I read many other peoples blogs and figured out how to add a photo!

Thanks to everyone for blogging. I have been brousing through them all day and feel like I have learned a lot. In the next few days I hope to respond to posts and let you know individually when I read something valuable.

Thing 17: A New Thing

From the Metronet information literacy website I looked at the life science lessons that are offered and found a link to the pbs site, which I do love, and it was a lesson about the brain, which I love even more. It has a good 3D representation of the brain and a timeline of brain research.

I think that history of science is one of the hardest things for me to teach, because I have never really been into history/memorizing stuff, but with this timeline I think that kids could get into learning about it because of the animations involved.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/history/index.html

Thing 12: Other search engines

http://www.googleguy.de/google-yahoo/

I went to this site and it was interesting to see google and yahoo results side by side on the page. I searched "Human Genetic Variation" which is the topic in class this week and found that the two search engines were pretty much identical in the top 10 results generated, except they were in a little different order, Yahoo put wickipedia at the top of the list while google put it at the bottom of the first page for example. Also, only Yahoo displayed my favorite site "Sciencedaily.com" on the first page.

Interesting. I think I will have students look at this and search for a specific question that they have and see if any trends develop.

Customized Search Engines

I created a customized search engine, but I only have one website on there right now. I can see how this would be good if I wanted students to practice searching techniques, I would know exactly what results choices they got with each search and would be able to guide them to just the sites that I like for each topic.

I think that it would take some time to search through sites to add to this if I wanted students to truly research on their own, but I never knew this feature existed and I will explore more about the google educator site for sure - I think it had more features that I would find useful.

Search engine details [Edit this search engine]
Genetics

Genetics searches 1 site: www.sciencedaily.com

Keywords: "human genetic variation"

Thing 7: RPC thoughts

As I am going through the RPC, starting with the first step, "question" I already have a way to improve my disease report assignment for next year. Right now the report is simply about a disease - basically students pick a disease/disorder, and gather information that is relevant to what we have been learning about our bodies, and are required to talk about current scientific research public health applications.

Next year I will change the assignment so that an actual research QUESTION is the basis for the report. For example, not just "Lung cancer" but "How is the prevelance of lung cancer changing in our society". Something that requires application of gathered information, and not just regurgitation. I think they will learn more.

Thing 8: Dribbling Lessons

Plagarism in written reports has been a huge issue for me as students have gotten into the habit of copy/pasting from the internet and into their reports. I have obviously done a sub standard job of teaching them the right and wrong way to gather information from the internet, because last year by typing sentences from reports into google search I caught about 40% of my students plagarising by not using quotation marks around material they took word for word from websites.

This year I used the dribbling lesson http://www.lib.sfu.ca/researchhelp/tutorials/interactive/plagiarism/tutorial/Plagiarism-Pretest-QUIZ.htm

Which is a 7 question quiz that gives students senarios to judge as plagarism or not (they are all plagarism :)). I did it as a whole class activity and I think it really hit home, especially the part about images needing to be cited. Many searched for the sources for their images immediatly after. Also, I was able to warn them that if they did plagarize, they would get a 0 on their report without a chance of a rewrite, and also I would report the incident to the assistant principal.

Thing 11: Google Scholar

I introduced google scholar to students in my Pre-AP biology classes and required them to cite at least one paper in their disease report. They seemed interested in the variety of scientific articles that could be found on line, and how different they were to read than the other types of articles on websites that they have found.

Thing 11: Google Advanced Search

I showed the students two weeks ago about the advanced search options on google. They are doing disease research, and I allowed them to use google AFTER they had turned in 3 resourses from the data bases that Linda Wise put together for the project.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/refinesearch.html

I used this page as a reference, and then went through and demonstrated to students how to do each advanced search example, using HIV as an example disease. I spent about 20 minutes on this and today we are going back to the computer lab and we will see if they use it or just default back to the regular google and have to be prompted.

Thing 8: Dribbling Lessons

I have students doing disease research papers in biology, they have written reports which they are required to use RORs and the website prepared by Linda Wise for our biology classes. The other part of the assignment is an oral report of 3-5 minutes, where each individual student must present what they have learned to the class. These presentations can take many forms and I used dribbling lessons about prestations to prepare myself for teaching the students, and also to prepare the students for their time.

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/21stcent/wformpres.html This site had six questions that each student was able to answer. and that helped them think about the point of their presentation.

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/21stcent/presenttips.html This list of Do's and Don't was helpful for talking points during discussion. Students were also able to demonstrate bad behavior to each other.

Thing 4: Public Library

I did a poll of my first hour class today and found that only 4 out of 25 of them had visited a public library this school year. Then they asked me and I had to admit to them that I had not visited the library this school year either, which is doubly bad because I have a 4 year old daughter, who loves to go to the library. During school it is hard, but we are avid library users during the summer when I have more time.

I was searching online and found that the Rondo library does college application help, and I am going to offer extra credit to my 11th and 12th grade students who go to one of these sessions.

College Application Help

Help with college applications and questions, for high school students and adult learners
Saturdays, 1 - 4 p.m., in the SWAMP.

* January 19
* March 1
* March 15
* April 5
* April 19
* May 3

Thing 9: Streaming Video

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1588

This video shows actual footage of a restriction enzyme from a bacterial cell as it cuts viral DNA that has entered the cell.

