Science Methods and Implications for my Teaching

This week I was really reflecting on the science my students are experiencing in my placement. My students come to school equipped with knowledge of the natural world and with a model for inquiry. I think it's so important to use what students know and to build on it to push their thinking even further. I keep thinking of the possibilities for my kindergarteners. 

In our science methods course, we did a little self-documentation this week where we included pictures of science in our everyday lives. We also included pictures of culture in our everyday lives, and pictures of what we are experts at. What my self-documented practices really illuminated for me was that I see and experience science in my everyday life. 

One of my self documentation pictures showing science (weather/ the environment) in my everyday life.

My pictures regarding science in my everyday life predominantly included cooking and the environment. I see how greatly my culture is reflected here and I believe that there are some opportunities in this as I think they could be easily incorporated into my teaching. 

On Fridays, we have parent helpers come into our classroom to have a cooking lesson with groups of students. Students are already experiencing science in cooking- and I think we need to put a name to it! I think we need to be more explicit about how science is related to cooking and it would be so easy to include this in something we're already doing. 

Another topic I included often in my self-documented practices is the environment. After our workshop this quarter, I feel a real responsibility to my students to help them foster a love for our environment early on. I think there are some things that I could do in our class every day, and one of those things could be to incorporate a compost bin. Unfortunately my students throw away their vegetables frequently and those things could be going into a classroom compost bin. We also have a school garden that we have not visited thus far, and I think we could easily use our compost bin as even more of an excuse to make a trip over to the garden! Before we can teach children how they can save the world, they must first come to love the world (so said our groovy workshop lecturer)!

The Art of Video Games

This Saturday, I had a much needed day off, and David and I decided to go to the EMP to see "The Art of Video Games" exhibit. I'm generally not a huge fan of video games (with the exception of anything from the Nintendo 64) but I thought David would enjoy it, and I would enjoy the arts side of it. As soon as I got to the exhibit, I started thinking about my students and how video games could be an awesome influence for them. Art and technology really do go hand in hand, but it's something that I don't really hear too often.

Below is a picture I took from the exhibit that says "Games are a toolkit we use to create." I loved this quote! It made me think about Blooms Taxonomy of higher order thinking, and how creating is right up there at the top.

 Another favorite quote from my trip is in the picture posted to the right. It says "Games have so much freedom. You can go wherever you want." In our tech class we've been talking about using technology to help our kids experience things that they would not be able to before. If we're reading a book with a character from Thailand, how cool would it be for students to be able to quickly look at google maps to see Thailand. When we talk about technology, I didn't really think about including video games until now.

 I had to include this last picture because it was so suprising. It was from World of Warcraft, I think? I was blown away by the sketches here. Art and video games!


It was so fascinating to see how far we've come since the 1970's and 80's as far as technology for video games. They are so engaging, and I wonder if there could be a future for something like this in the classroom, and I wonder what that might look like? If we were to use something in the classrooms, like say Minecraft, that already has students so engaged, how could we use that as a tool for learning and creating?

Tracking the Trackers

"Just as the internet has opened up the world for each of us, it has also opened up each and every one of us to the world. And increasingly, the price that we're being asked to pay for this connectedness, is our privacy. With every click of the mouse, every touch of the screen, we are like Hansel and Gretel- leaving breadcrumbs, or personal information, everywhere we travel through the digital woods."
-Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers 

After discussing issues of online privacy this week, I saw this Ted Talks video and started watching. This Ted Talk is all about the information that is being collected about you as you surf the web. Before watching this video, I had no idea to what scale this was being done, or for what reason. After I watched this, for lack of a more fitting phrase, I was freaked out. I feel like there is a crowd of people following me (or according to Kovacs- stalking me?) wherever I go online.

“I am being stalked across the Web. And why is this happening? Pretty simple: It's huge business.”-Gary Kovacs.

What could this mean for our students? According to this Ted Talk, the example of a nine-year old girl was used, who web browsed something close to 4 sites and ended up having near 25 follow her. This is a process that could take less than a minute- easily! 

Taking a step back, the person who did this Ted Talk works for Mozilla (Firefox) and potentially wants you to install his software to "track the trackers". Just as he commented on why trackers are tracking people across the web, having you add his company's software significantly contributes to their business. I think referring to the web analytics tools to follow user behavior as "online stalkers" is a strong term, but it isn't a comfortable thing either, and I think it's because it's this thing that is mostly unknown. And there is such little regulation regarding it in our country. So for me it's something to keep thinking about and to be mindful of. 

The take home message for me after watching this video is that internet history is a permanent thing, and that students need practice in being safe students of the web. I think schools have a responsibility to teach ways to be safe online. What's so interesting is that those ways to be safe online are changing, and this Ted Talks video was a reminder of how quickly the web can change and how proactive users need to be about being safe on the web. 

Edmodo Possibilities

I'm trying to go to things in my placement that will help with my professional development and also to experience more of the "teacher culture" of my school outside of class time. This week I went to a technology class Wednesday after school and on Friday I met with my grade level teachers for our Professional Learning Community meeting. The tech class was focused around Edmodo. First, I have to say, that a tech class after a very long Wednesday was a little rough. One of the teachers was leading it, and it was a good way for teachers to get tech hours without having to leave the school or plan a special day to do it- they could just stay after school until 5 (which, most of them do anyway) and spend time learning this new technology.

Edmodo is actually AMAZING. If I could sum it up for you all, it's almost like an education focused Facebook with much more security. Edmodo is capable of much more than I was able to learn about in our one tech class, but I will be blogging about what I learned from that day. The person who was teaching us this tool teaches 5th grade. He uses it as a part of his teaching and created a group space where all of his students can access (and only them). It is essentially a closed Facebook-type site where students can post notes to the whole class, access assignments, and ask for clarification on assignments. There is a parent account option as well, and he has all of his students parents/guardians on Edmodo, and he uses it to send out weekly newsletters. It was really exciting to see the potential here for using it in the classroom. I actually haven't completely ruled out Edmodo for kindergartners either- maybe I would just use it to keep in contact with students families? I think there is definitely potential there! 

One thing I immediately thought of when I heard that it was a "Facebook-type" site, albeit a closed, safe community, was bullying. This teacher, who has been using Edmodo for about 2 years, said a few things about that. One was that he has his group set so that each post to the wall of the group sends him a text to his phone, so he monitors it frequently. A key thing for him was making sure that students realize that he 1) reads everything that they post, and that 2) they can all read everything that everyone posts. It turns out that after they recognize those two things that he doesn't actually need to do a whole lot of monitoring. And if someone abuses the classroom rules for posting, he can set them to "read only". I loved that! They are still a part of the learning community and can access the information, but they are in a posting time out. When I was listening to teachers talking about this all I could think about was how important something like this would be for my students. I was part of the generation who figured out Facebook in high school, and I don't think I was fully aware until later on that everything that I post might be up there for a long, long time. Students don't always realize that the stuff we post online is up there for good! How valuable might something like Edmodo be for students to get a safe version of a Facebook-esque site before the real thing?