Classroom III

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Where am I?

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

When I have the craving for a turkey sandwich, the last thing I can handle is looking in the refrigerator and not being able to find the mustard, mayonnaise, sandwich meat, and the cheese slices. I am very careful to put stuff back in their place so I can find it the next time. So, what does this have to do with science teaching?

This school year, our district has undergone many changes. Gandhi’s words and my experience with my frig remind me that I have changed as well. I am a year older, a few pounds heavier, and more set in my ways. With this in mind, when I look in the mirror on Monday morning, thinking about how I have to remember the changes I want to see in the world.

Teaching my students about the world around them is a humbling undertaking. One strategy that I am wanting to try this year is project-based learning. I should have spent more time this summer thinking about what kinds of projects. However, my mind would just not allow me to go there. It was my vacation from school stress. Last year…well, it was last year.

This year, our instructional “projects” include:

• Student podcasts
• Student blogs and wikis
• digital storytelling
• Claymation animation
• cell division
• plant growth cycle
• Wisconsin Fast-Grow plants
• “Parking lot” geology
• Virtual field trip to the estuary
• Minerals lab
• Rock lab
• Fossil lab
• Friday Seminars - example Float Your Boat
• How to use Moodle to learn science

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Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts blog post made me think about using an Apple computer in our school district. In Cathy’s district, they ask Mac users to purchase a service contract out of their own pocket with Apple. It seems school districts must not be able to negotiate service contract with vendors unless they are based on hundreds or thousands of units. I really do not understand how this works. However, if I was Apple, I would make a deal with schools that would at least match their competitors. Maybe they do and I do not know about it

It has been a real treat for me to use Apple laptops in our district. I have used an Aluminum PowerBook for years, and upgraded last year to a MacBook Pro. I only sent the Al PowerBook back once to have the latch replaced. It was covered 100% using the warranty. Carrying a laptop to workshops, in and out of the school house, and running it basically 24/7 and it never hiccuped. Prior to purchasing the Apple, I used laptops from Gateway, Dell, IBM, and a couple of what I call off-brands. I have never really had any major issues with warranty covered issues with laptops. Call me luck. Sure, I have fried memory and reformatted hard drives. But nothing to really cry or whine about. My major nightmares have been with operating systems. Do you remember the constant reboot and re installation of Me. OMG, don’t get me started. My mother has an HP desktop with Me still running on it. She has a nice Dell laptop with XP on it , likes her desktop for Internet and email because it is connected to her printer. I understand why she like it. She uses her laptop at her lake house, or on the road as she travels. It is too much trouble unplugging the printer and Internet Ethernet cable. I need to set up a wireless network for her. I love my Apple AirPort Extreme. It works like a dream. That is what I need to give her for Christmas. I would have to buy a 802.11g Wireless Notebook PCMCIA Network Card, Ethernet Card.

When I read about Cathy’s school system “maintenance agreement”, I would like be interested to find out if that covers EVERYTHING. Batteries also haunt extended use of laptops. Mine seem to last about two years. Warranties do not cover batteries- as far as I know. Laptop screens are not covered if you drop the laptop. So, what does a maintenance agreement cover? What would it need to cover? There is no way they would pay of updating OS X or iLife or iWorks.

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Tags: Apple, Cathy Nelson,

In a rush to prepare for the beginning of school, but had to post this link to a cool resource for teachers this year. I am working on a couple of grant proposals so I have to get back to work. Check out the resources on GoKnow.com.

http://www.goknow.com/

While scrolling through the tweets generated today on Twitter, one caught my attention.  Glad2be twittered: “Home from day of ‘laying the foundation’ Pre-AP workshop. Labs were fun, we made Barbie bungie jump.”  Glad2be also commented that there are some different Barbie bungee labs — this one is similar to the one used in her workshop: http://oak.ucc.nau.edu/smg224/401pdfs/BungieBarbie.pdf

This looks like something my students would like.  Commando Ken, or, I have it…Astronaut Ken taking a walk to repair the space shuttle. 

This will be a great videocast or podcast for my students to create.

Note to those of you reading this and snickering- they are not DOLLS, they are ACTION FIGURES. 

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The question is, will Thursday’s temperatures actually be higher than today’s? We will see. Staying cool, watching STS-118 launch.  This shuttle mission will be perfect for students to podcast about.  Bud Hunt of http://budtheteacher.typepad.com/ posted several Tweets on Twitter about the launch today.  My favorite was “Morgan racing into space on the wings of a legacy.” - Mission control.  Wesley Fryer also noted in Twitter that his newly updated Safari 3 beta was crashing on him so he has switched to Flock.  I have experienced Safari crashes this week, maybe I need to install Flock.  Firefox is efficient on my MacBook but I like to have an additional browser for backup.

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I have been using a third party Twitter client and have not been using Twitter’s web based app.  Just a few minutes ago, I got an email notice that I had a direct message via Twitter.  I as happy to see the pull down menu on the Twitter.com page. (see image)

I have really enjoyed sharing tips with fellow educators the last few days on Twitter.  The experience is similar to being around the water cooler or teacher’s lounge.  However, it is better.  It is hard to describe why it is better, it just is. 
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Time to start making a list of instructional needs and wants.  Put this first item under the wants category.  We looked at a competitor product last year. 

• SMART - AirLiner wireless slate

With the AirLiner slate you can interact wirelessly with your SMART Board interactive whiteboard or Sympodium interactive pen display from 52 feet (16 m) away. The battery-free tethered pen lets you control any software application, write notes and highlight information in digital ink

SMART’s AirLiner wireless slate enables you to teach from anywhere and allows students to interact with information from their seats. Multiple slate users can write at the same time as someone at the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

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