I am amazed at the power of the microscope that was used to obtain these images. It says it was done in Japan, and is one of only three microscopes of its kind in the world. The internet is such a useful tool in this case because neither I nor my students would ever have known it existed without streaming video.

I always teach students that proteins are "little machines" that do all sorts of work in our cells, with this video it is possible to show the work they do in real time.

Thing 9

I recently used streaming video to introduce a writing assignment about summarizing for my AVID class. The class enjoyed watching the PSA below, then we had a discussion, then they had to write a summary.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5128655458183765061&q=public+service+announcement&total=8832&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=7

I hope to use more streaming video - the things that United Streaming has available are limitless for science.

Urban Planet Thoughts

This week our Media Specialist sent out a request for dates that would be best for an Urban Planet training at our school, to help teachers set up useful web sites. I think I have had 3 days of this training in various ways through staff development days, and although I do have a website (it is a requirement of our all teachers at Como), it is not one that I refer the kids to on a regular basis. I have my syllabus posted, along with a couple other random things, but in order to motivate myself to put serious time into the website I first need to visualize its usefullness at completion. What the trainings have taught me about setting up my web site... to do a useful job at it lots of time and thinking are necessary. So this week I will try to find some time to update my website with some extra credit links, good websites, and searching tools for the research that we are going to start. Hopefully next time we meet as a group we will get beyond the step of just pointing out that data bases exist, and actually get to look at one and interact with it - modeling I think would be a great way to show me this. Or, maybe an assignment to bring in a topic that we wanted to find ROR for, then get time during the meeting to look up good data bases for use in our classes. Heck, maybe even a presentation of a lesson that someone has developed for use with a data base. When in a meeting I do best when I am asked to think and process the information that is being presented, not just take in information that I could read and learn on my own.

Very Nice Email answering my questions about pre/post test data.

Robyn,

Leslie forwarded me your email expressing your concerns and questions about
MILP.  I am an independent consultant and I work with all the data for this
project.  Let me see if I can respond to your questions (although this is a
pretty long email!).  If not, please feel free to email me back and we can
continue the conversation.

You asked about how the student scores are used--Here is how we used the
student scores on the pretest and posttest last year (I imagine it will be
much the same for this year):

1) We used the student scores on the pretest last year to help us begin to
understand what high schoolers know about the MILP concepts and terminology.
We weren't sure what information they have picked up as young people growing
up with greater access to technology and were unsure about what they have
learned in school.
2) When we had both the student pretest/posttest scores, we looked to see
whether students increased their knowledge overall (across all items) and I
looked more closely at individual items to see whether they increased their
knowledge of what they knew about specific concepts or terms.
3) We also asked all the participating classroom teachers and Media
Specialists to speak to their experiences with MILP at the end of the year.
In particular, I was interested in looking at what terms and concepts
teachers and Media Specialists said they taught about last year.  We also
asked them to tell us how challenging the terms and concepts were for their
students.  In cases where a teacher said he/she spent a lot of time teaching
the material, I looked to see if that showed up in the students' scores.  In
a couple of cases it did and we went back this summer to follow up with a
few of the teachers to get a more in-depth understanding about their
teaching and how it might inform this year's project.

You also asked about why individual schools and teachers are identified:

1) We thought that individual teachers might want access to their
pretest/posttest scores (privately) and that this would be nice to offer
because you're giving a lot of your time and effort to MILP.
2) Schools are identified because we've compiled all the student scores
(pretest and posttest) and shared this with the staff and faculty in the
past (without any particular classroom being identified).  Again, this is
partly a courtesy but we know that people are interested in understanding
what's being learned by students in their school.
3) Related to these issues you should know that as an evaluation consultant,
I abide by the Minnesota Data Privacy Act and because I am the only one why
has access to this data, I do not share any particular teachers' data with
anyone but that teacher.

Finally, you expressed a concern about ELL and LD students not being
accommodated/identified when completing the tests:

1) Yes, this is a legitimate concern and one we're wrestling with right now.
While the pretest/posttest items are written at a 5.6 reading grade level, I
know that it's still a long and technical test for students who are learning
English or who may have challenges with learning.

I appreciate you taking the time to follow-up with these issues.  Let me
know if I can answer any more questions.
****************************
Christa Treichel
Cooperative Ventures
1277 Dayton Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104
651-642-9067 (ph)
651-645-6767 (fax)
treic004@umn.edu

How I feel about blogging right now.

It has been two weeks since our last meeting. I am attempting tonight to familiarize myself with the blogging process so I stop being angry at having to do it. Here is the blog prompt I found...

• What is your experience with blogs? Do you read them regularly?
• How did it go setting up this blog?

I have never read a blog before this assignment. I think that they are somewhat like listserves, but much more random. I am skeptical how I will like reading them (actually, I'm not sure the assignment is to read them at all), because I do not know the people very well, and because we are fulfilling the requirements just by posting, not by being graded A/F, but Pass/Fail, I don't think people will spend much time writing them.

Of course I could be wrong. Maybe by reading the blogs I will learn how to teach my students how to use the internet to become informationally literate. That is why I will try and do my best to make my own blogs interesting, not a waste of time to read, and fairly short. Wouldn't it be great if everyone did the same?

If you read to the end of this thank you, and if you didn't, I understand ;). Robyn Asher