Mobile Learning Activity

The technical skill this project focused on was building a web page using a fluid grid template, making it easy to view a page on a variety of devices, including desktop computers, tablets, and smart phones.  The goal was to design a page to be used as part of an activity that goes beyond the walls of a traditional classroom.

Each spring, amusement parks throughout the United States host physics days when the park fills with high school physics students applying what they've learned about mechanics, conservation of energy, and other physics topics to the rides.  In my area, the typical destination is Valley Fair in Shakopee, Minnesota.  Unfortunately, most of the physics day activities I've seen simply involve having students complete problems about the various rides, largely due to the limited measurements which can be made with most high school lab equipment and the logistical challenges of getting the equipment into students' hands while at the park.

This project struck me as an excellent opportunity to explore how smartphones could be used to overcome the challenges associated with having students make direct measurements at an amusement park. When the majority of students are carrying a smartphone capable of making and recording measurements, the teacher doesn't have to spend the majority of the day checking out sextants and stopwatches to students.  In addition, a variety of apps for both Android and iOS allow students to make very direct measurements of speed and acceleration, opening up new possibilities for the kinds of analysis students can perform on a ride.  As a result, the m-learning page I wrote can not only serve as a reference for students as they explore the amusement park, but a gateway for completing the project almost entirely on a smartphone.

Valley Fair Physics Day Mobile Learning

Jigsaw Activity

This project, like many in the 502 course, focused on two main skills.  First, in the area of web design, I learned how to include and format tables using HTML and CSS.  Second, this project introduced me to Elliot Aronson's jigsaw model and how to incorporate Internet resources into that model.

While I hadn't looked at Aronson's specific model prior to this project, I have used jigsaw activities with my students, so was already familiar with the basic model.  When I've done jigsaws, I have primarily have students rely primarily on the textbook, which means my struggling readers who have a reading level several grades below the textbook contribute very little to their expert groups.  By shifting these activities online, I can give my students access to a much wider array of resources at a range of reading levels, allowing those who struggle with reading to play a more active role in the research.

In this project, I also spent some time considering how to have students record and store the information.  Currently, each of my 9th grade students maintains a science notebook, which provides a very natural place for students to copy and complete a table which summarizes the information from the activity.  Within a few years, my district will likely begin implementing a 1-to-1 device program and a paper notebook may make much less sense.  I did some very brief research on digital alternatives to the style of science notebook I use and created a simple Google Document which students can copy to their own account to complete.  I  only scratched the surface when it comes to options for taking an interactive notebook into the digital realm and will definitely be exploring this in more depth.  

Friction Jigsaw Activity

Tech Trends

The 2013 Horizon Report was an overall interesting read.  The focus on providing examples of how each technology is currently being used along with links for additional reading make the document a very practical tool for educators interested in staying ahead of trends in technology.  I will definitely be reading future reports.

For this assignment, I chose to focus on 3D printing.  My district is currently pursuing a STEM initiative which includes plans to build a fabrication laboratory, or FabLab, in each of our high schools.  I have no experience with the technology and very limited background knowledge, so this seemed like an excellent opportunity to begin developing a deeper understanding of how this technology could be integrated into science classrooms.

While the Horizon Report focuses on 3D printing, most of the articles I was able to find included discussion of other fabrication or rapid prototyping technology.  While 3D printers seem to be the flagship devices, they are most often purchased as part of a larger FabLab, so it is difficult to isolate the discussion of 3D printers from other, related technologies.

It was difficult to find articles which focused specifically on the use of fabrication technology in education, let alone science education.  I suspect this is because FabLabs are in their infancy, especially in the field of education.  There are a fairly limited number of schools which have purchased the technology at this point and, when I've spoken to educators using FabLabs, they are putting their energies into learning how to effectively use this technology with students largely through trial and error and do not yet feel they have the background to produce papers or presentations on the topic.  The limited number of school FabLabs also means educational researchers have limited options for subjects in their studies.  With time, this lack of research should gradually be remedied.  In the meantime, the lack of hard data on the use of this technology will probably contribute to the long timeline for widespread adoption within education predicted by the New Media Consortium.

Tech Trends

Interactive Concept Web

The core skill this project was meant to teach was creating and manipulating images in Adobe Fireworks, then using that image in a webpage.  In particular, we were tasked with embedding several links within a single image on a webpage.

This project happened to fall while I was covering the electromagnetic spectrum in both the courses I teach.  Since this topic divides very easily into subtopics, it seemed a natural subject for this project.  As it turns out, this page was a helpful resource to some of my students.  The textbook for my 9th grade course is written at a higher reading level than some of my students are ready for, so many struggle with an assignment I give to read about each subtype of electromagnetic wave and identify some of the applications.  When writing the text for this website, I tried to focus on applications for each wave type while keeping the sentence structure and vocabulary simpler than in the textbook.  As a result, students who had trouble using the book to complete the assignment were able to finish using this webpage.  In addition, my more advanced students who wanted to learn more hand a launching pad to find more detailed information.

