My blog contains the following:
Soft Chalk-my opinions of this lesson plan software
Webquest-my opinions of the Webquest software
Skype versus Google Talk-if you want to know what I think
A Soft Chalk lesson plan
Social Networking-a strong opinion
Podcast-a speech on CERN
Google map
Graphic
Edgar Dale Cone of Experience
Why I Want to Teach
Me and the Family
First Thoughts of Blogging
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Soft Chalk program for lesson plans
This was an assignment that seemed simple, but proved full of potholes. I was to make a lesson plan using the demonstration version of Soft Chalk. A link was provided to their website so that I could download the free version.
The website proved to be a dead site, and from the discussion board of the class, no one was able to get into it. From previous experience, I Googled Soft Chalk, which brought me to a live website where the link to the free software was active. In the past, I have found that some of these companies do wholesale changes in their websites and discard the old web pages instead of updating them, so if a link fails, I always attempt googling the company's name to see if this is the case. In the case of Soft Chalk, it proved to be so.
Now, for Soft Chalk. I have used Microsoft Word and MS Publisher to do lesson plans, and have been advised from the start of my FSU Education courses that I should stick to basic lesson plans that do not elaborate much. For elaboration, I should provide notes to be used for each lesson on separate pages, and these can be updated and changed as necessary. It is a fairly fast process the way I do it now.
Soft Chalk proved anything but fast. It starts as a tedious process, and if you do only one lesson plan, you do not get the full value of this program. It is much faster to do a lesson plan in Word than in Soft Chalk.
However, if you do two lesson plans in Soft Chalk, you begin to see the real value of the program. It's strength is not in making a single lesson plan; it's strength is doing everything else needed for a unit after making more than 1 lesson plan.
Soft Chalk will do quizzes, tests, and everything else that is usually time intensive for a teacher. Once you get the daily information inputted, it takes care of the rest. The quiz section is a joy, allowing you to choose the types of questions and the answers you will accept. Once you put in the first lesson plan, it is a snap to continue to scaffold a unit's learning through the next dozen or so lessons, then add quizzes and tests and print out notes for lecture. By the time I reached my third lesson plan, I had gone from a critic to an absolute fan. This is a good program.
Do not be put off by the relatively steep learning curve or the time it takes to get started. By the time you reach the third lesson plan, you will be a veteran of the software and you will be amazed at the overall time it can save you. I will recommend this software without hesitation to anyone with a desire to do a good job while cutting valuable time. You won't see it on your first lesson, but you will afterward. The only real problem with the software is that it is relatively expensive to purchase the full version, but if your school provides it, you should consider using it.
The website proved to be a dead site, and from the discussion board of the class, no one was able to get into it. From previous experience, I Googled Soft Chalk, which brought me to a live website where the link to the free software was active. In the past, I have found that some of these companies do wholesale changes in their websites and discard the old web pages instead of updating them, so if a link fails, I always attempt googling the company's name to see if this is the case. In the case of Soft Chalk, it proved to be so.
Now, for Soft Chalk. I have used Microsoft Word and MS Publisher to do lesson plans, and have been advised from the start of my FSU Education courses that I should stick to basic lesson plans that do not elaborate much. For elaboration, I should provide notes to be used for each lesson on separate pages, and these can be updated and changed as necessary. It is a fairly fast process the way I do it now.
Soft Chalk proved anything but fast. It starts as a tedious process, and if you do only one lesson plan, you do not get the full value of this program. It is much faster to do a lesson plan in Word than in Soft Chalk.
However, if you do two lesson plans in Soft Chalk, you begin to see the real value of the program. It's strength is not in making a single lesson plan; it's strength is doing everything else needed for a unit after making more than 1 lesson plan.
