Interesting

Some research about constructivism in science shows that middle school science students have misconceptions on WHY scientists use models to demonstrate ideas. It is imortant thqt those models shown are conceptually appropriate for our students. I wish there was another middle school science teacher involved in TEAM to bounce these ideas off of

Love this quote about constructivism from google search

Thus, from a constructivist perspective, science is not the search for truth. It is a process that assists us to make sense of our world. Using a constructivist perspective, teaching science becomes more like the science that scientists do - it is an active, social process of making sense of experiences, as opposed to what we now call "school science." Indeed, actively engaging students in science (we have all heard the call for "hands-on, minds-on science") is the goal of most science education reform. It is an admirable goal, and using constructivism as a referent can possibly assist in reaching that goal.

1. http://www.exploratorium.edu/ifi/resources/research/constructivism.html

Constructivist Learning Environments for the Science Classroom

Picture this a Science Classroom with lab counters only and many resources layed out for investigation. I would be inspired to look at "play" with the objecte to create or make some kind of sense out of them.

Ideally i think this would be great!! However there are some thing that must be taken into concederation. Lots of Planning, lots or resources ( that sometimes are not available) lots of space, smaller class sizes to facilitate discussion and easy assessment and monitoring, and TIMe to set up change resources to keep students interested and challenged

I try to use constructivist teaching methods in science but I find it difficult to do when studnets don't even want to read directions.

LIU Online Resources

Arrgh I cant find my borrower bar code. I want to read some real biology journals again and about constructivism

Using Audio in classes

Today I have been talking with my students about the science of Thanksgiving and I have been using a Audiofile from NPR. It has been great. It exposes the students to another voice and reinforces listening comprehension. I will have to search for more of these.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5026779

Creating Quick Topics

I just created my first quick topic for our EEV group, Green technology. It was pretty easy and now I am wondering how I could use these in a middle school classsroom. I have to re read the school districts poplicy on internet usage because I could see how it might become a cyber bullying concern for some administrators or parents.

Mini Saga

So I uploaded my mini saga. I word counted it through MS word and it was first 54 then 49 words than I was able to get it right. I thought why not write about something I know .....ME. SO I did a 5o work Autobiography. I think I f I find some old family pictures over the thankskiving break it will make a good video. photo story etc

When everything works its great when it doesn't its horrible

So I go and buy a new laptop for TEAM in August and now it is not working right. THe Ctrl+X, V, and C combinations are no longer working. SO what do I have to Do send it back to Toshiba in Tennessee because the "think it is a hardware issue" Is it so much to ask to have aproduct work??? I am going to wait to send it back after thursday's marretch session. I can't stand it

Finally learned how to post my audacity project!!!! Thanks Adrienne

Audacity Project

So I heard that everyone in class last week heard my audacity project which is kind of cool. The audacity program is pretty neat. I was not good at editing out words or phrases out of recorded audio( my voice) so I just did a few takes. The whole project reminded me of a friend of mine who is an audio engineer. I think having students make public service announcements for earth day / environmental awarness would be cool. I think they could really run with it. I will have to check with thw computer people at school to get it installed on computers/laptops and check for the availability of microphones.

My brain totally shut down last week when learning about audacity but I worked on it with one of my classmates and we collaborated to use our collective strenghts and created some cool audio tracks. It was like doing voice over work in my friends audio studio. I downloaded the delicious tool bar to all my computers and if I come across some interesting sites its super easy to bookmark/ tag them

Marretech

I have been sucessful with marretech. Spelling it is another thing. I'vehad a sucessful conferencing session with james and checked in with sean. I just had to remember not to have the mic on the whole time. It can get annoyiong sometines if it gets a bit scratchy but it cool that you can get multiplt people involved compared to skype which only allows a pair of people to communicate.

Have been editing my bookmarks on delicious. I found three people who have this one website linked that I didn't think anyone else would have bookmarked. Cool!! I have to check out more of what they have linked. I have also deleted a bunch or junk bookmarks that have been imported from various computers that I use. I have been trying to add pictures to my blog but it keeps tring to resize them and it keeps messing them up. Thinking about how I am going to present Interwrite software for presentation tomorrow. I just found out some cool stuff on the updated interwrite software that I will bring up during presentation and show a demo lesson that I use.

What a day!!! Weather was awesome and surfed some great waves for over two hours with a few buddies! My back is paying for it now trying to get picture on blog with little sucess

First Post

Hello out there in cyber space. Do you really want to be reading this right now.