My experience with this assignment shows some of the value in learning to design a basic webpage as a teacher.  By building a website, I was able to make differentiated readings accessible to any student who needed or wanted it without causing embarrassment that would come with handing struggling students a paper article.  My district uses Blackboard as a learning management system, where I could certainly post the same text and links I put on the website, but something about leaving Blackboard to visit an external website with some basic design lead my students to treat the content with more authority than they would an uploaded document.  I am now considering what other topics it may be worth my time to write and design a simple website for my students.

Interactive Concept Web

Plagiarism Scavenger Hunt

In this project, I built a page to lead students through a scavenger hunt on a topic related to copyright and fair use.  In the process, I explored several key areas of knowledge and skill.  First, I went in with a limited, patchwork understanding of the topic.  Before I could build a website and activity for students, I needed to understand principles of copyright and fair use.  I spent a fair amount of time reading up on these principles to be sure I understood these topics.  As a result of the deeper, more complete understanding of fair use I gained, I have been able to use images, videos, and other copyrighted material appropriately in the other projects I've completed as part of this program.  I've also gone back to revise many of the materials I use in my classroom to better conform to fair use principles.

Second, this was my first introduction to the use of an online scavenger hunt lesson.  This structure could easily be adapted to a wide variety of topics.  I currently have several lessons I use in my classroom that follow a similar structure, but rely on articles or textbooks.  These lessons could benefit from being converted into online scavenger hunts since many of my students prefer to read from a screen rather than paper and the Internet makes it simple to find resources at a wide variety of reading levels, which would make it much easier for me to differentiate and scaffold lessons for both my struggling readings and my most advanced students.

For the project, I ended up selecting the topic of plagiarism, since that is the topic I deal with the most with my students.  In particular, I have my 9th grade students complete a research project on different energy sources and many of my students copy text and images from websites without attribution or believe that by copying a paragraph, then changing one or two words, they have adequately put the text into their own words.  I hope to use the scavenger hunt with my students as part of the project to help them understand how to avoid plagiarism.

Plagiarism Scavenger Hunt

EDTECH Research

Every year, when I teach electric circuits and Kirchoff's Laws, my students struggle through the labs.  Setting up involved circuits is time-consuming and takes a lot of attention to detail.  When my students are doing these labs, I am on my feet more than usual, trouble-shooting poor connections and re-teaching each group how to use the multimeter they did just fine with yesterday.  As a result, these labs have much less content than I would like to include and I find those days exhausting.  For certain pieces, I don't even attempt a lab and just tell the students what would happen, then have them do problems.

One alternative I've been considering is to have students use a circuit-building simulation to expedite the process.  Like most science teachers, I tend to assume that a real-world, hands-on activity is better than anything a computer can do, but the draw of simply dragging a cursor to connect circuit elements rather than connecting alligator clips and praying that nothing in the rat's nest of wires most students manage to produce comes loose is too much to resist.

This assignment seemed like an excellent opportunity to read some of the research on using simulations to teach science.  I set out partly to reassure myself that simulations can be effective teaching tools and partly to find out what is currently known about how to make the best use of simulations.  What are simulations good at teaching?  What makes a good simulation vs. a bad one?  After reading several papers on the topic, I feel like I have some ideas for how to design effective activities with a simulation and the confidence that simulations can serve an important role in science classrooms.

Research in Educational Technology

Web Accessibility Page

In this assignment, I explored principles of web accessibility.  While my project focused on alternative input devices for those with physical disabilities, the assignment also included an introduction to other accessibility issues, particularly for those with colorblindness or visual impairments.  The page was required to meet the guidelines set out by section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.  In addition to reading the sets of guidelines, I used Cynthia Says and WAVE to check my page for compliance and used a screen reader to check the structure of my page.  As a result, I developed an understanding of web accessibility well beyond the particular topics covered by my page.

The principles of web accessibility will certainly be important when I build web pages for use in my classroom, but the application of these principles goes well beyond my web design efforts.  When I select web sites for use in my classroom, I need to look for the same kind of accessibility I worked on providing to ensure that all of my students will be able to use the tools I point them to.  Not only do I have some background in what makes a website accessible, I have some knowledge of the tools some students may be using to access the web, whether they are visually or physically impaired, and can plan web-based lessons to work seamlessly with these tools when needed.

Web Accessibility Hotlinks Page