Science online – middle/high school perspective
This session is moderated by Stacey Baker and her students:
How does middle/high school science education differ from that in college? There are also institutional problems: a) Most US pub. school networks firewall out major sources of info, such as all of scienceblogs.com, all of blogspot.com, all of youtube, etc. A teacher who finds something on a blog can’t use it directly in classroom. b) Conceptually linked posts and comment threads, ads, external links, etc. are often inappropriate for PS K-12 settings (which is perhaps why ‘a’ is true). c) yet, some bloggers want to have some of their work used in this setting. Are the younger kids different from college students in their use of online tools? Many school are experimenting with new technologies but do not have a clear idea how to do it – did they ask the kids themselves for advice? If not, we’ll ask the kids in this session.
Discuss:
Thankfully the school where I teach at now allows access to all websites except gaming websites. So, the only problem that I’ve had so far this year with regards to access was when some students tried to research the video game Spore.
I think a problem just as big as the access problem is how do students safely navigate websites that are constantly evolving? For example, I really want to send my students to real scientists’ blogs like those on scienceblogs.com, however, I can’t control what content will be added to those pages after I have linked to them. Perhaps a person will add a comment after I have looked at the page that will contain inappropriate content. How can this be handled without scientists having to censor people who comment on their blog? Is it even possible?
A question I have for fellow teachers is what tools are fun and attractive to students, but worthless in education? How do you evaluate that? What makes a good online tool that is both fun and educational?
Some questions for my students:
How do you evaluate online tools?
Easy to use, it’s not a maze where you have to search for things. Quick, easier than e-mail, there are lots of pictures, instant gratification. Learn about what other people are doing.
What online tools are your teachers making you use that you think are good and what tools do you think are tedious?
Blog, wiki, ning, twitter, flickr, voice thread, survey monkey, youtube, vimeo, animoto, google documents, google earth.
Good – youtube, flickr, twitter, blog, wiki, ning, google earth, google documents
Tedious – voice thread, flickr, twitter, wiki, vimeo, animoto
What online tools do you prefer to use outside of school and why?
youtube, photobucket, facebook, picnik, slide, gaia, IM, texting
When does the use of online tools in education become too much?
No limit. However, doing multiple online tools at the same time is too much. But, it also depends on the level of difficulty and level of involvement.
—————————
I am also interested in the way students think of the Creepy Treehouse
Creepy Treehouse Notes:
If students were asked to use something like Facebook with a professor the students would make an alternative Facebook profile and not let the professor access their personal profile.
Anytime other people not related to the class or subject being discussed are involved it becomes uncomfortable. The students do not want close personal relationships with their teachers. Just like it’s awkward to see a teacher outside of the school environment, it is awkward to see a teacher in an online environment that is not necessarily school related.
But, it also depends on the teacher and their personality and the student’s feelings toward the teacher.
