of the students made use of an electronic bibliography program. Some students told me of other electronic bibliography resources they used which were not ones I presented in class. It really feels like the students are getting more comfortable with this process. And, the bibliography, which seemed like a daunting task to many of the students, was made much more manageable. I am really enjoying having the project take place over a long time period.

A wiki thang

I really liked the wikis. I am planning on proposing to our administrators that we set up some wikis like we saw at Central. They seem so easy to set up and use, I can hardly wait. I just wish I taught 4 days a week and had 1 day to work on all of the different electronic media to use in class.

Thang 15

I have worked with my librarian media specialist, but I don't believe it was a true collaboration. I am currently colaborating with my lms in planning on moving our school forward so that more of our staff can be trained and involved in using these resources effectively in their classrooms.
I have done collaborative work in the past with members of the art department using art grants to fund collaborative projects. These were truly collaborative with the two of us planning the project from the beginning and working together with the students.
Time constraints and schedules are always the impediments to collaboration.