BioBlog

Scientific American publishes “60-Second Science” a daily podcast of an important topic in the scientific world.  (http://www.sciam.com/podcast/index.cfm?e_type=25)

Instead of beginning class with my traditional “Brainwarmer,” I would use the podcast as a kickoff for discussion.  The archives would also allow me to select something pertinent to the unit we are studying.  I particularly like this series because it is created by a credible source and it is short enough to be practical, even for students with attention disorders.  This activity can also be used as the spark to ignite students’ interest in creating their own podcasts. 

My podcast is available at http://www.mypodcast.com/cached/deb_20071025_2300-116768-52073-2-25-49000.mp3

Recently, I took my AP Biology students to the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium for a “Behind the Scenes” tour.  Our favorite moments were spent with a macaroni penguin such as the one in the photo that I obtained from Flickr.  Most of the students took pictures of exotic animals during our tour, but we study many life forms in our own backyard as well.  A Flickr album of pictures of the organisms in our environment could be shared with students from other areas.  This would enable students to learn from each other about the plants and animals that are not native to their own climates.

“Pretty Boy.”  Online image.  (January 31, 2006).  ImNoFish’s Photostream.  Retrieved October 23, 2007, from http://flickr.com/photos/55288051@NOO/93934269.

The development of a wiki this week was an eye-opener.  I learned quickly that it is great to have a partner who knows a lot more than I do about navigating through new tools!  It drove home the power of cooperative learning and the richness of collaboration in the classroom and in the workplace.  My partner’s dedication also pushed me to learn more and to do my part so that I didn’t let her down–another asset of the wiki for those who are trying to learn. 

My husband, watching my struggles, commented that I was learning the best way by doing it myself, having no one to ask.  I realize that the opposite is true of learning this way.  Instead of learning by myself, I had an entire network to rely on for assistance; I just had to ask.  Students using wikis in my classroom will have the same opportunity to connect with many others, and they will have the ability to communicate questions and ideas instead of relying only upon themselves.

One additional thing that happened this week was my allowing my students to use Wikipedia as a resource in their research.  I taught them what I had learned about the reliability of Wikipedia and I reminded them that one source is never sufficient, but that Wikipedia is apparently much more reliable than I thought. 

As we scramble to implement the latest changes in technology, adding weblogs, resource pages, and aggregators to our repertoire, George Siemens quotes Jean Baudrillard on his distinctions between “change” and “becoming.”  (http://www.conncectivism.ca/blog/2007/09/on_distinctions_between_change.html) Siemens says that while we have “a vague sense of what we don’t want to be,” we are “grasping for clarity on what we are becoming.”  He says that “as educators, our emphasis needs to be on increasing learners’ ability to function in unknowing environments.  A lesson we first need to learn ourselves.”  Siemens further writes that the first role of education is to react to trends and use the tools we think learners need and will use.  The second role, as he sees it, is that of moving educated people toward a desire to change society for the better.  Siemens’s concern (in response to my comment on his blog) is that unless we teach the value of diversity, social networkers risk surrounding themselves with like-minded people rather than “understanding others who hold dramatically different worldviews from our own.”

In light of George Siemens’s comments, do you see technology, especially the Read/Write Web, as an opportunity to help students “become” more democratic and sensitive toward individual freedom or not?   Is it the responsibility of the educator to ensure that students are not networking only with people who think like themselves?  I look forward to your thoughts.

One of my responses can be found on Pam’s blog at http://www.riskyeducationalwonders.blogspot.com/

My comment on BJ’s Blogical Discussion can be found at:

http://techinclassroom.blogspot.com/2007/10/4a2-blogical-discussion-forum.html

Our Classrooms for the Future team currently consists of five people from five different disciplines who are trying to coordinate an action plan to implement the initiative.  Our time togeher is limited, and we rarely see each other outside of formal meetings.  The use of social bookmarking through del.icio.us will enable us to divide and conquer as we each explore a different avenue of inquiry and then share our findings through a common tag.  Doing so will enable us to keep up with recent findings, saving an enormous amount of time wandering through the web and repeating each other’s work.  As our group expands to include an additional eight colleagues in the spring and another thirty next school year, the social networks can be subdivided into teaching disciplines as well so that science teachers can share information pertinent to science, social studies to social studies, etc.  For anyone who teaches in a physically large complex where face-to-face interactions are infrequent, social networking appears to be a logical way to immediately share best practices, innovations, and information.

You can access my BioBlog Pageflake at http://www.pageflakes.com/deb.steinmiller/15412947

Through the RSS feeds that I have found so far, I hope to keep myself up to date on what is happening in both biology and education.  It seems as if the feeds will save me a lot of time searching for interesting events that are happening around me in an attempt to keep my students more aware of the real life connection between the classroom and the world.  This tool certainly updates the concept of “current events.”  Using information from these feeds in a blog will allow students to share thoughts with people from other areas of the country and/or different cultures.  Such experiences should be enriching because they have the potential to take students out of a comfort zone to realize that not everyone thinks or believes the same thing.

Miss Baker’s Biology Blog is a treasure.  She has developed a blog that incorporates news, projects, extra-credit, and student posts.  The site links to her website making for one-stop shopping for her students.  My website is read-only, and even though it offers a message board, the ability to download my presentations, games, and links, it does not allow students to comment.  I am looking forward to giving them the opportunity to share their ideas and to post assignments like the ones she offers.

Link on to her News section to see how many of her students respond to items that they find interesting.  http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/category/news/

To view her extra credit page, link here.  http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/category/extra-credit/

 Student responses can be viewed at http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/2007/01/14/5-point-extra-credit-opportunity/#comments

Even if you are not a biology teacher, this is a design that I think high school students would find fun to use.