Soft Chalk will do quizzes, tests, and everything else that is usually time intensive for a teacher. Once you get the daily information inputted, it takes care of the rest. The quiz section is a joy, allowing you to choose the types of questions and the answers you will accept. Once you put in the first lesson plan, it is a snap to continue to scaffold a unit's learning through the next dozen or so lessons, then add quizzes and tests and print out notes for lecture. By the time I reached my third lesson plan, I had gone from a critic to an absolute fan. This is a good program.
Do not be put off by the relatively steep learning curve or the time it takes to get started. By the time you reach the third lesson plan, you will be a veteran of the software and you will be amazed at the overall time it can save you. I will recommend this software without hesitation to anyone with a desire to do a good job while cutting valuable time. You won't see it on your first lesson, but you will afterward. The only real problem with the software is that it is relatively expensive to purchase the full version, but if your school provides it, you should consider using it.
My assignment was to create a Webquest using software on the internet for that purpose. Due to the limitations of my internet access recently (dialup!!!) I opened an existing Webquest and used it as a template, modifying it so that the only thing that exists from the original is the last author's name. The original Webquest was a chemistry webquest exploring the periodic table, while mine is a physics webquest exploring scaffolding learning on the states of matter and the fundamental forces of the universe. The point was to update the students' information above the material available in any high school textbook while introducing them to reliable science news available on the internet.
You can view my Webquest at Bill's Webquest.
What did I learn about Webquest?
First, the concept is excellent. I have made lesson plans that incorporate all aspects that you use in a Webquest, but this is the first time I've been exposed to the actual Webquest capabilities, and I am enthusiastic.
Second, there is a lot of Webquests available, but unfortunately they vary greatly in subject quality and detail.
Third, Webquest is incredibly slow, which can be frustrating. Most of my activity on Webquest was done via dialup, and I expected that to be slow, but there really was not a lot of improvement moving to a fast satellite condition. I had to upload some pictures and moved to the FSU site to do so, and it still took several minutes for 44 k in uploading. Each move to a new screen takes several minutes of lag before the actual screen starts loading, and then the loading can take anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. I hope this is an area that gets some improvement as they move on.
Overall, this is a tremendous resource for teachers, and I will use it a lot.
You can view my Webquest at Bill's Webquest.
What did I learn about Webquest?
First, the concept is excellent. I have made lesson plans that incorporate all aspects that you use in a Webquest, but this is the first time I've been exposed to the actual Webquest capabilities, and I am enthusiastic.
Second, there is a lot of Webquests available, but unfortunately they vary greatly in subject quality and detail.
Third, Webquest is incredibly slow, which can be frustrating. Most of my activity on Webquest was done via dialup, and I expected that to be slow, but there really was not a lot of improvement moving to a fast satellite condition. I had to upload some pictures and moved to the FSU site to do so, and it still took several minutes for 44 k in uploading. Each move to a new screen takes several minutes of lag before the actual screen starts loading, and then the loading can take anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. I hope this is an area that gets some improvement as they move on.
Overall, this is a tremendous resource for teachers, and I will use it a lot.
Skype versus Google Talk
Skype versus Google
Film at Eleven
Skype opened a new market when it started video calls and conferencing, and has several years on Google. Google, the dominant search engine for many reasons, only recently got into the market with its video version of Google Talk. Our assignment was to decide which one was best, and support our decision with facts. This is what I found.
First, the preconceptions need to be discussed. I have used Skype for more than a year, and most of my friends use it. It was first and got the kinks out of their program rather quickly. Google, while now dominating the search engine business, has issued some rather revolutionary software applications (Google Earth among others) but has a tendency to put beta products out and allowing the first users to test the programs. I tend to stay away from Google products for the first six months so they can be play tested by someone else. I don’t know for certain that this is a fair assumption, but I find it practical. I also take the same position on products from Microsoft, and will not even consider upgrading an operating system until the second service pack is issued.
I combined this project in with another project I was involved with. I sometimes do volunteer work for the Doddridge County Starting Points, part of a group sanctioned by the state of West Virginia but depending on donations and grants for their operating budget. There are thirteen Starting Points’ charters in the state, and they are responsible for providing and coordinating non-monetary assistance to new parents with children up to three years old.
