Bugscope: Interactive SEM Lab

I came across this interactive lab from the University of Illinois. The Bugscope Project has been around for ten years and has been hugely successful. It allows students access to a real scanning electron microscope through the web.

This is how it works: The teacher signs up, the class collects a few insects and sends them in. Then you have to apply for a session (preferably 6 weeks ahead of time). Once your session is scheduled, all you need is access to a computer. During the session, students will view their specimens under the SEM and they can control the microscope through the computer. The site includes teaching materials to prepare for the session and understand how a SEM works.

Here is an example of a micrograph of a Japanese beetle captured during a session.


Another option is the companion site called Virtual Microscope which is available for free download and includes simulated data for a fluorescence light microscope, an SEM and an atomic force microscope. The image data is preloaded, but the user control the loading of the specimen and navigate around it, change magnification, focus and image brightness and take measurements. There are video tutorials and neat animations to explain how the whole process works.

Podcasts in the Science Classroom

Some ideas for Podcasting assignments for the Science classroom:

• Create a radio commercial for a breakthrough invention (eg. the artificial heart)
• Record the State of the Union Address section on Science
  
• An interview with a historical Science figure (eg. Mendel, Hooke, Virchov)
• An interview with a nobel prize winner dead or alive (eg. Francis Crick)
  
• Featured "cool Science jobs" (eg. they would research careers they may be interested in such as Forensic Scientist)
• Review soundbites (see below for my AP Bio example)
• A debate between two (or more) students on a particular topic
• A song about a Science concept (eg. Osmosis, Displacement reactions)
• A spin off "Wait, wait, don't tell me" (from NPR) with Science questions
  
• A "This I Believe" segment (also NPR) about a controversial topic (eg. Cloning)

Now regarding hosting podcasts that your students create...

I found this free website hosting site called called PodBean, stores up to 2.5GB of podcasting material to start off with, after that you get a monthly increase of 500MB.

Here (below) is what your podcast weblog would look like (you can customize it in many ways). The interface is exactly the same as that used by Edublogs, if you're familiar with that. Click on the image to go to my podcast weblog.

Gcast.com is another free-podcast creating and hosting service. It's more basic, but not necessarily more straightforward than PodBean's. The interface is also not as attractive or customizable and it takes a while for the podcast to be uploaded and published once you have created it. And from Eric's junk drawer, check out Houndbite for podcasting.

The following podcast was created by one of my students in preparation for their AP Biology exam . Their assignment was to pick a topic from a class list we compiled of "difficult Biology concepts" and create a podcast that their classmates could download onto their iPods and that would help them review for their AP exam while they were working out in the gym or traveling on the bus. The quality of their podcasts varied, some were too long and monotonous, others were silly, others seemed like they were just reading their notes or a textbook. This one is short and sweet, I felt that it accomplished its job well. If I were to do this activity again, I would have a class brainstorming session beforehand where the students would come up with a list of "dos and don'ts" when creating a podcast episode, that would help them get off to a good start.

Electron Transport Chain- A Review

Powered by Podbean.com

The podcast was created using Audacity, a very simple and free audio recording and editing tool. It is not a hosting service though, so you'd then need to sign up to one of the free podcast hosting websites and upload the podcasts to it.

Podcasting ideas- great tips for using podcasts in the classroom, examples of assignments and links.
5 Resources for Creating and Hosting Podcasts (from freetech4teachers.com)
PodSafe Audio- free sound effects to use in podcasts
55 Great Websites to Download Free Sounds

Good Science podcasts to use in class:

• NPR Science Friday Podcasts
• The Naked Scientists Science Podcasts
• Scientific American Podcasts
• A collection of Science podcasts here

If you have any other ideas about using available podcasts or student podcasting in the Science classroom, please comment below.

Google Earth- Data Sets for Bio

The following data sets could be used when incorporating Google Earth into the Biology classroom:

From Google Earth Gallery
World Population Density Could be used when teaching Ecology/ Population Dynamics. This data set shows the distribution of the world population, from the sparsely inhabited Australian Outback to densely populated areas like the Eastern Coast of the US
Coral Reef Monitoring Explore the state of coral reefs around the world, their distribution, major threats to their like global warming and conservation efforts to protect them.
California's Marine Protected Areas Explore the coastline and marine biodiversity of California through its ocean conservation legacy (a network of 29 marine protected areas from Santa Barbara to San Francisco). Fact sheets for each protected area include: ecological value of the site, aerial and underwater photos and video of wildlife and ecosystems.
From the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation:

• Ecological Zone Shows the areas in New York state that have ecological value. Includes attributes of each zone such as topography, type of vegetation and what the land is currently being used for.
• Bird Conservation Areas Tours the areas established by the NY State Bird Conservation Area Program as being important bird habitats. This type of information is valuable to research projects and conservation efforts currently under way.

