You Should Know about Knowmia

Knowmia started up earlier this year, and has grown to over 8000 teacher-submitted videos for high school students.  The site is similar to Khan Academy, with a couple of significant differences.  First, the level is specifically aimed for students in grades 9-12.  Second, you can submit your own videos that you create, either from your computer or from an iPad.  Of course, it's completely free.  You should take a look and see what Knowmia can do for your students!

What Educators Need to Know about Tech, and Vice-Versa

Audrey Watters has put together a collection of resources to help educators and developers understand each other.  She has two pages, one titled "What Technologists Need to Know about Education", the other "What Educators Need to Know about Technology".  Both include links to many other articles and book reviews.

I don't particularly agree that most educators need to know about the software industry (as in the second link).  On the other hand, the first link ("What Technologists Need to Know about Education") is extremely valuable for everyone, especially educators who are just starting to dip their toes into blended and/or online learning models.  If you're interested in expanding your understanding of ed-tech, start with that page.

Here's the address for the main page:  guide.hackeducation.com.  It's a welcome resource, and I hope Ms. Watters can maintain and update it in the future.

Online Textbooks on Boundless Update

I received an email from Boundless inviting me to check out their new selection.  They now have chemistry available.  I was forced to add a new class as I had used my original class to look at the AP bio book.  To add the class, I had to log in to Facebook and agree to let Boundless post a blurb on my Facebook page.  So now, my rather small number of Facebook friends will see an ad for Boundless.  I'm not paying for Boundless and I assume that my Facebook friends will not have to pay either if they sign up for it.  I'm assuming that the forced Facebook blurb has something to do with their business model and/or is an attempt to appeal to venture capital.  I find all my stuff on blogs and from Google.  I can't recall how I found out about Boundless except I'm 100% sure it wasn't Facebook or Twitter. 

The annoyance of the forced advertising was compounded by the fact that Boundless does not have the SDUHSD adopted AP Chem text.  This was not surprising to me since Ebbing and Gammon is much less popular than many other texts.

I went ahead and selected Zumdahl, I believe the 8th edition.  There is a text available and additional resources.  Two of the resources available are flashcards and chapter quizzes.  The chapter quizzes are abysmal, being aligned to no standards.  They are simply filler.  I would not want my students spending any time on them at all because of the opportunity cost in learning or any other productive human activity.  The flashcards are adequate definitions of terms.  The text itself has 3 options, full text, smart notes, and sources.  The full text is the full text, at least the sections that are present.  The smart notes are a condensed version.  The sources are mainly wikipedia, various wikibooks and other sources that come up in the first few pages of a Google search.  I do note the absence of content farms which is welcome.

A significant omission is the end of chapter problems.   Evidently, someone has figured out that these are the real value added of a textbook.  I have written my own text for AP chem and I can say that a good set of problems is the hardest part of writing a book.  Omitting this means Boundless is not one stop shopping for a teacher's textbook needs.

Overall, I recommend Boundless.  A free online Zumdahl suitable for a PC or mobile is huge.  AP Bio has Campbell available.  A cursory search showed that both Giancoli and Serway were unavailable so I'll have to wait on physics.

I hope that there will be flexibility with the College Board and the district in terms of textbook adoption.  A combination of Boundless and some quality problems available for free online could save the district huge money.  Whether online texts will be accepted by the College Board when the revamped AP chem and physics course audits have to be submitted remains to be seen.

Chem Videos for Flipping

http://www.youtube.com/user/angeloflearning?feature=watch


These videos are of higher quality than most.  Although intended for this teacher's classes the videos are worth linking to as kids can watch them and learn.  Some of the videos are AP/IB level while others are for first year college prep chem.

Screencasting for students with ScreenChomp

As teachers explore new ways for students to "show what they know" utilizing technology from tablets, smartphones and other devices, screencasting has become a popular choice.  Using a screencasting tool such as "ShowMe" or "Screencast.com" or "Educreations" students can create videos with images, content and audio for a variety of subjects and content areas.  However, most screencasting tools and apps do not provide for an easy way to share these propreitary files after creating them.

ScreenChomp is a new application taht may be the answer for teachers looking to embark into the foray of screencasting with their classes.  The app is free, has an online website for computer users, and promises the ability to share recorded files in various formats - a web address that anyone can access, an MPEG-4 file, a twitter share, etc.  Though the tools are limited in this free app, the ability to share files may be helpful for teachers who would like to use screencasting with students, but need the ability to have digital file submission.

Heat Engines Case Study in Physics

Heat engines are a standard for AP physics and for STAR. The meat of the standards is simple calculations involving heat added, work done, heat rejected, input temperature, output temperature and theoretical and actual efficiency.

I decided to write up a case study on heat engines that can be found here:

https://sites.google.com/a/sduhsd.net/brinn-belyea-science-teacher/home/ap-physics-b/units-of-study/unit-5-fluid-mechanics-and-thermodynamics/heat-engines-case-study

I assigned the students to read the case study and visit the links. In class I showed a few diagrams of engines and asked for questions. I then had the students do the case study questions.  I used technology to post the case study to google docs and to find information for the study.

I also invited Kevin Fairchild, the district teacher on assignment for technology, to observe.

The key to this case study is the questions. The questions were designed to test in depth knowledge of heat engines but also incorporate fluids and other physics topics.

We were on a late start day so we were unable to have every group of students finish the case study questions in class. Instead of going over them that day we will go over the questions to start discussion the next day.

Some observations I made:

1. One group of students had trouble staying on task. One of the students had a pad of some sort and was on the wikipedia page for the Blackswift top secret aircraft. He told me he got there from the wikipedia page on the Blackbird aircraft which is one of the case study questions. I later looked over this group's answers and found some weak responses.

