Using Wikis to Build Collections

We've been working on our collection of resources for our classes and have been using teams in similar areas to build our collections. Using a wiki we have been adding to these collections for about a month now. I am the only Secondary Science person in all the TPTE classes this semester, but I have been paired with a few secondary math students. I thought this would be of little use to me, but I know that many sciences require math to some extent or other. I could use these resources as well. For many of my students might need a quick refresher for some algebra or calculus tutorials and these resources might help. I didn't struggle finding resources to put on the wiki because I already found a lot prior to this assignment. Eventually I will put all of these resources on my website so my students will be able to use them at thier leisure.

Digital Scavenger Hunt

This week we were broken up into groups and assigned a digital scavenger hunt. I really like the idea of using this in my classroom. Of course I would need to wait and see what things around the school my students could take pictures of. If there is a serious lack of objects that resemble concepts we are learning about then I would have to reconsider using it. I really enjoyed the process though it was a lot of fun running around trying to think of things that would fit the goals we were given. Overall there were no problems with our scavenger hunt. We would take pictures of things and then we would stumble upon something else that was a better representation of that goal so we would take a picture of that. I felt that the scavenger hunt process itself was a lot of fun and that it went well. The part that didn't go as well was when I tried to upload them to picasa.com and then to make the presentation. I stumbled a bit but I eventually figured it out. I did all this not knowing there were step by step instructions on our webpage. I know I would need to make a handout to give the students these instructions before hand so I didn't have to go around and help them all, but when working with computers and students this is to be expected.Once I uploaded the pictures to picasa I created a Google presentation for the scavenger hunt. I felt that was a lot easier than using picasa, I guess it has to do with the fact that Google docs just is so smooth compared to a lot of other resources on the web. I had no difficulties embedding both the picasa album and the Google presentation to my blog which you can see for yourself below this post. I hope you enjoy it I know I had a blast.

Digital Scavenger Hunt Slideshow

Digital Scavenger Hunt Presentation

Smile Box Collage

This free picture collage created with Smilebox

Picnik

The web 2.0 tool Picnik was really cool. Honestly I am not the most proficient photo editor, but it didn't matter with Picnik. I could really use this in a class where I am trying to emphasize a particular point or area, and with Picnik I don't have to mess with photo shop, which to be honest has never been very kind to me. I really like editing photos now and I can't wait to see what I can come up with.

Picnik Collage

My Website

This week we worked on our classroom websites. I really am excited to work on my website and I really like the idea of using a website in my classrooms. I don't know if I would have multiple websites, one for each class, or if I would just have one website and have seperate pages for each class I teach. I could very well just continue to use the same website when I get classes to teach and continue to create pages for each class. Its difficult at the moment to design the website the way I would like it to be because I don't have any idea what the schedules will be or what lessons I would have for that week, but I know all that will come in time. Other than that I felt like the website went up fine without a problem.

Inquiry Based Activities

We learned about inquiry based activities and how they can be used in the classroom. I really like the idea of using these in my classroom. I could give them the worksheet with all their instructions and tell them to do this is homework for the night or I could make them 15-20 questions long and allow them a week to do it on their own time. I really like the possibilities inquiry based activities can provide. The only thing I am weary about is using them in my classroom and not everyone has a computer at home. I could always have them do it as a class activity if I bring them to the computer lab or check out laptops, whatever the school has available. I really like these activities although this was our first attempt and while everything went fine with no major hicups I might have been a little easier on the questioning than I would in my actual classroom. I found it easy to know which direction I wanted to go in terms of answering some of the curriculum standards, I knew immediately as soon as I saw the standard on natural hazards I was going to write on that. I found it hard to ask questions trying to pair them with specific curriculum standards, I guess this might have been because it was my first attempt and I have not had a lot of experience creating worksheets with questions with the intent of having my class actually answer them before. Next time, I will probably make the questions a little harder so that they require a little more thought and time to complete.