Web 2.0 offers vast resources for a variety of purposes from diagnostic, to formative and summative assessment, to learning activity and learning project. Throughout this unit, we focused on the variety of resources and the variety of purposes, with an emphasis on developing investigation skills and questioning. The activities in this section prompted me to revisit some items that I had written earlier and incorporate an added emphasis on web 2.0 resources.
The lesson was originally written to satisfy requirements of a NASA program. With this revision, the collaboration, investigation, and communication aspects were enhanced. These new additions increase the student engagement and interactivity of the project.
The discussion boards this week offered many opportunities to explore and share various web 2.0 resources. Beyond the resources, the innovative ways in which class members used these resources. With a single resource, it may have been used as class led instructional activity or student exploration or student performance assessment.
A recurring theme in the discussions involved the use of web 2.0 resources that require account creation. It was asked, but never answered, how to handle designing student accounts when students may not have individual email addresses. As I have explored some resources for incorporating into my classes, I have also looked towards ease of account creation. Some of my personally preferred resources do not score high in administrative resources. For example: when researching wiki's, I prefer the functionality of Google Sites, but instead chose wikispaces because of it's educational sub account tools.
Online responsibility and accountability is a key feature I look for when selecting web 2.0 resources to use in the classroom. The ability to create individual student accounts to track changes or monitor appropriate/inappropriate uses is important. However, in terms of services that do not permit bulk account creation, I question the necessity to force students to register. In a culture where privacy and internet safety is stressed, it seems antithetical to compel students to use personal information (in my case, the students do not have school provided email) when signing up for online services.
Yet, I am also contradictory. The public sharing and collaboration of the web 2.0 resources is a great benefit. Whether to collaborate beyond the classroom, share with the community, or provide a resource, the public visibility of student products has a valuable role in learning.
So, the conflict remains: privacy vs publicity; compulsion vs encouragement; mandatory vs beneficial option.
(JMenaker)
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
EDIM513 - u04a2
Concepts and facts... These sound like two very simple items, yet instead they were quite troubling throughout the unit. When asked to create a dichotomy of concept vs fact, I ran into trouble. When does a fact become a concept or a concept become a fact? I found that the context and application of each topic could lead to an ambiguity where that topic could be both fact and concept. Can one item be both fact and concept?
If the definition of fact vs concept is the degree of connectivity, the degree of investigabilty, or the specificity of topic, then any given topic remains in an indeterminate status until its role amongst the broader (or more specific) contents.
The other major component of this week involved investigable vs noninvestigable questions. This distinction proved useful in assisting with the development of concept and fact frameworks. With its emphasis on engagement and interactivity, inquiry thrives on investigation. Creating questions in which students can investigate, experience, and influence the results leads to greater inquiry, concrete results, and less abstraction.
But does the degree of invesitgability rely on the question or the student? Can the same question be of greater investigability than another when asked of different groups of students? Investigability emphasizes the placement of ideas into testable format. For some students, this may need to be explicitly broken into itemized questions, whereas students of higher abilities may be able to investigate independently from the larger concept questions.
One of the difficulties I am experiencing in this course is the frequent request to identify as explicitly either/or, without regard to context of student, topic, or situation. If inquiry is a continuum based concept, then does each item within inquiry similarly belong on a continuum?
(Jeff Menaker)
If the definition of fact vs concept is the degree of connectivity, the degree of investigabilty, or the specificity of topic, then any given topic remains in an indeterminate status until its role amongst the broader (or more specific) contents.
The other major component of this week involved investigable vs noninvestigable questions. This distinction proved useful in assisting with the development of concept and fact frameworks. With its emphasis on engagement and interactivity, inquiry thrives on investigation. Creating questions in which students can investigate, experience, and influence the results leads to greater inquiry, concrete results, and less abstraction.
But does the degree of invesitgability rely on the question or the student? Can the same question be of greater investigability than another when asked of different groups of students? Investigability emphasizes the placement of ideas into testable format. For some students, this may need to be explicitly broken into itemized questions, whereas students of higher abilities may be able to investigate independently from the larger concept questions.
