My Website

I created a personal classroom website for my Biology class; of course it is in the works and will change as the school year goes along. This site will be a way for my students and their family to access information about me and what is going on in the classroom throughout the year. On my site you can read important classroom announcements, see what topics are of discussion, and homework that needs to be completed weekly. I have a classroom calendar that will show important school wide dates, such as no school, conferences, and PTO meetings. The calendar will also show important classroom specific dates such as, Earth day activities, experiments, and dissections.
I have a class photo section that will include all the different activities students participate in so they can share with others what they have been doing in class. There are inspirational quotes, pictures, and random facts throughout the site that will automatically change daily for students to view and rattle their minds with each day. I also have a contact page with information as to when I am available and how to contact me. There is a question/comment form available for anyone who might want to ask a question. These questions go directly to my email. I think a personal website is going to be very useful in my classroom! Check it out Ms. Hudson's Class

Free Web-based Tools

Google Documents

This was a very interesting program. At first I thought it was just another program like office word, but even if it was I liked it because you can access it from anywhere and don’t need your personal computer or flash drive to open/save your work. I liked that it’s a free program and you don’t have to download or buy the software to run it. The amazing thing about Google Documents is that 50 people can work on a document at a time and from different locations. Whoever has permission to work on the document can without having to upload attachments or searching for files. The real time collaboration is a great way to view and communicate what others are editing in the document. I would recommend this program fro my coworkers and students to use when working on group projects. Each member of the group could work on the project from home or at a different location other than at school. Quite an interesting program and it’s FREE!

FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer’s slogan is “the world’s most advanced online image editor”, and I would definitely agree with that. I found this program to be really neat. What I really like is that you don’t need an account to use the program, you just upload a picture from anywhere on your computer. This is so convenient because you can grab a photo from your desktop or from an online website such as facebook and flicker. Once you upload a picture, you can tweak it in many creative ways. You can add effects, text, shapes, and frames to your picture. You can even erase blemishes and smooth wrinkles! I really liked this program. Once you are finished customizing your photo you can save it to your computer, post in on facebook, or email it to a friend. I definitely would recommend FotoFlexer to coworkers, students, friends and family to use. It’s a fun, easy, and a creative way to make pictures more personal. It would be of great use and save you money if you were into scrapbooking I often take photos of my students while they do projects or experiments such as frog dissections. I think students would get a kick out of transforming their photos into creative keepsakes.

Screencasting

How To Dissect A Frog

The following screencast is a very simple step by step demonstration on what I would like students to view before they started the dissection process. If students missed the initial day of dissections I usually let them make it up if time permits. If I allow students to make up dissections during the normal class period I may ask them to view the screencast to become familiar with the procedures that I expect them to complete while dissecting their frog. This way I can continue to have my attention on the rest of the class while the student is preparing for thier activity.

Bubbl Creation

Biology is the study of life, and all life forms are made up of cells. Cells are an important topic to learn so I have developed a concept map that would allow students to show their understanding of the different types of cells and what main organelles they contain and their function. I would have students fill out this concept map as a warm-up and review once we have covered the different types of cells and what they are composed of. Some bubbles would be filled in to guidance and others would be left blank for students to fill out on their own.

My Map in Google Maps

I have a love for animals and a topic I cover in Biology is Endangered Species and Extinction. Students learn about what causes plants and animals to become endangered and extinct as well as become familiar with different types of plants and animals that are on an endangered species list and how they are protected. This is a topic that I would really like to emphasis more and doing a project on endangered species would do just that. I have put together a sample of a Google Map that has different locations of selected zoos, nature centers, sanctuaries, and conservation centers across Michigan. Each point has a website attached to it that students can connect to and review each location. For their project students can either use the map I created, or they can create their own, to gather information about the different types of endangered species that are housed at each location. There are many different approaches to a project like this on what type of information could be gathered. An example of such a project: each student could be assigned to a specific location and be responsible in telling about the location, list the species that are found there, and also give information on how these animals are protected. We could extend the project with each student choosing a couple species to do an extended report on.


