Zach's Equations and Antics

Momentum Quiz Online

2010-01-20T12:06:00.001-08:00

See your class page for details.

Farewell, but not Forgotten

2009-04-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

I discovered:
The favorite thing I discovered was the last thing I discovered. Schools facebook application. SIS integration, secure(not on facebook servers) and Students will be amazed by it! The video showed it was for college, but can it work for High school and does the district have to set it up? Must research more.

Lifelong Learning
Program has been a paradigm shift for how I expect to have a classroom. This program was a very powerful seed for my future development.

Didnt Expect...
The program was more than I expected. I am tech savvy, so I thought I would fly through it, I mostly did ;), but but understanding its potential was very useful.

Tips:
The word I heard was that the wiki directions lacked continuity, meaning the directions seemed scattered. REstructuring that might help future lifelong learners.

I would try another course if
It was during the summer and the program was geared for actual setup of online class setup. With prerequisites like this course, adn the promise that the teacher has a solid curriculum, they could get there classes online with support. They get their work done early, get paid for it, and are setup for online classrooms. The strucure of the class should have some flexibility, so the classes are not cookie cutter like. I would love to be a part of that!!!

Influence
After real practice with all of this, I think teaching will be more organic despite all the tech talk. I will see my practice as more organic, meaning better feedback, relationships with the class with an easier and natural flow, and more mutualistic for the educator and educatee.

Stay connected
RSS widgets, facebook, and classroom 2.0 and maybe delicious. That should cover it!

Thing 23 - Professional Networking

2009-04-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

Classroom 2.0 = digital gold my friend. In my opinion its top resource for teachers. Easily searchable, large enough to have quality content. Definately a professional discussion about the teacher side of life. Yes, I am not alone!!! Easy to stay connected with groups and quickly referenced with tags.

Nancy Willard gives a good explaination of social networking with education. Pro's, Con's Misconceptions and tips. This seems like a good starting point for any staff development dealing with social networking. Thanks to Nancy!

Jaw dropping goodness here. Check it out and watch the video.

Visit 23 Thingsters

I like the timer widget, great for student project deadlines for online work!!!
Must make it look more evil and ominous.

Thing 22 - In your Facebook!

2009-04-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Yeay, facebook! I have a facebook and in personal experience it keep me in touch with pretty much anyone I have had contact with in my life. I dont think I would use my facebook to give to the students, only because that would be alot of friends. If I can make an alternate, that would be neat. I need to go over the terms of service though to be sure.

I noticed that there are facebook apps. With a little more effort, I am sure the apps can be used to start excitement about projects or informal quizzes.

It seems that myspace is loosing steam and is geared more to music which is still cool.

The educational aspect for facebook is weak. Its a social networking site. Mybe if there was a Educational networking site...

Thing 7b - Cool study aids found.

2009-04-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Free technology for teachers blog reviewed a site called cramberry, an online flashcard website. After signing up for an account, I could see the usefulness of this. Vocab builder easy, review easy. I beleive I saw an option for printing the cards or you can study the cards online. Those with an iPhone can download an app for cramberry, pretty cool huh?

I can make my own sets or explore others. I fould a nice college level physics set and was playing with that a while. Hope you enjoy it!

Thing 21 - My Google Toolbelt

2009-04-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

Sketchup I am already familiar with. A decent autocad program, I say decent because its free. Students can make 3D models of projects. I might as them to design a machine when going over simple machines and have them come up with their own and make a design of it in Sketchup.

Heres a picture of a cup I was wanting to make in pottery.

Google Earth is also cool for any Geography class. They can see and manipulate the workd like a globe. They can zoom in on places of interest. They can make their own mock vacation by finding pictures in some of the mashup sites like flickrmaps.

Thing 20: Whats up Docs?

2009-04-08T16:49:00.000-07:00

After playing around with google docs, I saw many things that could make life easier.

Forms! Homework made easy. Given that you can get the majority of your class to do work online at home, you have homework made easy. Forms allows you to make questions. Use that ability to make quizzes, reviews, homework, tests or anything else like it that could work for you.

The results are available in a spreadsheet format, where you could make if then statements to tally results for each individual. If that seems over the top, you can look at the results and easily spot wrong answers.

A coowrker had or found the idea of a student made test. The online word program lets students write what ever they want in this document. You can look at each revision to see who submitted what and when. This document could work as a review for the student made test as the teacher culls down all the questions for the actual test.

