End of the Year wrap-up

Gosh this year has flown! Now it's time to wrap stuff up and get to finals. Students are in the process of taking their finals and turning in all missing/late work. This is a very overwhelming time for all (teachers and students).
As I reflect on this last unit (life science) I'm wondering if I could use technology next year to present the content. I would like to have students set up virtual food web tours online. I wonder if there is a program that does this.

Ecosystem Drawings

Students have been creating drawings of an ecosystem and the many interactions within them. I had wanted to use Glogster for these drawings but the last time I used Glogster the program wouldn't save student work properly. Instead of creating online pictures, students are hand-drawing the pictures. Each week they have a new drawing that adds onto the previous one. We are now up to drawing number three, and students are creating food chains within their two habitats in the ecosystem. My students seem to really be enjoying this project. Most of this project is done individually for homework, but I have found that they are very engaged and have worked hard on these drawings. Some are very elaborate.

Wrap - Up

As we wrap up the life science unit, there are some things that we are reviewing and connecting to other subjects for better comprehension. Students found several temperature readings in the Arctic ecosystems in science class. We had many great discussions about habitats and organisms that can thrive in those ecosystems. Students made predictions and then drew conclusions as to why populations looked the way that they did according to temperature changes in the Arctic. In math class, students plotted these dates and temperature ranges using excel. By looking at their many line graphs that they made, they were able to analyze reasons that organisms immigrated or emigrated from those territories.

Arctic Ecosystems and Graphing

Students are learning about Arctic Ecosystems and the habitats within them. They are analyzing temperature and climate changes to determine how climate change affects habitats and animals living in those environments. In science, the students are watching some videos and working with some interactive tools to better understand habitats in the Arctic. Then, in math, they will graph a series of temperatures in different years using Excel.

Studying Populations

We are studying populations in ecosystems inside habitats. The students are in the process of analyzing data to determine what factors caused these populations to increase or decrease. We will be reading and constructing many graphs over the next couple of weeks. There are also many vocabulary words that are new to them, so we will be doing a lot of games and activities to better learn these terms.

Graphing

While talking about classification of organisms my students observed seeds and grouped them according to similar characteristics that they had. They created a data table and then graphed that data table using a bar graph. My hope was that my students would see that things can be classified and graphed according to the similarities that they have. I hope that they can carry this knowledge over to the classification of animals when we get to that part of the unit. We spent a lot of time going over titles to the graph, and "X" and "Y" axis titles. I found it very interesting that many students weren't sure how to title their graphs. I will be working on this a lot more throughout the unit.

Life Sciences Pre-Test

My students took a pre-test before we get into depth with the Life Science unit. I think that it will be interesting to compare how they did on this pre-test with their post-test after the unit is finished. Some students did very well on this pre-test and therefore I will give them extensions throughout the unit. I found that several students get hung-up on the same questions. These will be areas that I will go into greater depth with throughout this study. Throughout this unit, students will analyze classification systems of organisms, identify how organisms react with their environment and with each other, and look at graphs and data tables to analyze characteristics or movements within populations. My hope is to graph some of these changes using excel later on.

How Living Things are Classified...

Since I have just begun the Life science unit, I haven't come up with any technology projects, however, I would like to graph some data using Excel. My students are graphing characteristics among organisms, and using Excel might be a good way for them to observe changes. More to come...

Adopt-an-Element Project - Finished

The Adopt-an-Element projects were handed in. Some of the posters of elements look awesome. Many students finished their online web-pages. The students also had an option to construct a 3-D model of their atoms. These turned out fabulous.
While working on the online web-pages, i found it interesting that several kids weren't sure how to copy/paste pictures. Several students did paste pictures, but there were some that weren't sure how to highlight these pictures do copy/paste.

Life Sciences

Now, in the third trimester, I am moving on to the life science unit. I have never taught life science before, but I'm looking forward to some cool projects and explorations I can do with my students. I'm in the search for some technology stuff that I could use in this unit.

Element Project Continues

The element project continues... The students are working on posting their web pages and modeling their atoms 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional. Some of the atoms are looking great. Many students seem to have a firm grasp on the web pages, yet some are still struggling. The students really enjoy using their own web pages, and I think it helps them to feel more independent by having their own. I may try to do some other projects using their web pages once this project is over.