From Pedagogy in Action, the SERC (Science Education Resource Center) portal for educators- These include lesson plans

• Energy Consumption Rate Across the US and the World Students use Google Earth and information from other web sites to investigate total and per capita rates of oil and total energy consumption in countries around the world.

• Salt Marsh Ecology Students use Google Earth, GPS, aerial photos and an online plant ID guide to identify and map out plant species and other ecological characteristics of a salt marsh.
  
• Renewable Energy Study Students will investigate case studies involving the use of renewable energy.
• US Carbon Dioxide Emission Shows carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, you can select for total CO2 emissions, emissions by aircraft, commercial, industrial, residential, etc.
  
• Northwest Passage Explore climate change in polar regions (eg. shrinking ice cap, melting of ice shelves, shipping routes, effects of polar bears, rising oceans, secondary effects of climate change in other regions.)
  

MyStudyio Quiz Creator

I can't remember where amongst my PLN I got this link from over the past week, but here is a neat little online tool called MyStudyio for making quizzes. It is free, very easy to use, creating a quiz only take a few minutes and you can stick in video, audio or images within the quiz to make it multimedia. You can chose between multiple choice and open-ended questions, set a time limit for each question and display results at the end. Use them as a fun add-on to your blog or for assessment purposes with your students. Sharing them and embedding them into your website just takes the click of a button. Try this one I made...

Editing Digital Images

I gave Picnik a try and it's a lot of fun. This image editor is really easy to use, you can be editing a photo in seconds without having to familiarize yourself with any kind of special software. It would be great to use with students in the classroom because you really don't need to spend any time explaining to them how to use it.

The interface is user-friendly and attractive, and you don't even need to register to use it (but registering allows you to save your photos on the site so you can retrieve them again later). You can upload photos from wherever you have them stored be that your computer, Picasa, Flick or any other web image hosting service.

There is an Edit tab for basic editing (i.e. cropping, changing color, brightness, etc) and a Create tab for fun features like adding text, frames and effects such as turning a photo into a pencil sketch or a vintage-looking print. Below are the examples of some photographs from my collection that I edited. I used the text, cropping and increased saturation tools for the first; for the second I used the neon effect; on the third I cropped, added a Polaroid frame, a sticker and a doodle. (Click on photos to see larger images).

















Once you are done editing, you can save the photos on your computer or any of the web image hosting services. You can also share them via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook...

One downside I found was only being able to upload and work with 5 pictures at a time (if you want more you have to upgrade to a premium account which is cheap but not free). I think the editing features would be too basic for anyone who is comfortable with a program like Photoshop, or an art student who needs to do more with the pictures. Pixlr is much more similar to these advanced image editors, you need to know how to use things like layers and filters, it would be difficult to figure out how to use it without watching a tutorial. Pixlr does include an "express photo editor" which is very easy to use and has similar functions than Picnik, but more limited in what it can do. The great thing about Pixlr is that like Picnik, you don't need to sign up to use it, you just jump right in.

Will Tweeting Really Help My Teaching?

There has been a lot of frustration this week with Twitter, I'm still unsure what my exact plan for it is, but I'm starting to see how it would come in handy in extending my PLN. I've gotten some good links off people's tweets, and living in the remote mountains of NC, I have to admit its kind of making me feel a little more connected to other educators out there. For example, it's neat to get updates from people that are gearing up to go to the NECC conference. It kinda makes you feel like you're "in the loop".

Best advice I've read about Twitter this week: "If you find someone's updates to not be useful or be plain annoying, stop following them- you're in control!"

Twitter has earned some brownie points in my heart, whether it would be an efficient use of my teaching/ learning time, I still have to see. Here are some positives, a shout-out to Eric for his link to the Tweeting Your Way to Better Grades article and to Randy for providing the article about whether tweeting can help your teaching (full article here) a lot of these come from there:

• Simple, good tool for teachers open to online PLNs but not tech savvy
• Great to find mentors and keep up with latest trends in education
• Send review statement about a lesson, reminders to students about homework, sneak peeks about the following lesson, etc.
• Tweet review questions
• Direct students to useful/ follow up websites to use for homework or prepare for next lesson
  
• Share interesting things that happen in your lesson/ best practice ideas with other teachers
  
• Get students opinions about specific topics/ use as an opinion poll
• Communicate with experts in your field/ related to the topic you're covering
  
• Ask students provocative questions that will cause them to think about your subject outside class or use provocative question as primer for following lesson
• Encourage discussion and collaboration between your students and other students elsewhere
• Much quicker than blogging so it takes little time, teachers and students with limited time in their hands are more likely to use it
• Carry out book or article discussions with your students
• Keep up with latest news in your field of interest
• Students can set up virtual study rooms, offer each other support and share resources
  

A teacher from the UK posted this piece with 9 Great Reasons Why Teachers Should Use Twitter. For those of you who want a quickie summary in her words:

Together we're better

Global or local- you choose

Self awareness and reflective practice

Ideas workshop and sounding board

Newsroom and Innovation Showcase

Professional Development and critical friends

Quality-assured searching

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Getting with the times has never been easier.