For student made presentations, students can collaborate and edit a presentation at the same time. As they review the presentation, they can chat while editing. This allows students to work at home without having to all meet together.

Thing 19 - Voicethread

2009-04-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

A cool app, Definate potential. It is easily integrated into moodle, which MISD has available to teachers. If you sign up as a teacher, you get extra perks like unlimited voice threads and 2 Gig of storage.

This allows you to enter music as a comment as well. I can have a series of problem sets up for students to work individually or as a group.

Comment moderation allows you to sensor comments before they hit mainstream. That comment is only visible to the user and you. You as the teacher have the choice to keep it private or delete it.

Very neat, I wish I could integrate music easier though.

Thing 18 - YouTube!

2009-04-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

YouTube Playlistgreat free widgetsWidgetbox

I usually spend a good amount of time on youtube, so by the start of this assignment, I had already known what I wanted to share with everyone. I get a good amount of ideas for Physics demos from youtube. Searching Bill Beaty gets you a number of good stuff. I had to put the evolution of dance on there, its nestalgic to me. When I heard how to, I automatically think howcast. Watching items on the howcast site is better, their player will have comments in the timeline, and an embeded sidepar for what is needed and an outline of the steps.

Thing 17 - Calling all podcast

2009-04-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

I realy like the podcasts I found, listening to 60 second scence made my jaw drop as I heard that MIT had learned how to have viruses make batteries, Very Genius!

DragonflyTV was cool too. I think I want my stduents to do what they did, make an art project out of science concepts. Without Pigment.

Having students develop a script and record a podcast should be easy to do. Working in groups of 2, they could make "taks tips", "student science", "Physics phreaks", or any other science related scripts about current content.

Thing 16 - Loving the library

2009-04-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Wow! It does comics too! or at least the graphic novels I read. I made an account, and might start the 50 book challenge this summer! A great site to get kids pumped about readingin general.

I like it when you search a site, many books have excerpts you can read.

I started a library of books that I have read, or read alot of. Check it out.

Thing 15 - Tag, your it!

2009-04-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

I can see how I could incorperate this into an online website. You can use the Network feature to see what classmates are bookmarking. Many students are avidweb surfers and they can use this to be using prime webtimeto look at all the interesting academic related stuff you find. Having a continuing assignent where students find relevant websites and make a detailed description not only gets the student involved in current and interesting stuff, but gets them participating in the web community. Its current events in the modern world.

Your welcome to add me to your network!

Thing 7a - Reader Reading

2009-04-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

Teacher Website hosting

Without the ability to find much detail on the site without signing up, I found a webite that will give you an online classroom.

ClassJump was found at a blog titled teachlearning.

This site allows each student an individual login to relate to classes. The clasroom has the ability to post homework, upload documents to share with class, a calendar, post articles and internet links, recieve documents from the internal student login, a message board and limitless photoalbums.

Students can upload work in a personal file or send to the teacher.

Mesquite has a webhosting service for teachers already, moodle.com. Moodle had the ability for more features, including a web friendly powerpoint conversions for ease of viewing. With training, teachers could create interactive applications for students to practice. Both options have potential for a paperless classroom.

Thing 14 - Wordle Wordle

2009-03-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

Image by Wordle.net

This type of thing could make a great background for any electronic media. Very easy to use, even for the uncreative! I had to think, Ok... now what do I put in here. My eyes followed the page down and behold, I could drop my blogspot into it. So I did.

After thinking about it some, every six weeks have a printout for students similar to this as a vocabulary sheet. Its a new way initiating vocabulary to the students. A cool find. A very good visual to capture specific literary works.

Thing 13 - the Jpeg Jester

2009-03-31T17:41:00.001-07:00

Just toying around with the stuff, no real application other than potential aesthetics. Students can make eye catching demonstrations that relate to content. Pretty cool.

Things 12 - Domo Animoto, Mr Roboto!

2009-03-30T23:04:00.000-07:00

A nice little splash video for my wikispace, yeah!

The sound was found from a beautiful little site known as jamendo.
Me and Einstein were just hanging out at Wikimedia.
We stopped by to check out what was happenin at the LHC,
then went back to reminice about some of the classics, (classical physics that is).
The ceramics were crafted by me,
Fallout 3 was my game of choice at the moment,
and Frisbee golf is an ongoing hobby.

Thing 11 - Flickr Found!