Adopt-an-Element Project -2

I figured out how to have students save at the same time on my website. I setup web pages for each student, and created a template for them to type their information. I think this will be a very cool project because students will be able to use my santorosciencerocks website to get all of their information, and create their own websites.

Adopt-an-Element Project

Since we have moved on to the Chemistry unit, the students are each adopting an element to research from the periodic table. I have assigned some of the elements to students, and pushed some students to research more difficult elements. Students each received a fact sheet, and today they filled in the research information from websites I pulled onto my web page. I would like to be able to have the students post their information on my website and just create a page for them. I'm still not sure if multiple students can edit their pages to publish at the same time. Today was the paper fact sheet. Within the next couple weeks, I would like to be able to do the web page fact sheet. The kids are really excited about this.

Chemistry Project and Glogster Trouble

I am looking to do an "Adopt an Element" project using my santorosciencerocks.pbworks.com site. I would like students to each have their own page to research elements and write down their responses. I'm not sure yet, if multiple students can edit and save work at a time. It would be a very cool tool to use in my chemistry unit if it works correctly.
As far as the Glog projects, the saving problem continues. I'm not sure why only certain students are able to save immediately, while other get denied over and over. Very frustrating!

Glogs Due

Today, Glogs are due. About five of my 22 students have been having a very hard time saving. I spoke to a Glogster representative last week, and they assured me that the problem was fixed, however, these five students have continued to lose all of the new work that they add to their Glogs. I may have to extend the deadline for these students. I wonder why Glogster continues to affect these five Glogs only.

Week 5 Edublog Update

Today, the students are updating their Edublogs for the fifth state they are traveling through. They are researching about the landscape, and describing ways that weathering and erosion; by living organisms, wind, water or gravity, affect the land. Since we have started our chemistry unit, they have some identifying of vocabulary words. Students will be identifying elements versus compounds. They will also recognize objects as physically changing or chemically changing.

Update on Glogster: The "Support Team" emailed back, and fixed the saving problem. Students worked on those after they finished their Edublog updates for week 5. Phew, I'm glad that problem is fixed. Many of my students finished their Glogs and will be publishing them next week.

Glogster Problem

Today, we worked on our Glogs in first period. The Glogs looks great, and they have great information on them. My students have been very creative in the design of their Glogs. They seem to know much more then I do about working with this tool. Today, however, Glogster unexpectedly quit and would not save their work from this morning. This was very frustrating because it was supposed to be our last day in the computer lab working on this project, and many of the students had finished. Most of them lost quite a bit of their work this morning, when Glogster stopped working. I put an email into Glogster, so we will have to see what they say.

Week 4 Edublog Update

My science students completed their week 4 science tables last Thursday. It's interesting to see that many of them are catching on to the weekly Edublog updates. Very few students are still trying to catch up from previous weeks. I'm really enjoying this unit because they are able to communicate with one another outside of class via their email or blogs, and they can complete these assignments at home if they aren't in school. The week 5 edublog updates will be this week. I think that this is the last week that they will blog on the fifth state they are traveling through.

Day 1 in the lab for Glogster

My students are each creating glogster accounts and posters. They found the information on my santorosciencerocks website, and they also were given a hard copy. The directions and a rubric telling how their glogs should look, and what information needs to be shown. There is a youtube video they watched first, and then they began creating their glogs. They continued to refer to the video as needed while working on their glog posters. This project has gone well so far, however, there was a problem saving some of their glogs. The students were instructed to come up with 12 Earth systems vocabulary words, and define 6 of them. Then, they had to link pictures to their vocabulary. For some reason, the glogs wouldn't all save. The students had to either minimize the window, and try again, or log out and start all over again. We will see how tomorrow goes.

Glogster

I am in the process of setting up Glogster accounts for my students. We are approaching the end the Earth Systems unit, and the students will need to make a Glog web page to illustrate specific vocabulary from the unit. I have found that Glogster is a very self explanatory program, that I think will work as a very successful evaluation tool for this unit. I'm looking forward to starting this project next week.

See the USA Week 2

Last Friday, we posted our week 2 blogs for our "See the USA" project. The students moved to the second state that they are traveling through for their road trip. They were instructed to go to my website: santorosciencerocks.pbworks.com to get the information for their state. I emailed them the science table that they used to complete their week 2 blog entries. Each team has a team Gmail account, which makes communication between the teacher and teams, very easy.
I am noticing, they the students are getting more familiar with blogging, but I still have a lot of practice to do until it's smooth.