Podcast Partnership

I started listening to podcasts several years ago. I started with radio shows I liked and eventually discovered many podcasts I liked. I find them a great source of knowledge, enjoyable to listen to, and convenient. For some time now, I've wanted to make a podcast. In our biology methods, one of our assessments was a blog post about an issue related to biology teaching to discuss, analyse, and give an informed opinion of. The 'professional voice' type thing. My biology colleague, Mark Danaro, and I worked together to publish a podcast on 'inquiry-based learning' and it's place in the science classroom. We included a discussion of the research for and against, interviews and our perspectives on inquiry learning. We used garage band (on Macs) and uploaded it via our biology blog, posterous.com
Check it out!
It was a lot of fun, some hard work, and I learned a lot. I hope to continue to produce regular podcasts as a science teacher, hopefully with a colleague, that would be targeted at students. We'd talk about science news, relevant issues, our science curriculum, and anything else science! I'm thinking I could even make this part of my assessment scheme. Students would be responsible to choose a topic, research, interview, and draft a layout of a discussion between me and any guests the student organised.
I suppose some students may not want their voice published, which I would respect, but overall I think students will try their best if they know their work will be available online.

El Commento!

Hey Rose!
It's a well-scripted post and a nice looking blog. I like the moon background especially!
But I also agree with what you say here! I think many people who have tried and failed with ICT still perhaps misunderstand how to creatively utilise it in classrooms (which is a challenge of course!).
I used ICT to organise a few inquiry based lessons this semester and it worked out great. I am on board with inquiry learning and think students need the chance to use their scientific and problem solving skills in the science classroom.
I had some ace physics lessons that were set up as challenges to different teams of students. The students responded well to a bit of a competitive atmosphere. Do you have any good inquiry-based to share?
Oh and I also love 'Mythbusters!' has many episodes which can be used to supplement a science lesson. I used one last semester where they try using Thermite to blow a hole in a wall! Do you have any favourites?
I'm hoping to improve learning with ICT and share my knowledge with fellow science teachers... like you!
Well Done!
http://roseictblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/vels.html?showComment=1316507469717#c953940464462623205

ICT & VELS: ICT supports knowledge-building among teams and enables team members to collaborate, inquire, interact and integrate prior knowledge with new understanding.

As a teacher candidate with science methods, ICT has and will contribute to the collaborative atmosphere in the scientific classroom. Student interaction and discussion is simply not just a face-to-face classroom activity anymore. I chose this VELS tatement because I believe that using ICT in science improves student inquiry and interaction.

In my experience, using ICT in education has been tried in a variety of ways, but most of which have had a positive effect on collaborative inquiry-based classrooms. Constructing an interactive, student-centred classroom using ICT has the capacity to reveal some profound learning. Teachers nowadays are provided with an vast array of options in which to set up an online community for their students to collaborate and organise.

There are many reasons to work towards a collaborative, student-centred classroom; one major reason being the real-world application of highly developed communication skills. In the global economy, the use of technology is essential for communication.  “Students apply a range of techniques, equipment and procedures that minimise the cost, effort and time of processing ICT solutions and maximise the accuracy, clarity and completeness of the information saving/manipulating.” (VELS, 2011)

As the trend to move from teacher-centred to student-centred classrooms continues, new ways to challenge and motivate students are required to help scaffold and guide students through inquiry or project-based tasks. Providing students with digital tools to solve problems and work as a team will promote learning as well as social cohesion with an efficient way to record and organise the classroom and help students to connect ideas from lesson to lesson.

Shifting towards an ICT-integrated curriculum is not without it’s challenges. I believe ICT will gradually make a comfortable transition into full use.

As mentioned previously, an overwhelming array of options are available, which can be confusing and difficult for teachers to know which to use. On top of that, new technologies are being created everyday!

The online world also has dangers which students need to be made aware of. This is a challenging assignment for teachers to properly execute, but for teachers who are successful, the rewards are plenty.

“Students use accepted protocols to communicate regularly online with peers, experts, and others, expressing their messages in language appropriate to the selected form of communication, and demonstrating respect for cultural differences.” (VELS)

There are endless possibilities for the use of ICT in collaborative activities, with students themselves offering creative input to using ICT for learning. It is becoming clear that learning through computers rather than around them offers more opportunities for students to go beyond the expected. (Letinen, 2003)

Science, in particular, has advantages when it comes to organising class data from experiments, discussions of results, and other collaborative means in the scientific process. Inquiry-based science has great potential and ICT provides many opportunities to guide and scaffold the scientific process.

In conclusion, ICT enriches student-centred, collaborative and team-oriented classroom activities and helps to manage an atmosphere where students build knowledge by asking the right questions and knowing which tool to use to gain understanding in the world.