2009-03-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

Flickr is a great way to get visuals for any presentation. I created an account and favorited the images I found that focused on the theme Heat Transfer. Its the Unit my IPC students will be covering shortly. Seeing the copyright specifics on the photo's page is very useful as well. The underscore search tip ws useful in keeping my search parameters narrowed. The results I came up are presented in a Flickrslidr. Just a few keystrokes and a couple mouseclicks and Whoa La.

Heat Transfer - Conduction - Convection - Radiation - Temperature

Thing 10 - Common Ground

2009-03-09T21:18:00.001-07:00

Creative commons allows the less artistic more dimensions to express themselves. I usually have an idea of how I want something to be presented, but my limitation is my lack or artistic ability.

With Creative Commons, I can search for visuals, and audios that are free to use or remix and edit and present them how I see fit. See what I put on the misd23things wiki for an example.

When I do this, I can't call it mine. I call it ours. Although, I really cant say who all the participants are. Just generous individuals that are proud of a piece and want to share it with the world. And I help them in that process

Thing 9 - Wiki, Wiki good!

2009-03-09T21:17:00.001-07:00

I found some awesome ammunition for a Wiki page. Animoto.com let me throw some pictures on a site, pick a song, and Presto, Instant cool Intor for my page. The freebies are limited for 30 seconds, which is perfect for an intro. The only troubleshooting detail was the TOC. My ADHD lack of detail self missed the bold "TWO brackets on each side."

So proud! Check it out - physicsaddict.wikispaces.com

Communities can be easily made and enriched with the use of Wikis. The process was simple.
Ask for permission --> Make a page --> Link the page

The hardest part for this activity is the creativity.
But thats why Wikis are cool.
One group can focus on the content, and the other can focus on the Flare.

Thing 8 - Wiki Quick

2009-03-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

I found the organization of most of the sites easy to follow. One site, had their blogger page embedded into their Wiki. Its a cool concept, but killed the scroll function on my mousewheel. It could be useful If you can keep your blogger page short. The site had a plethora of tools to use for educators. I liked the concept of a visual intro. Voki is a way to create a digital avatar that will speak what ever you type. This has lots of potential, as you can have an animated charater speak what ever you type, which would make updating it easy.

Dr. Reich's Chemistry Wiki is another with a video intro, but simply a webcam recording, hosted by teachertube, which I am greatful for because the mesquite district does not ban.

Math 12V is a useful site, but lacking visuals. I wonder if they know about the little sitemo app I have on my sidebar. Maybe I will check...

The FHS Wolves den has some very intersting tools that allow them to share information about english and history. I looked at the Voicethread.com site. This site from my understanding is an interactive visual discussion site, with many ways to comment, via phone, webcam. A person can speak live and edit images at the same time. Cool tool. Viddler is a video site with some cool tweaks, like commenting on the video and displaying them in the timeline.

The Wiki's seem more collaborative than blogging, but so far I like the ease of design in blogging.

A cool feature I thought might be interesting is to have my assignments on a blog, wiki or whatever and RSS feed it. Let students know about mobile RSS readers and they always have access to assignments or other info.

For my personal Wiki, I would like to have a video intro, maybe through Voki, unless the particular text to voice is too choppy. Maybe if I can find an online video editor and make something there. A banner nav bar and a sidebar with quick content links. Current content will be the bulk of the page. Currently my thoughts seem a bit Web 1.0, so I will have to process some thoughts about what to use for making it web2.0.

Please, Feel free to comment and give ideas!!!

Thing 7 - Commenting about commenting on comments

2009-03-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

Feedback is easy to give and great ideas can be found through the commenting features. I am just getting the start of it, but it I wonder if search engines will find comments. For example, if I were searching for a fix to a problem. Someone might have addressed a problem in the post, and the fix in the comments. I am sure there are alot of gadgets that can better optimize comments, like rating comments and sort by rating to zero in on the heart of the discussion.

An interesting idea indeed...

Thing 6 - Cant stop the Signal, Mel

2009-02-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

I have information of my choosing just clicks away. Current Technology, Newest ideas, Todays news, all very useful stuff to apply to my classes.

By browsing I get the interesting info I like reading such as how to build a supercomputer out of PS3's and how to erase old hard drives without a drill bit.

I also get the thoughts of a teacher I can relate to. Also I get educational ideas, like an online option for individual of collaborative digital storytelling with mixbook. I will find many options and begin contributing myself to the online community.

Thing #5 - Teaching technology students are familiar with.