2. The speed at which students proceed through the questions varies greatly. I notice that some seniors move slowly as they're not so interested. Others see it as a respite from the normal work focused intensely on standards such as problems that start "A heat engine inputs 3000J at 1500K...." The juniors and sophomore tended to proceed faster so that they could get to the book problems that more directly impact their grades. One group of juniors was quite slow but this is a general motivational issue.

3. The issues students had with questions ranged from gaps in basic knowledge of standards to lack of ability to read the question to lack of ability to explain what they had in their head to struggling with conceptual knowledge.

My reflection on the observations:

1. It feels good to stimulate interest in STEM because that's why I became a teacher. On the other hand we get reminded of the need to be on task etc. because of the all important testing. I think some of the weak responses of this group are laziness, others reveal a lack of understanding of the material.

2. I made sure to have something for the kids who finished early.  In general I didn't detect a big difference in relative motivation between different students on the case study vs regular work but an overall higher level for all on the case study.

3. I like the fact that this assignment stresses the entire structure of a student's understanding of physics. I think this type of assignment, when done in groups is a powerful tool for differentiated instruction as gaps in all areas can be exposed and the students can help each other fill those gaps. Working book problems, labs, etc usually only hit one or two areas of understanding.

Kevin was very helpful during and after the case study. He walked around and helped me answer student questions during the activity. Afterwards we spoke by phone. Kevin suggested I incorporate student presentations to get across some of the basic knowledge bits. This would reinforce the nonfiction reading parts of the common core standards.

Overall, I want to keep doing case studies in chem and physics. The evidence says that engagement is higher and that it helps teach higher order thinking.

Twitter Film Festival

Eleven short videos (and lots of other resources) about using Twitter for education:

www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-twitter-education

Using Google+ for Education

You may have noticed that Google+ is now available for our district (and all other K12 domains).  You can join by clicking on the "+You" button at the top left of your screen when you're in Gmail or Calendar or Drive.  Why would you do this?  What can you do with Google+ with your students or in your classroom?  Here's an article from Larry Ferlazzo that lists dozens of resources and ideas to get you started with Google+ in education.

larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/07/10/the-best-resources-for-learning-what-google-is-all-about/

Projects or PBL?

Here's a nice article highlighting the difference between true Project-Based Learning and just having students do projects.

www.teachthought.com/learning/project-based-learning/difference-between-projects-and-project-based-learning/

The Future of Blackboard in SDUHSD

I was invited to a full-day workshop on using Blackboard for K-12 classes, held last Wednesday at UCLA. The first session was what they called their "roadmap": essentially what they have planned for release in the near future.  Our district's Blackboard server is about three releases behind current for technical and financial reasons, and boy, what a difference those three releases make.  When I saw the additions and improvements that Blackboard had made and was planning to make, I knew that our teachers would be much more willing to use the new version, and that we had to plan to upgrade the service next summer.

Here's the Blackboard page that highlights new features for SP10.  (This doesn't include SP9 or SP8, which will also be new for our district, since we are currently using SP7.)  Some of the things that jumped out to me:

• Improved calendar for students and teachers;
• Providing academic networking for students, distinct from social networking;
• Students can create non-course spaces, for clubs or study groups;
• An improved editor, for teachers creating course content;
• New item analysis reports;
• Integration with YouTube: students or teachers can quickly record from their webcam and post it to BB with just a few clicks;
• "Post first" discussion boards: Students have to post something before they can see what anyone else has written.
• BB xplor: a learning object repository, which will allow teachers to share standards-based assessments and other materials with colleagues across the hall or across the country.

Some of these are available now; others are scheduled for release within the next year.

One thing that struck me is that much of the newer BB interface is similar to that of Haiku.  I don't know if this is intentional or just convergent design, but it's welcome, because I have been a fan of Haiku for a long time.  Another is the realization that if we want to move to 21st-century learning, we need to move to a 21st-century LMS.

Currently our district doesn't provide a BB class for teachers unless they request one.  I'm going to change that next year.  Every teacher will automatically get a BB class for each course they teach, with some useful defaults.  Hopefully the content management capabilities will make it much easier for teachers to build and use courses in BB.

Formatting for Google Sites and Blackboard

This is for moderate-to-advanced users of Google Sites and/or Blackboard.

If you want to better control how your page looks, you can use a separate HTML editor available at csbits.com.  Begin by setting up whatever layout you like, then copy the layout and paste it into csbits.com.  Use their HTML editor to modify the look, then copy and paste it back into Google Sites or Blackboard.  This was put together by some former students in Poway, and shared with me by Stacey Campo of PUSD.

Biology Video Collection

I found this site:

http://biologyisaprocess.wordpress.com/

while looking for chemistry videos.  There is a collection of high quality biology simulations from youtube.  They are clearly categorized and there are written explanations.  Superior, superb, two thumbs up and yet another reminder that there is 10 times as much quality bio material as chem and physics :(

Virtual History!

As we begin our study of Anne Frank's Diary, I am looking for new ways to connect my students to the vast array of historical background information on WWII and the Holocaust. My first step was to take the students on a "virtual field trip" to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam at www.annefrank.org. Headphones/earbuds were my only roadblock in this activity. Kids need to bring their own headphones, or your site needs to supply them. The tour guide talks to the student as he or she moves "virtually" through the Secret Annex. I let the students choose where to go and what to record as interesting information. Another resource I have been using is primary source documents  through two online resources: http://docsteach.org and beyondthebubble.stanford.edu. Both use pictures and documents from the era to help students learn to evaluate media and draw conclusions.
The response from students was favorable. Does anyone haveother resources to suggest?