It is a good program, but there is a problem with the state charter: the state charter requires monthly meetings of all the charters. Considering the tight budgets made tighter by economic conditions, getting the officers together from across the state each month is a considerable burden. The charter does not specify an actual face to face meeting of all thirteen charters, but does require a central meeting. The individual Starting Points have already inquired about telephone conferencing, and was quoted more than $800 per month to allow the 13 charters to get together via phone. I recommended video conferencing using webcams, and this project allowed me to test the waters.
To make equipment a non issue, we went with three webcams all made by Microsoft. All three were Microsoft Life-Cam VX-3000, purchased from Amazon.com for $18.00 each. They were all installed on systems using Microsoft Windows XP service pack two. One system was hooked to the internet via satellite connection, one was hooked via a telephone DSL, and one hooked via dialup.
For our purposes, there were immediate problems with Google Talk, some anticipated, some not. First, at the time of our testing (Jan. 2010) Google Talk did not offer any conferencing capability, though they plan to soon (and may already have, I haven’t checked lately.) Connection was sometimes difficult, and impossible with the dialup connection. Skype did offer a limited conferencing capability, but due to the dialup connection we were using on one system, it was impossible to get all three people hooked up to demonstrate the conferencing capability. We were able to hook up the dialup connection with either of the other two hookups, but it would not handle both, which is a severe limitation to the Starting Points requirement because several of the 13 charters have access only to dialup.
It appeared that Google was a bit of a memory hog, and Skype was a bit easier to connect and use, but you would expect that considering that Skype has been around for several years and Google Talk for less than a year.
There were two issues that picked a winner for me, one expected, one not so expected. As expected, each service is limited basically to conversations between members with the same service, though it is possible to go through Windows IM to get around this. I would choose Skype at this point, however, for the reason I set out in the opening paragraph: most of the people I know use Skype, making it easy for me to find and connect with them.
The issue I did not expect was in video quality. I cannot explain why, but in every connection we made, the video quality on Skype exceeded the quality on Google Talk. Skype ran a bit smoother, took up less space, and provided a better video quality. We switched around the webcams and got the same result. It is possible that Google Talk does not work well with the Microsoft webcams, but I expected a better quality picture than Google provided. When I started this exercise, I did not think this would be an issue.
As soon as I am able, we’re going to have to go back to see if there is another way to allow Starting Points charters to meet via internet conferencing. They simply cannot afford the one day a month travel that brings some of the Starting Points from the two panhandles of the state to a location at the center of the state, usually Weston. It is a lot of miles to travel while maintaining incredibly tight budgets, and gets to be a real problem in winter. Short of modifying their charter, which is unlikely as the state government is involved, video conferencing is the only way to go. More on this as soon as I am able.
Film at Eleven
Skype opened a new market when it started video calls and conferencing, and has several years on Google. Google, the dominant search engine for many reasons, only recently got into the market with its video version of Google Talk. Our assignment was to decide which one was best, and support our decision with facts. This is what I found.
First, the preconceptions need to be discussed. I have used Skype for more than a year, and most of my friends use it. It was first and got the kinks out of their program rather quickly. Google, while now dominating the search engine business, has issued some rather revolutionary software applications (Google Earth among others) but has a tendency to put beta products out and allowing the first users to test the programs. I tend to stay away from Google products for the first six months so they can be play tested by someone else. I don’t know for certain that this is a fair assumption, but I find it practical. I also take the same position on products from Microsoft, and will not even consider upgrading an operating system until the second service pack is issued.
I combined this project in with another project I was involved with. I sometimes do volunteer work for the Doddridge County Starting Points, part of a group sanctioned by the state of West Virginia but depending on donations and grants for their operating budget. There are thirteen Starting Points’ charters in the state, and they are responsible for providing and coordinating non-monetary assistance to new parents with children up to three years old.
