Fun with TOK and Chemistry

Got to do a fun collaborative live blogging session with Doug Abshire's IB Chemistry class and my IB Theory of Knowledge class around the question: Why Teach Science?

Several of the students were new to live blogging and caught on fast; in fact, some of them not only kept up with the conversation, but researched and posted links that followed the class discussions once they saw it could be done (I posted some YouTube videos to demonstrate the point). It was great to see the kids catching on to and experimenting with the features of the live blog, and their answers took them from the realm of educational theory to the philosophical consideration of whether or not science was itself a form of religion (or indeed the new, modern religion).

Go here and check it out if you get a chance; and comments, questions, feedback and the like are always welcome!

Always great to collaborate with a fellow Global Learner! Thanks!

Todd M. and Doug A.

1st Semester Global Learner Recap.

Well, the first semester of 2009-2010 is drawing to a close. This was my first semester as a Global Learner, and also my first semester with the district's new, more rigorous pacing, T4S, etc.

I think so far everything is going well. I am finding it difficult to keep up with some of the Global Learner things and also stay on pace with what the district feels I should be doing. I think both expectations were reasonable though, so I'm making due.

Recently, my students collaborated with other science students from the high school and middle school on the ibtoktidbits.blogspot.com blog. My students integrated blog-reponses into a lesson where they used laptops and the internet to research and create electronic products to show what they learned. The blog gave students a chance to share their own opinions and read what their peers said as well.

A few observations - one, it was difficult to get the students to truly collaborate with the other students, very few of my students actually responded to or engaged the students who had already commented. I think a CoverItLive session might be better in the future for this kind of thing (and based on my own experience contributing to Mayville's CiL sessions).

Also, while the amount of incidences were lower than I expected - I've learned that being able to moderate comments is key. A couple of my students decided they were going to post under names like "Mike Rotch", and others that were even less appropriate - making comments that were obscene. Luckily it was only 2-3 kids out of 145 - so not bad, I was also able to figure out who did it an deal with them - but I could see it getting much worse depending on the group of students. You can read all of the appropriate (and hopefully none that are not appropriate) comments at http://ibtoktidbits.blogspot.com.

Overall, I do think that the semester has gone well for me as a Global Learner using technology in my classroom. For sure I've done 10x more with technology this year than last year. My highlight would still be using "clickers" - something I do almost every day now as a warm-up or in-class response tool. (Read my original post abotu clickers here: http://principianteglobal.blogspot.com/2009/09/first-time-using-clickers-as-teacher.html)

Next semester, my goal is to streamline my grading and classroom procedures a bit better - hopefully through more use of technology! Follow all of my reflections at http://www.howatscience.net

Purdue University in the Hotseat

I recently came across this article about social networking, specifically Twitter, at Purdue University. (This one, too.) Seems that their IT people have developed their own social networking program called "Hotseat." The students in the classes are able to send out questions, comments, and so forth via this program, and from what I can tell, it also posts to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

This has some very interesting possibilities within the classroom. I would likely use Edmodo for my classes since it is more secure and controlled, and it would take a good bit of training and reinforcement, but I can see where this might work. As I am delivering the lesson, students could post their comments and questions on the Edmodo account, which would be displayed on a separate screen. The students could then answer each other's questions, posting links and whatnot related to the class discussion.

Of course, this would take some training and practice, particularly with my younger students since the temptation for "What up?" and other non-related and therefore inappropriate messages might be too great. Perhaps if/when I roll this out, I would start with my TOK class, then moving down to the sophomores, either not using it with the freshmen or waiting until perhaps fourth quarter to introduced them to it.

Which brings me to my struggle this year. With the new district policy around pacing, I am supposed to be pretty much doing the same thing as the other classes in the building (aside from TOK, which is unique to IB). At least at first glance, this precludes the use of blogs and other technology in the classroom which is a huge disservice to my students. As Will Richardson has observed, those who aren't publishing (online) aren't a part of the conversation. We saw the use and power of technology in the last federal election cycle and in the protests over the election in Iran; if our students do not know how to utilize those and other 21st century tools, they will not be able to be active citizens in their own democracy. While this may sound like hyperbole, it isn't. It's simple fact. I'm seriously worried.