2009-02-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

Some ideas about cellphones and education, additions to ideas from this site

This being my first year, I have many other things I am trying to keep a grip on. However, I do try to make use of technology, beyond the basics. One idea I found and had a chance to use was polleverywhere.com.

This site lets you make a poll that students can reply with a cell phone. I used it to see where the class stood on Kinematics. I created a series of questions with multiple choice answers. The site lets you drop the poll in a powerpoint, which can add spice to powerpoints if the kids are familiar with the poll. this gave me instant feedback on the students and the students were participating in the activity. As they texted their reply, they can see the percentage of their answer choice increase.

Another item I found was a program called Phun. This program allows me to sketch a physics environment and hit play to see how things could interact with eachother. From cars to catapults to spring launchers, the program lets you vary speed of wheels, play with friction, density and has limited use for density.

In combination with the Interwrite boards, students can create any examples they imagine and test them.

The students love seeing technology, especially if its something close to home and they get to work with it.

2009-02-10T20:18:00.000-08:00

Really enjoying this blog thing, with aid from a web developer friend, I learned how to make a good looking page. Also playing with a gadget I picked up:

On another note, I needed to tweak my learning contract, I missed the point the first time. I am glad it happened after getting an idea about the potentil of Web 2.0 and blogging.

With that in mind I decided to post it here so the community can join in and possibly keep me accountable.

My Learning Contract

I will develop a physics curriculum with extensive online support that allows students to interact with their peers to better their education by July 2009.

Below is a list of some obstacles I may face and how I will overcome those obstacles:
Obstacle? How I can overcome the obstacle?
Understanding of online resources 23 Things; Indepedent Research online; communicate with peers online and offline
Integrating the Physics curriculum Use and modify current Curriculum; find online physics aids
Students with limited access Offer offline alternatives
Going Solo Involve peers and blogging community

Below is a list of some obstacles I may face and how I will overcome those obstacles:
Obstacle?	How I can overcome the obstacle?
Understanding of online resources	23 Things; Indepedent Research online; communicate with peers online and offline
Integrating the Physics curriculum	Use and modify current Curriculum; find online physics aids
Students with limited access	Offer offline alternatives
Going Solo	Involve peers and blogging community

Things I need for my "toolbox"

Internet Time
Curriculum Support
Creativity

Things I need for my "toolbox"
Internet	Time
Curriculum	Support
Creativity

Path to my gaol:"

Target Date Task
April 20 Gain a solid understanding of Web 2.0
May 20 Have Physics Curriculum mapped out
June 20 Integrate Student Support, Start building online aids
July 20 Evaluate final product, continue refinement

Path to my gaol:"
Target Date	Task
April 20	Gain a solid understanding of Web 2.0
May 20	Have Physics Curriculum mapped out
June 20	Integrate Student Support, Start building online aids
July 20	Evaluate final product, continue refinement

I will come back and look at this contract every week and update my progress.
I am responsible for my own learning and am a competent, effective learner.

Thing #4

2009-02-06T21:54:00.000-08:00

Blog Mining

I had found that one quote from Anne made me pause to think.
The quote was:

Blogs help learners to see knowledge as interconnected as opposed to a set of discrete facts.

Knowledge:
2 a (1): the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

As a Physics teacher, I try to continually tell the students that nothing is absolute. The scientific definition of law is still based on what is generally accepted. Students get to witness this first hand with blogging. Through discussion, they can all come to agree on what a concept means, thus expanding their knowledge.

After reading Dan's and Joyce's posts, my thoughts on the classroom are making a personal paradigm shift. Dan's article is about Homework, or lack there of. I agree that with good classroom management, the student can get enough practice. The challenge, which is also addressed, is how to keep students with varying achievement levels engagued for the class. The choice of regular, practice and challenge satisfies my level of the student trying the problems. As an incentive for studnets to do challenge over practice, offer a similar problem to the challenge problem as a bonus on tests.
Joyce's post inspires me to go to the stack of powerpoints I have now and retool them for more enguaging presentations that will keep the students attention. I have recently found myself taking up notes to try and force students to write something down with the thought that by writing it down, they have a better chance of retaining the information. I see the flaw in this now, twofold. First, they cant use their notes if I have them to grade, and second, I am asking the students to write notes and listen to me at the same time. They are either writing notes, or listening to me. I find that the students that ask the best questions are the ones that are not busy writing down my notes.

My concern is will students shut me out now that they have the information dropped in their lap. Thoughts?