It is a good program, but there is a problem with the state charter: the state charter requires monthly meetings of all the charters. Considering the tight budgets made tighter by economic conditions, getting the officers together from across the state each month is a considerable burden. The charter does not specify an actual face to face meeting of all thirteen charters, but does require a central meeting. The individual Starting Points have already inquired about telephone conferencing, and was quoted more than $800 per month to allow the 13 charters to get together via phone. I recommended video conferencing using webcams, and this project allowed me to test the waters.
To make equipment a non issue, we went with three webcams all made by Microsoft. All three were Microsoft Life-Cam VX-3000, purchased from Amazon.com for $18.00 each. They were all installed on systems using Microsoft Windows XP service pack two. One system was hooked to the internet via satellite connection, one was hooked via a telephone DSL, and one hooked via dialup.
For our purposes, there were immediate problems with Google Talk, some anticipated, some not. First, at the time of our testing (Jan. 2010) Google Talk did not offer any conferencing capability, though they plan to soon (and may already have, I haven’t checked lately.) Connection was sometimes difficult, and impossible with the dialup connection. Skype did offer a limited conferencing capability, but due to the dialup connection we were using on one system, it was impossible to get all three people hooked up to demonstrate the conferencing capability. We were able to hook up the dialup connection with either of the other two hookups, but it would not handle both, which is a severe limitation to the Starting Points requirement because several of the 13 charters have access only to dialup.
It appeared that Google was a bit of a memory hog, and Skype was a bit easier to connect and use, but you would expect that considering that Skype has been around for several years and Google Talk for less than a year.
There were two issues that picked a winner for me, one expected, one not so expected. As expected, each service is limited basically to conversations between members with the same service, though it is possible to go through Windows IM to get around this. I would choose Skype at this point, however, for the reason I set out in the opening paragraph: most of the people I know use Skype, making it easy for me to find and connect with them.
The issue I did not expect was in video quality. I cannot explain why, but in every connection we made, the video quality on Skype exceeded the quality on Google Talk. Skype ran a bit smoother, took up less space, and provided a better video quality. We switched around the webcams and got the same result. It is possible that Google Talk does not work well with the Microsoft webcams, but I expected a better quality picture than Google provided. When I started this exercise, I did not think this would be an issue.
As soon as I am able, we’re going to have to go back to see if there is another way to allow Starting Points charters to meet via internet conferencing. They simply cannot afford the one day a month travel that brings some of the Starting Points from the two panhandles of the state to a location at the center of the state, usually Weston. It is a lot of miles to travel while maintaining incredibly tight budgets, and gets to be a real problem in winter. Short of modifying their charter, which is unlikely as the state government is involved, video conferencing is the only way to go. More on this as soon as I am able.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
SoftChalk
I have uploaded my SoftChalk lesson plan to the FTP site. I really enjoyed the experience with SoftChalk, and especially enjoyed the process of creating the quiz questions.
Check out my Oceanography lesson plan.
Check out my Oceanography lesson plan.
Social Networking in Schools
Social networking can be a wonderful thing. Social networks promote communication among people who have lost touch with over the years. My wife, for instance, has gotten in touch with family members she hasn’t seen or heard from in thirty years or more. Social networking has its place. In my opinion, however, that place is not, at present, in the public schools. There are liability issues that can be dealt with on the adult level that cannot be addressed, or at least fully addressed, with minors. When adults behave irresponsibly, they can be held accountable. And unless students are going to be monitored to make sure there is no attempt to discredit, slander, or bully others, their access to social networks at school should be restricted or denied. At the very least, the content of the sites should be monitored. I do not believe there is enough supervision available to make student participation in social networks like MySpace and Facebook safe. Accordingly, a survey done by the National School Board Association in 2007 showed that 52 % of school boards prohibit the use of social networking in schools. However, that means that 48% of school boards surveyed must allow it. I spoke to the principal at Doddridge County High School, Dr. Gregory Kuhns, and was told that DCHS does not yet allow social networks to be used during school hours, but that many students have indicated that they use them on their own time.
