Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Tech resources

  • Share your topic and “most powerful” web addresses and hyperlink sites on your blog. This gives you and your colleagues an open resource of ideas to draw from on 21st-century topics and tools.

    • thinkcentral.com-our textbook site is one of the best things I have found
    NASA.gov-perfect for looking at the universe and posting questions to astronauts

  • Explain how you expect these tools will help prepare your students to be 21st-century scientifically literate citizens.

    • These sites allow students to manipulate new science concepts because of the up to date technology they use to integrate new scientific discoveries into their learning.  They are also useful because many state are connected to these two sites, allowing the current NEST standards to be uploaded and part of their lessons

  • Describe at least one physical science activity you can plan around the use of one of these tools. Identify how this tool will help to engage students in the subject matter/topic of the activity.

    • I would like to look at the gravitational forces placed on objects on different places in space using the NASA website.  Students have a difficult time remembering the difference between weight and mass and the online sources they have regarding the gravitational pull of different planets on different bodies.  The website allows students to "travel" to the different planets which allows them to "see" what their weight would be on different bodies in the universe.

  • Share challenges you might face in integrating the use of this tool into your instruction.

    • The biggest challenge I for see is the ability to schedule time in our computer lab.  The issue is the fact that with online testing and teachers who need to be in the lab at certain times for state testing, it is very difficult for teachers to get into the lab.  Without this resource and the manipulation the resource makes available, it will be difficult to have our students actually see what is happening with their weight.
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    3 comments:

    1. mcorbinDecember 14, 2011 at 5:24 PM

      I have also found the NASA website very useful. I recieve daily emails form thier site. I also agree with the limitations teachers encounter with computers and computer labs. Our school also has a mobile lab and we still have difficulty getting computer time.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Science Made SimpleDecember 15, 2011 at 5:31 PM

      The NASA site offers some great resources. I like to give my students time just to play around and explore on it when we have "free time". I'm pretty lucky in my district to have a cart with 10 laptops just for my room in addition to other carts I can "rent" for the day. I guess that is one of the perks of my district, unfortunately they don't like to pay us teachers well, but that's a whole other story.

      One thing I suggested on another blog who had the same concern about computer time was this:
      Try to set up some sort of collaborative project with the computer teacher this way you can get extra time with the computers. I have done a few projects with my school's computer teacher (before I had access to my personal cart) which would give my students extra access to use the computers. We set up a project where I worked on the "content/material" aspects and she worked on teaching the kids how to do the computer skills necessary to access the information I wanted them to learn. The couple of projects we did together turned out to be great as the kids were able to get more computer time to practice relevant researching and document and presentation creation skills while still learning about science and social studies topics that I would otherwise had to have taught from the book.
      Regards,
      Chris

      ReplyDelete
    3. UnknownDecember 18, 2011 at 4:19 PM

      I have not explored NASA website that much, but now I would love to explore this website.

      Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts.

      Regards.

      ReplyDelete

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