References

(2011). "ICT for collaborative teaching and learning." The Education Forum. Retrieved September 14th, 2011, from http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3289.

(2011). Victorian Essential Learning Standards: Information and Communications Technology. Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

Lehtinen, E. (2003). Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: An Approach to Powerful Learning Environments. Powerful learning environments: unraveling basic components and dimensions, European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction.

Security Breach

As I previously blogged, my primary success using ICT in the classroom has been the sharing and collaboration of all class material; agenda, due dates, links to handouts, etc. I feel rather proud actually, that I have been able to engage at least some students and provide them with easy access to everything they need.

One particular class has been particularly "active" with the classroom document. If you've used google docs before, you may know that when multiple users are viewing the same docs, a chat window can be used along with real-time editing. Anyways, I was at first pleased to see the students, which seems to be well-bonded (not to mention they are the streamed class, aka 'taskies'). They were also adding some year 9 type humour, which I liked. It was like a more informal setting, and being that I'd tried to add a bit informal with what I added so that the students may find it more interesting.

Recently, however, I have been faced with a question: Where does one draw the line of formal/informal in the online classroom forum? The students seem to be getting more informal, with a ______ likes _____ message, which I know all to well to be quite the awkward age for these rumours to get posted for the class to see. The term "duty of care" pops into play here...

On one hand, it's not class time, you're happy to see the kids collaborating, engaged, and quite frankly DOING their homework!
On the other hand, I feel that as a teacher, I work very hard to maintain a professional atmosphere in the classroom (or at least I'm trying to) and I have created an online space to help with their learning... why shouldn't the same rules apply?
I pose this question to you, teacher candidates.
Do you have collaborative places online for your students?
Have you been faced with questionable online behaviour?
How do you maintain professionalism in the online world?

Watson's Brain

"Dharmendra Modha of IBM Research – Almaden, in San Jose, California, hopes to build a shoebox-sized supercomputer with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses that consumes just 1 kilowatt of power. That may still sound a lot – a standard PC uses only a few hundred watts – but a supercomputer like IBM's Watsonuses hundreds of kilowatts. By contrast, the ultra-efficient human brain is estimated to have 100 billion neurons and at least 100 trillion synapses but consumes no more than 20 watts."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20810-ibm-unveils-microchip-based-on-the-human-brain.html 

Operation ICT Integration

How is your use of ICT going in your block placement? Are you trying some new uses of ICT to improve student learning??
I'm using the teaching round as a sort of trial period for various types of ICT in class. I have set up public, collaborative documents for each class I'm teaching which includes any handouts from class, an annotated timeline that allows students to see what was done and what is coming up. I also add any videos, links, or other resources directly on the page. I find it helpful for my planning and easing my job of keeping track of student work and keeping students up-to-date when they miss class, etc. At the very least, I will definitely be using ICT for this type of classroom management, having a central data location where students are responsible for keeping up with the class.
I've also been exploring other uses of ICT during the block. Inspired by my fellow teacher candidate, Duncan, I used a website called stixy to organise a computer-based investigation. Students followed the tasks directly on the board itself and posted their findings in their section of the board which I prepared. The students found it easy to find and use and within 25 minutes of investigation, an informative, colourful board with lots of redox chemistry information! Two things about stixy that I need to improve for next time: Somehow, the board wasn't saved. I would love to still have it as a resource, and it should have saved but something failed, possibly the fact that all students and I were guests and not logged in. Also, I would leave a day between their research, allow them to finalise their section as homework and lead the students through a discussion, rather than have students present the very same day. It rushed things and at the end they were getting bored.
I've still been using PowerPoint, but have used google presentation since I can access them online easily.  I'm not sure about this yet, as the google's lacks the full features such as all the animations and formatting options.
Overall, I look forward to providing useful and interesting resources for students online as well as manage all the administrative and assessment responsibilities. I'm always looking and thinking about creative ways to directly improve learning, especially during class time. I would like to use it to make lessons more connected and allow students easy access to what they are expected to do and what will be coming up.

iTeach

Hello friends,
I'm sure many of you have heard of Khan Academy before. If not, it's a free database of thousands of video lessons that include his explanations and a screen-captured video from a digital "whiteboard." Salomon Kahn started off by making the videos for his niece but has now committed full-time to the website.

Anyways, I really liked how he uses such a simple concept, a direct approach using ICT. But, I wondered how someone could utilize that software in their classroom. I would think that if a teacher could get this kind of software onto an iPad and connect wirelessly to the projector, and make a seamless transition, having a fully digital whiteboard at your fingertips but remaining able to move about the room. Students would also be able to collaborate on the document and a digital textbook as a class, as small groups, or just individually.
Those are just a few of my thoughts on how ICT could become more seamlessly integrated and useful.