One of the difficulties I am experiencing in this course is the frequent request to identify as explicitly either/or, without regard to context of student, topic, or situation. If inquiry is a continuum based concept, then does each item within inquiry similarly belong on a continuum?
(Jeff Menaker)
Sunday, February 12, 2012
EDIM 513 - Inquiry Week 3
This week focused on the abilities and understandings of inquiry. From reading the case studies and viewing the videos, it becomes apparent that there is great diversity in implementing inquiry based learning. From the course discussions on the three case studies, we can see much conflict in interpretation of when inquiry is present in the classroom, and when it is not. This is a result of a continuum of inquiry designs from Student directed to Teacher directed.
I am starting to transform some of my learning activities for next year from courseware direct instruction. At this point, I am uncertain how to fully implement student directed instruction, but am rewriting some of the online assignments to involve guided inquiry. This is a continuation of my product oriented approach to courses. Previously, I had used this with computer applications, but am now expanding it into other courses. The current assignment under review is a unit on electricity. Using online simulators, students will be challenged to create a variety of circuit styles without prior instruction on components or circuits. I hope to be able to expand this to other units as I locate appropriate simulation resources.
Without a realtime interaction with students, or large group instruction time, I am struggling with how to incorporate more of the dialog involved in inquiry. With limited direct interaction with the students, it is difficult to aid the students in developing their questions and using those questions to guide investigations. This difficulty is compounded when emphasis is placed on course completion and pacing rather than in depth learning.
But inquiry is a spectrum of conditions. I intend to implement some of it for next year, possibly with trial offerings to some students later this year. Some inquiry has to be better than none. I will continue to look for ways to expand the offerings and increase the transition from structured inquiry to guided and open inquiry.
I am starting to transform some of my learning activities for next year from courseware direct instruction. At this point, I am uncertain how to fully implement student directed instruction, but am rewriting some of the online assignments to involve guided inquiry. This is a continuation of my product oriented approach to courses. Previously, I had used this with computer applications, but am now expanding it into other courses. The current assignment under review is a unit on electricity. Using online simulators, students will be challenged to create a variety of circuit styles without prior instruction on components or circuits. I hope to be able to expand this to other units as I locate appropriate simulation resources.
Without a realtime interaction with students, or large group instruction time, I am struggling with how to incorporate more of the dialog involved in inquiry. With limited direct interaction with the students, it is difficult to aid the students in developing their questions and using those questions to guide investigations. This difficulty is compounded when emphasis is placed on course completion and pacing rather than in depth learning.
But inquiry is a spectrum of conditions. I intend to implement some of it for next year, possibly with trial offerings to some students later this year. Some inquiry has to be better than none. I will continue to look for ways to expand the offerings and increase the transition from structured inquiry to guided and open inquiry.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
EDIM513 - Inquiry Week 2 - Process skills and community
In this second week of class, we examined the relationships between community and inquiry, and inquiry skills. I agree with much of the writing about the process skills. I was surprised to learn of the organizations that were drafting these documents: Department of Labor, and Universities. In my Science classrooms, I have tended to emphasize processes and skills over details and facts. I have focused mostly on the scientific processes involved in each topic covered, rather than overall processing skills of critical thinking and analysis. With a renewed emphasis on more generic skills, I may be able to improve student understanding and transfer of knowledge.
I am concerned that such a transition will be difficult to achieve and out of favor with administration. It seems that we are in a crisis of assessment. With so much emphasis on preparing students for the standardized assessment, there has been much persuasion to offer only the knowledge that they will see on those tests. This year, as Pennsylvania is tracking graduation by cohort, we have even greater pressures to reward completion rather than learning skills.
In the alternative setting, it has been a difficult process to include such skills and community into the coursework. Our courses are designed around a credit retrieval model. Completing the course, receiving the credits, and moving on to new courses is highly encouraged and often distracts from the goal of deeper understanding or transfer knowledge.
I have started the process of including learning activities beyond the direct instruction and assessment offered by our courseware, but much work in this matter remains. At current, the majority of our coursework includes online instruction that emphasizes facts instead of processes and offers little opportunity for the generic process skills desired by the readings in Topic C of this week.
