Monday, April 22, 2013

Post #9

It is important to tie technology to the objective because the world is growing and the students will need to know how to use theese things when they get into highschool, college, and the real world.

Students must be held accountable for the information that they receive by using the technology or they will soon just use the technology for their own personal use - looking up grades, facebook, etc.  Students must realize that the use of technology is a tool that can be used to gain the knowledge for the class.

 I visited the Interactive site and although it lists science as one of the subjects that it has activities for, I searched the site and only found math activities.  The PhET web site did have some science activities.  They wanted a donation before anything was downloaded.  It looked like there were a few nutrition simulations and body system simulations that might be useful.  These simulations could be used as an additional lab station that the students use after a reading or they could be used to teach a concept that is currently not in our 12 year old book that was adopted before the new TEKS we adopted last year. 

In the SBISD app iwebsites for middle school science, most of the things listed are flipcharts.  There were a few apps like Create a Graph - web 2.0 that could be used as an extension to a lab.  The students could graph the data they collect during a lab activity.  Big Huge Labs have products the students create like trading cards and posters.  They could use this site as a product after a unit to demonstrate their mastery of the subject.

 I have used learning stations for years in the science classroom.  It is a fun way to cover a wide variety of material in a short time.  I could visualize using various stations throughout the classroom to either reinforce a concept or to introduce a concept.  A group of two to three computers could be grouped together with an app for the students to complete.  One station could have a flipchart that they read and complete questions, another station could have a lab simulation activity, and another station the students could either use the Create a Graph app or type a response to an open ended question or write a conclusion for the lab using Today's Meet or a blog application.

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