The following is a list of references you may use to get more information about social networking in schools.
Andrews, R. (2007, April). Don't tell your parents: schools embrace myspace. Wired.com, Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/culture/education/news/2007/04/myspaceforschool
Snyder, T. (2007). Social networking: theirspace. edutopia, Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/whats-next-2007-school-social-networking
Oppenhuizen, K. (2007, July 27). Schools creating new rules for social networking policies. USA Today, Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2008-07-27-social-networks_N.htm
Magid, L. (2010, February 25). Social networking belongs in school. CNET News, Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10459983-238.html
Lefferts, J.F. (2007, January 25). Student survey sees risky use of internet. The Boston Globe, Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/news.education/k_12/articles/2007/01/25/student_survey_sees_risky_use_of_internet/
The following is a list of references you may use to get more information about social networking in schools.
Andrews, R. (2007, April). Don't tell your parents: schools embrace myspace. Wired.com, Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/culture/education/news/2007/04/myspaceforschool
Snyder, T. (2007). Social networking: theirspace. edutopia, Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/whats-next-2007-school-social-networking
Oppenhuizen, K. (2007, July 27). Schools creating new rules for social networking policies. USA Today, Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2008-07-27-social-networks_N.htm
Magid, L. (2010, February 25). Social networking belongs in school. CNET News, Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10459983-238.html
Lefferts, J.F. (2007, January 25). Student survey sees risky use of internet. The Boston Globe, Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/news.education/k_12/articles/2007/01/25/student_survey_sees_risky_use_of_internet/
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Podcast
CERNThis is my podcast relating to the coming changes in science. I hope to use material such as this to pique some interest in my physics students about the coming revolution in science that will happen in their lifetimes. The material is current, happening as we speak, and quite relevant to the future decades. After listening to the podcast, my students will start work on the CERN scavenger hunt, where they will hopefully learn enough to interest them in wanting to know more.
CERNPodcast
CERN Scavenger Hunt
I used Audacity to complete the podcast. Audacity is not difficult to use; indeed, the only difficulty is that I came down this last 10 days with the first laryngitus of my life, and this is an impossible assignment if you cannot speak. My voice still cracks and breaks during the voice recording, but this is the best I can do for awhile. I am also at maximum volume, so if you cannot hear, it will be corrected when I get a little better. I tried to cut and paste the music a lot, then found the easy to use stretch key to make the music fit the words, and I was off and running. I was surprised how much volume a Wav. file is, but I could not download the program I needed to allow Audacity to export to a mp3 format. I will try to correct that later, as well.
I was later able to change the format of my file, going from a wav. file to an mp3. file. This changed the volume to only 2.64 mbite, a far more satisfactory size.
As for the relevance of the material, I consider it possibly the most important things I can discuss as a physics teacher. Consider this: the discovery of the electron allowed all the wonderful things we developed in the 20th century. What can the graviton bring us?
CERNPodcast
CERN Scavenger Hunt
I used Audacity to complete the podcast. Audacity is not difficult to use; indeed, the only difficulty is that I came down this last 10 days with the first laryngitus of my life, and this is an impossible assignment if you cannot speak. My voice still cracks and breaks during the voice recording, but this is the best I can do for awhile. I am also at maximum volume, so if you cannot hear, it will be corrected when I get a little better. I tried to cut and paste the music a lot, then found the easy to use stretch key to make the music fit the words, and I was off and running. I was surprised how much volume a Wav. file is, but I could not download the program I needed to allow Audacity to export to a mp3 format. I will try to correct that later, as well.
I was later able to change the format of my file, going from a wav. file to an mp3. file. This changed the volume to only 2.64 mbite, a far more satisfactory size.
As for the relevance of the material, I consider it possibly the most important things I can discuss as a physics teacher. Consider this: the discovery of the electron allowed all the wonderful things we developed in the 20th century. What can the graviton bring us?
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