Another key discussion point this week was on community. I agree with the benefits of community, especially when relating to science and the scientific community. The ability to collaborate and interact with colleagues is a key part of modern science, with examples in the International Space Station and CERN. I am uncertain how to develop community in an asynchronous environment in which students interact only with faculty, and student-student interactions are considered distractions from the learning process. In the discussion board, classmates spoke of developing the many small communities of each single student and teacher, but I wish to pursue greater community and collaborative investigations. My current thoughts are to offer "science day" to students. Students may choose to take a break from the computer coursework in order to participate in a science investigation or activity. Many of these will be based on inquiry activities.
Due to the nature of our program, these activities will be disjointed and not consistent with any particular student's current coursework, but I hope that they will still offer the opportunity for students to interact with each other and engage the process skills that this week's topics covered.
My lasting concern is still how to overcome the persistence of completion vs learning. How do you transform a program that rewards so heavily on procedural completion, credit achievement, and graduating within the four year high school span into one that encourages dialog and inquiry?
I am concerned that such a transition will be difficult to achieve and out of favor with administration. It seems that we are in a crisis of assessment. With so much emphasis on preparing students for the standardized assessment, there has been much persuasion to offer only the knowledge that they will see on those tests. This year, as Pennsylvania is tracking graduation by cohort, we have even greater pressures to reward completion rather than learning skills.
In the alternative setting, it has been a difficult process to include such skills and community into the coursework. Our courses are designed around a credit retrieval model. Completing the course, receiving the credits, and moving on to new courses is highly encouraged and often distracts from the goal of deeper understanding or transfer knowledge.
I have started the process of including learning activities beyond the direct instruction and assessment offered by our courseware, but much work in this matter remains. At current, the majority of our coursework includes online instruction that emphasizes facts instead of processes and offers little opportunity for the generic process skills desired by the readings in Topic C of this week.
Another key discussion point this week was on community. I agree with the benefits of community, especially when relating to science and the scientific community. The ability to collaborate and interact with colleagues is a key part of modern science, with examples in the International Space Station and CERN. I am uncertain how to develop community in an asynchronous environment in which students interact only with faculty, and student-student interactions are considered distractions from the learning process. In the discussion board, classmates spoke of developing the many small communities of each single student and teacher, but I wish to pursue greater community and collaborative investigations. My current thoughts are to offer "science day" to students. Students may choose to take a break from the computer coursework in order to participate in a science investigation or activity. Many of these will be based on inquiry activities.
Due to the nature of our program, these activities will be disjointed and not consistent with any particular student's current coursework, but I hope that they will still offer the opportunity for students to interact with each other and engage the process skills that this week's topics covered.
My lasting concern is still how to overcome the persistence of completion vs learning. How do you transform a program that rewards so heavily on procedural completion, credit achievement, and graduating within the four year high school span into one that encourages dialog and inquiry?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
EDIM513 u01a01
edim513 is not my first experience with inquiry. I have had professional development sessions and a couple of Exploratorium workshops on inquiry. What this week did was reinforce some of the material that was presented in those previous experiences.
The two discussion activities completed this week helped to accentuate the needs for differentiation in curriculum and presentation. Looking at the responses to our memorable/best learning experiences, it becomes apparent that there are many preferred ways of learning. In our transition to inquiry-based activities, it must not be forgotten that direct instruction, auditory, and visual learning are still valid methods for some learners.
The other discussion thread, which asked us to differentiate inquiry from non-inquiry activities, shows that there is no clear cut definition or example of classroom inquiry. Inquiry is a type of approach, but it can vary in its degree of implementation. A single activity can also belong to multiple degrees of inquiry based on the advanced knowledge and preparation of the students.
As we continue this course, I am prepared to learn more examples and key components of inquiry. Although I have already been exposed to it, and have integrated some inquiry activities into my classroom, there is room for more growth. I would like to explore more ways to engage the students. I would like to evaluate cohesive ways of transforming the entire content into a dynamic experience rather than a set of activities dispersed throughout a mostly direct instruction course.
