Reflections of a Techie

Writing to Learn in Science

Students are beginning to get how to gather evidence to support their science ideas.  Eureka!!!  I finally was able to design a graphic organizer that pulls it apart enough for them to get the supporting steps necessary.  It was remarkably simple.

I just used Word to create a  3 column table.  The concept they were working on was listed in the left hand column, followed by a column for the evidence they found in their textbook(citing the page number, of course) and the last columns was evidence from lab experiences.    I can tell it's working because of our class conversation.  They were stretching to figure out how to cross reference the information...ie file it under a different heading.  Once they figured out how to take the analysis questions from the lab and file them into something other than the name of the lab, presto!!!! they figured out that what they learned in the lab related to a BIGGER science question.

That gave way to me thinking about how I needed to design another thinking shell.  It needs to literally walk them through the synthesis process.  Maybe starting off with a statement about what they know from the textbook, then what they know from the labs and then at the bottom having them write a topic sentence.  Right after the topic sentence having a fill in the blank with restating what was above it so it flows like one idea or one small paragraph.

I know this sounds dull.  But it's huge in helping kids think about science ideas and in getting them to write scientifically.

Flickr makes spelling fun again

I have been trying to find an easy to way to spiff up my bulletin boards. Spell with flickr will be just the trick. I think my kids will love this website and then I plan on asking them to create and "collect" their own set of alphabet options.  What fun!!!!

SaveTube and Wimpy Save the Day

Finally I was successful in downloading and playing a video.........I've read the posts and worked and worked at this.  Normally stuff comes pretty easily, but I feel like an idiot.

I think the key for me was finding SaveTube .  I was finally able to download the file using another bit of information that I figured out from the documentation within a Firefox extension.  The critical bit of info that I needed was knowing the file type under which to save.  It's  .flv .   I know that probably seems obvious to everyone, but me.

Once I knew that, then I thought I could just use Windows Media or Quicktime player.  Well, maybe if I was more sophisticated I could.  But that didn't work either.  Hurray for SaveTube....they linked me straight to a FlashPlayer called Whimpy.  It worked like a charm.

Once I knew the file extension and found Wimpy, I was successful in about 10 seconds.  All those hours of experimenting finally paid off.  I hope the little video I'm going to use to start off my training session tomorrow is worth the hours of time...probably not, but I did learn something.  Update from next day:  When I went to save the video on a CD that worked out OK.  But the player didn't work at all.  Bummer.  I should have anticipated another bump in this long, long road.  I'm not sure how I will resolve this and the hour is growing very late....but I will keep on trying.

Update:  2/23.....wimpy is not blocked, so I was able to download another copy of the player at school and then use my movie from the CD.  It worked out great.  Now I have so many projects that I want to add to my list.

Rusticles...go exploring the ocean even if you're under 6" of snow in Kansas

Thanks to NOAA, my kids are having a blast with the ocean this wintery day.  It's a snow day because we had 6" of snow last night and school was called off.  Thankfully I had already encouraged them to check out the Ocean Explorer website.  The puzzle has been the biggest hit.  I told them about the puzzle and it wasn't operational over the weekend....believe me I heard about all day Saturday and Sunday.  I was bombarded with emails from my students complaining that they couldn't access the puzzle.  Believe me I was thankful when the webmaster reset the puzzle early Monday morning.

They have responded with lots of things that they've learned.  As I sat at my home computer this afternoon, my inbox kept ringing with another new email.  Each email heralded a new factoid that they had learned and actually...they were really excited about it.

So I'm thankful this blustery day for the web, for high quality sites, for kids that are interested enough to go online and check it out....to extend their classroom experience beyond the school day and the classroom.  See what you think of their research efforts.

I'll bet you've been dying to find out what a rusticle is...well here's what NOAA glossary says,

rusticle - a structure consisting of up to 35% iron compounds (iron oxides, iron carbonates, and iron hydroxides) that forms under water when wrought iron rusts. In appearance, it resembles an icicle or stalactite. The remainder of the structure is a complex community of symbiotic or mutualistic microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, that use the rusting metal as a source of energy, collectively producing the mineral compounds as waste products and hence forming the rusticle. Structurally, the rusticle contains channels to allow water to flow through.They are very delicate, and easily disintegrate into a fine powder if disturbed. The outer surface of a rusticle is red in appearance while the core is bright orange.

Bill asks....How can we---as accomplished teachers who understand the complexity of our work-- begin to re-establish credibility beyond our classrooms?"

To me this is one of the big questions I have thought about.  I think so much of our work is storytelling.  Not that storytelling is not useful and important.  It is.  But so often the stories go on and on...and they never generalize into anything tangible.

What I would hope we would learn to do is to use our powerful stories as examples to make a point.  Probably a point that we can substantiate with action research from our classroom.  To do that, we will need to stretch and create a more foundational culture in asking questions that we can investigate with our students.  It will help us hone our thinking, narrow our focus to the things we think are measureable and important to  spend time working on.  I read the examples at the Gallery of Teaching and am inspired. 

I would imagine that we need to have the data to give us the credibility of which you speak.  Pepper these data with powerful stories and our credibility would grow exponentially I'd bet.