Here are some other resources I found interesting:

Twitter is Messy (advice for skeptics)
25 Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in Your Classroom (some very original ideas you can actually put into practice in your own classroom)
Twitter- A Teaching and Learning Tool

Neat idea based on one given in 25 Interesting Ways...: Have students create an account with a username based on a scientist (eg. @darwin, @darwinswife, @wallace) and have them discuss a topic of the time through tweets.

Getting More out of Twitter

While trying to figure out how to use Twitter these past couple of days, I came across a few things that I found useful, thought I'd share...

I connected with this edtech specialist/ teacher in England (@tombarrett) after I read his name on the 10 teacher list above. He sent me a link to his blog, which is really neat, featuring an article called 5 Things to Get your Twitter Network Off the Ground. Here is the summary:

1. Complete your profile to help others know who is requesting to follow them or who they may be interested in following.
   
2. Dive right in.
   
3. Follow a bunch of people with similar professional interests (eg. whose blog you may have enjoyed reading)
4. Piggyback off someone with a large network by asking them to put out a good word for you, so you can get some exposure.
5. Reply to people (use the @ followed by their username in the tweet), it gets you more engaged.

Here is a list of 10 Teachers to follow on Twitter (from Free Tech for Teachers)

Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter (from Free Tech for Teachers):

1. Twitter 4 Teachers wiki: "The Twitter 4 Teachers PB Wiki was started by ed tech specialist Gina Hartman. This wiki is organized content teaching area so that visitors can connect with Twitter users who teach the same subject(s). "
2. Educators on Twitter is a Google Docs Spreadsheet started by Liz B. Davis. The list is constantly growing as new additions are added almost daily.
3. Twitter for Teachers "is a wiki started by Rodd Lucier with the purpose of educating teachers about the use of Twitter as an educational tool and as a professional development tool. You may want to check out who the contributors to the wiki are and follow them. Rodd has also produced a great video demonstrating how to use Twitter, Delicious, and Google Reader to find more Twitter users of interest to you. "
4. Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, has compiled a list of nearly 800 educators on Twitter. Each entry is accompanied by a short summary about the Twitter user.
   
5. Twitter search. Located at the bottom of the Twitter page is a search link. Try searching for key words commonly used in educational technology. Then follow the Twitter users who are writing messages containing those key terms.

Want a Twitter button for your blog? Find a free one here, there are tons of options! All you have to do is add it to your blog as a Picture Gadget, then create a link from the picture to your twitter profile page.

Some great tips on how to use Twitter are found on the Twitter help page, for example... If you type in GET username, it retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person.

iGoogle

Someone was asking about a place where you can access all your online applications at once (eg. email account, Facebook, Tweeter, Reader, etc.). I use iGoogle and I love it. It's basically a personalized homepage. You can customize your page and add gadgets for pretty much anything.

Below is a screenshot of my personal iGoogle page (click on image for a full screen shot).















Go to iGoogle

Gadgets I've added: Facebook, Tweeter, Google Reader, Birthday reminder, Weather, CNN, Digg (there are hundreds more).

You can add gadgets by clicking on the "Add stuff" link on the right hand corner of the page.

N.B. By the way, if you clicked on the image, you may have noticed that the full size shot is hosted in its own URL address, I did this through google docs (super easy, one step, you can share any doc, pic, etc. and have it be its own webpage you can direct people to). I just discovered this.

Google Reader has Rocked My World

In my opinion, Google Reader is everything it promised to be and more. It has made by life so much easier. It's pretty straightforward to use and if you have a Google account, the reader is already pretty much set up for you, all you have to do is go to http://www.google.com/reader and sign in. Then just surf the internet for you favorite blogs and news sites and click the subscribe icons to add them to your Reader list. Once you have a few, you can play around with it to find what works for you.

Expert Village videos (on Youtube) have a lot of clear and concise videos on many different tech topics, there are a bunch about Google Reader such as how to get started, how to add feeds, how to organize them, how to read them, etc. I found this one very useful, it shows how to create folders to organize feeds so they are easier to follow:

If you'd rather read a quick article about it instead of watching the video, click here.



I like the Google reader gadget too, which you can add to your iGoogle page for even more convenience. Download Google reader gadget here.

I was wondering about Feedburner vs. Google Reader. It seems like Feedburner is now part of Google, so Google Reader has taken its place (I think).

I am still a bit unclear about subscribing to Blogs versus subscribing to comments. Right now, I signed up to follow classmates' blogs (and they appear on the Reader)- and this shows me the latest posts from each author. Then I also clicked the "Subscribe: Posts (Atom)" at the bottom of each blog and that makes another link in the reader titled "Comments on (so and so's blog)" which shows any new comments people make on that blog. My question is, if you want get updates on both posts and comments, would just doing the "Subscribe: Posts (Atom)" be enough or do you also have to Follow?