In the next few weeks, I expect to engage in the material and learn from other experiences to improve the degree of learning in the classroom. My goal is to use the learning from this course to reinforce the learning goals of my courses rather than completion goals.
The two discussion activities completed this week helped to accentuate the needs for differentiation in curriculum and presentation. Looking at the responses to our memorable/best learning experiences, it becomes apparent that there are many preferred ways of learning. In our transition to inquiry-based activities, it must not be forgotten that direct instruction, auditory, and visual learning are still valid methods for some learners.
The other discussion thread, which asked us to differentiate inquiry from non-inquiry activities, shows that there is no clear cut definition or example of classroom inquiry. Inquiry is a type of approach, but it can vary in its degree of implementation. A single activity can also belong to multiple degrees of inquiry based on the advanced knowledge and preparation of the students.
As we continue this course, I am prepared to learn more examples and key components of inquiry. Although I have already been exposed to it, and have integrated some inquiry activities into my classroom, there is room for more growth. I would like to explore more ways to engage the students. I would like to evaluate cohesive ways of transforming the entire content into a dynamic experience rather than a set of activities dispersed throughout a mostly direct instruction course.
In the next few weeks, I expect to engage in the material and learn from other experiences to improve the degree of learning in the classroom. My goal is to use the learning from this course to reinforce the learning goals of my courses rather than completion goals.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
EDIM508 Google Earth
Reflection Blog to accompany Google Earth Virtual Field Trip project.
Google Earth is a great, easy to use program. It has evolved many exciting features since I started using it. It is now more user friendly and requires little instruction. For this assignment, I revisited an older assignment. About 6 or 7 years ago, I added a Google Earth component to a volcanoes assignment. At that time, Google Earth was used a novelty enhancement. Students were asked to locate their volcanoes using Google Earth and use a picture from the program in either their presentation or poster. Google Earth really didn't offer much to that project in terms of learning. Used only as a source of graphics that could have been located more easily through other means, its inclusion was designed to create awareness of the program.
With the motivation of this EDIM508 assignment, I returned to the topic of Volcanoes. Now, instead of being an irrelevant attachment, Google Earth is integrated into the learning process. Students explore the volcanoes in Google Earth to learn about their features, to characterize types of volcanoes, and to relate volcanoes to Earth processes. This project was designed to allow students to work independently, a key benefit for its inclusion in alternative education.
Another benefit to conducting this activity online is the easy transition between resources. Beyond just looking at volcanoes, this format allowed students to explore some of the historical and cultural aspects of living around a volcano. Volcanoes played a prominent role in earlier civilizations, defining their gods and customs. Google Earth allows me to integrate this cultural information into the description boxes or create embedded activities for students to further explore the culture and history around specific volcanoes or volcanoes in general.
I was nervous about using Google Earth at first because of my limited experience in creating custom content for it. Compared to my first attempt at Google Earth in the classroom, I was now met with overwhelming material. Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program has cataloged and created Google Earth placemarks for an abundance of volcanoes. I used their information as a starting point, and edited several of the placemarks for selected volcanoes to include references to Discovery Education and offer Google Earth instructional activities, as well as cultural and historical information about each volcano.
Initially, I had wanted to do a comparison of population surroundings volcanoes. After searching for a while, I found a working dataset. Unfortunately, I have not found a way to automate enabling/disabling this layer. With the population layer activity, many of the surface features are obscured. I was able to set it to display only above a certain altitude. Doing so forced it to be hidden when students are viewing the surface features of the volcanoes. Aside from developing a better method to show/hide the population data, the assignment needs more work to better analyze the hazards based on populations near the volcanoes.
In its current state, this assignment is not quite stand alone enough for my purposes. I will continue to enhance it. I think it could benefit from additional placemarks and volcano visits to visualize patterns of location, eruption, and design. However, there is a trademark between including enough volcanoes and requiring so many stops to make the experience tedious for the students. The possibilities are there. I foresee a similar activity becoming a part of the alternative and online versions of my Earth and Sapce Science courses.