View Endangered Species in a larger map

Is it Delicious?

Ever been in a rut when you  didn't have your home computer and needed to retrieve a site from your favorites? Well become better prepared with Delicious, where you can organize and save your favorite sites right on the Internet. I've bookmarked some of my favorite and useful sites so that I can retrieve them from any computer hassle free on Delicious. Take a look!

The wonderful world of Podcasts!

Since I am a Science teacher I am interested in receiving all the science news I can get. Scientific American is a website that provides up to date Science news, articles, and other information to be used in the classroom. There is a multimedia tab that allows for you to listen to short Podcasts that can spark a discussion in the classroom. One that interst me was Kids Say Where Tech Should Go. Take a look!

My Photos

Please enjoy some of my pictures of family and friends...flickr photos

The St. Joseph river emptying out into Lake Michigan near the great Silver Beach in St. Joseph, MI

View Larger Map

I love this video!! Its called Words by Radiolab

I was maid of honor in my best friends wedding June 11. I was very honored but very nervous to give my speech!

RSS feeds

Here are some feeds that I subscribed to to get the latest news:

PBS

Popular Science

CNN

msnbc headlines

weather

wiki link

View my wiki link on "Computer Imagination" systems  my wiki

R/D1

As I read both of the articles about integrating technology in the classrooms, I found both sides to have valid points. Although I found myself to lean more toward Joseph and Reigeluth’s opinions about technology being a useful necessity in classrooms, but maybe not to as much of an extent that they have in mind. As I was comparing the opinions of the authors from each article I automatically was interested in the date that these articles had been published, and I was not surprised by what I saw.

Postman’s of Luddites, Learning, and Life was published in 1993, which at this time in society technology wasn’t used as it is today nor could the vision of what we have today even been of mind. I feel for postman but these are his thoughts and can’t expect for everyone to be just like him with not wanting changes. He states in his article “you cannot work fro a newspaper unless you use a word processor, which eliminates me, since I do all of my composing with a pen and yellow pad and do not wish to change”. Well there you have it, he could work for a newspaper but he does not wish to change, or is it that he does not wish to learn how to use new technologies? I still like to write things out on paper but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think I shouldn’t be able to use a word processor, because I know that this is what society has come to be. I graduated high school ten years ago and didn’t have any of the technology that is available now, but I learned how to use it. Learning is a part of life if we like it or not we live in a changing world. The only thing that really allows me to take Postman’s side is the cost of all this technology. Postman states “what is the problem to which this $50 billion investment is the solution?” and I believe he answered his own question “it solves the problem of giving more people greater access to more information faster”. What is wrong with that? It’s 2011 now and we have busy lives which technology will help students get ready for.

Moving on to another point Postman makes about how school has never been about individualized learning, that it has always been about how to learn and how to behave as a part of a community, well maybe individualized learning in a group setting is more realistic for this day and age. This is where technology can come to benefit students to become more prepared for what to expect in the professional fields. I don’t agree that technology in schools will eventually lead to the abandonment of schools; students still need the guidance that teachers can give them.

My standpoint leads to the article Beyond Technology Integration: The Case for Technology Transformation by Joseph and Reigeluth. I agree with the opening paragraph that technology is “typically used to support the prevailing methods in that field” and “used to create methods that were previously not feasible”. As a teacher in a school system that doesn’t receive much funding it is hard to use technology that would allow students to get more use out of a lesson, especially being in the Science field. Technology can allow for visual and hands on activities for each student to play around and grasp topics better, but a teacher is still there to instruct, guide, and answer questions. Here is where “soft-strategies” would work great to accomplish lessons. Although I don’t have much opportunity to use technology there are plenty of times I wish it was available for more in depth instruction and learning. Not only is technology great for teaching lessons, but it is useful for tracking students progress, such as scantron testing to see what a student really knows.

To close, I would like to state that use of technology in the classroom is a checkmark on teacher evaluations, so the educational system must believe that it is a necessity for students to learn in the 21^st century, which stands by Joseph’s point that technology use is “a quantum improvement in our ability to meet those new needs.