Course and Student Information:This is designed for use with 9th-12th grade students in alternative education and cyber school settings. This will accompany instruction on volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics. It will address the following Pennsylvania academic standards:3.1.12B: Apply concepts of models as a method to predict and understand science and technology.3.5.12A: Analyze and evaluate earth features and processes that change the earth.
Additional References:
Google Earth is a great, easy to use program. It has evolved many exciting features since I started using it. It is now more user friendly and requires little instruction. For this assignment, I revisited an older assignment. About 6 or 7 years ago, I added a Google Earth component to a volcanoes assignment. At that time, Google Earth was used a novelty enhancement. Students were asked to locate their volcanoes using Google Earth and use a picture from the program in either their presentation or poster. Google Earth really didn't offer much to that project in terms of learning. Used only as a source of graphics that could have been located more easily through other means, its inclusion was designed to create awareness of the program.
With the motivation of this EDIM508 assignment, I returned to the topic of Volcanoes. Now, instead of being an irrelevant attachment, Google Earth is integrated into the learning process. Students explore the volcanoes in Google Earth to learn about their features, to characterize types of volcanoes, and to relate volcanoes to Earth processes. This project was designed to allow students to work independently, a key benefit for its inclusion in alternative education.
Another benefit to conducting this activity online is the easy transition between resources. Beyond just looking at volcanoes, this format allowed students to explore some of the historical and cultural aspects of living around a volcano. Volcanoes played a prominent role in earlier civilizations, defining their gods and customs. Google Earth allows me to integrate this cultural information into the description boxes or create embedded activities for students to further explore the culture and history around specific volcanoes or volcanoes in general.
I was nervous about using Google Earth at first because of my limited experience in creating custom content for it. Compared to my first attempt at Google Earth in the classroom, I was now met with overwhelming material. Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program has cataloged and created Google Earth placemarks for an abundance of volcanoes. I used their information as a starting point, and edited several of the placemarks for selected volcanoes to include references to Discovery Education and offer Google Earth instructional activities, as well as cultural and historical information about each volcano.
Initially, I had wanted to do a comparison of population surroundings volcanoes. After searching for a while, I found a working dataset. Unfortunately, I have not found a way to automate enabling/disabling this layer. With the population layer activity, many of the surface features are obscured. I was able to set it to display only above a certain altitude. Doing so forced it to be hidden when students are viewing the surface features of the volcanoes. Aside from developing a better method to show/hide the population data, the assignment needs more work to better analyze the hazards based on populations near the volcanoes.
In its current state, this assignment is not quite stand alone enough for my purposes. I will continue to enhance it. I think it could benefit from additional placemarks and volcano visits to visualize patterns of location, eruption, and design. However, there is a trademark between including enough volcanoes and requiring so many stops to make the experience tedious for the students. The possibilities are there. I foresee a similar activity becoming a part of the alternative and online versions of my Earth and Sapce Science courses.
Course and Student Information:This is designed for use with 9th-12th grade students in alternative education and cyber school settings. This will accompany instruction on volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics. It will address the following Pennsylvania academic standards:3.1.12B: Apply concepts of models as a method to predict and understand science and technology.3.5.12A: Analyze and evaluate earth features and processes that change the earth.
Additional References:
- Data Sets:
- Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program - Holocene Volcanoes(available from: http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/globallists.cfm?listpage=googleearth)
- NASA Earth Observing System - Population Density(available from: http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/Search.html?group=64 and http://serc.carleton.edu/eet/aura/part_2.htmlUSGS Earthquakes and Plate Tectonics Data(available from: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kml.php)
- Volcanoes in Historical and Popular Culture. USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO). Retrieved December 10, 2011, from http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/PopCulture/mythology.html
- Mount St. Helens. (2011, December 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:51, December 10, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mount_St._Helens&oldid=464488786
- Ragnarök. (2011, December 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:52, December 10, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ragnar%C3%B6k&oldid=465135697
- 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull. (2011, December 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:52, December 10, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2010_eruptions_of_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull&oldid=465114655
Thursday, December 8, 2011
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