Blog bits

GoAPES
The blog is a goldmine for all who teach AP Environmental Science (APES) and need free response question material that is current. Thomas Cooper is an APES teacher and technology guy who has created theis blog which although simple in format, is a great resource for anyone needing topical envionmental questions for their students. It acts like a homework assignment, but his students do chime in on it. If you are interested there is an associated Ning community for APES instructors.

Miss Baker's Biology Class
Here is a class blog with posts generated by the teacher and her students. Entries are include topics of interest ans well as class activities. For example they show a class shark dissection. This site won an edublog award taking me to my last find to share with you all.....

Edublogs Awards
So, edublogs is a pricey service that provides safe blog space for educational types. It does have a nice list of good blogs in a variety of categories: best teacher blog, best use of audio, best class blog, etc...It was nice to have a limited number of blogs to touch upon. Blogs already mentioned by others were available on the nominee short list. The link takes you to the best teacher blog area.

I am overwhelmed by the info out there. I am trying to contain some of this info via my google reader, but I am still a newbie at wondering how I process all that is gathered in a useful way. Ah well, the start of the learning curve is always frustration, isn't it?

Comments

  1. Marta ToranJune 18, 2009 at 11:31 AM

    That's a good idea to look for inspirational blogs in the Edublogs Awards site. By the way, Edublogs is also free like Blogger (unless you update to become a supporter I guess which gives you more perks), we'd have to look at the storage space, etc. but I think both are comparable in what they can do, the basic Edublogs page is more flexible than the Blogger page but also a little more difficult to use. The adds in Edublog pages are sometimes placed within the content of a post instead of on the side, which can get annoying.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tom WellnitzJune 18, 2009 at 12:04 PM

    While I am just getting started looking at educational blogs, I am wondering if those who have used them find that they are a time efficient use for lesson planning? I ask because I have two chemistry teaching colleagues who like to look for lesson ideas on line. They can often report that they didn't find anything good in the hour plus that they may have looked. I on the other hand go to my collection of Flinn ChemTopics and spend my 3o minutes deciding which of the demos or labs is most useful to me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mary OsmanJune 18, 2009 at 6:19 PM

    I LOVE the blog Miss Bakers Biology Class. I just posted a comment on someone elses board about how I did not see how a blog could be used by a class, I was only seeing it as something the teacher would write and post...but Miss Bakers blog was great! I can totally envision my students writing entries as an assignement.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Aaron ElingJune 18, 2009 at 8:19 PM

    I had not heard of GoAPES before and found it very interesting. I can see using something similar with my students. Thanks for the great idea!

    ReplyDelete
  5. ktheobaldJune 18, 2009 at 8:20 PM

    Also, the nice part about having the students post and it being a classroom blog is that there is so much more personal investment in it. I've found when I turn something over to the class and make it their responsibility, they sometimes (not always) amaze me with their ownership of it. Doesn't always turn out that way but giving them a more active, integral role I think helps.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Simply gratefulJune 20, 2009 at 10:57 AM

    Thank you for the information on Edublogs! This will come in very handy for developing a teacher contest that I'm working on...maybe I will utilize a similar structure to set up the contest. This is a great reference!

    On my Webbed Science blog, I posted an article entitle "Blogged by a Fourth Grader," which explains how a classed blogged on my science program. This is similar to your post on Miss Baker's Biology Class - great example.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ruminations

Well the learning this week... (1) Added more folks to twitter and appreciate the posts with links, the posts inviting folks to eat etcetera make me want to say 'just phone them', or ask them in person! This makes me wonder about using twitter with students. Yes, I can tell them I am in a good mood and there is no quiz to study for...but then a whole bunch of adults would discover that as well. Can one split one's tweeties into groups like I can with phone IM's ? If not, then all my students would think they had a cancelled quiz versus just my bio class. Worse, if my students are tweeting , then I will see all their inane tweets about their lives. This can't be a good thing. (2) Webcast . Tried an Elluminate session at the end of NECC , it wasn't good. Everyone was likely on their way home and not inclined to be involved in a session given in the hallway. I will try something more formal later on. As with in person sessions, much depends on the presenter, a...
Read more

Projects in the Mix

Here is what I have in mind and on my mind.... (1) Science Bearings. This is a webpaint wiki to cover all the high school sciences that I teach. I teach all the high school sciences, the wiki currently shows the courses for the upcoming year. I don't know what I would do to a dormant class? Remove physics next year when I add APES? Well the wiki is an experiment in allowing students to do the legwork in finding resources for at topic as well as using all those hours on youtube for good (mine) versus .... It takes me too long to find perfect videos on topics --it is their turn! I have tied to the wiki to a google calendar so I can post test and project dates as well as add all those extracurricular events in that can conflict.I AM FRUSTRATED to the max as I have applied 4 times in 3 weeks to upgraded to an education site (removes adds, but more importantly gives me 250 documents I can attach which is a real value in providing access to handouts online). I've no real idea whe...
Read more

Musings on new toys for old dogs

Image
I am open to new technologies in my science classrooms that can do one of three things: (1) Enhance learning Yes to promoting creativity, improving student engagement and understanding, providing deeper, richer content, hooking students with their novelty. (2) Do something that can’t be done without them Yes to gel electrophoresis equipment, a spectrophotometer, water quality test kits, all sorts of lab tools that allow students to investigate science in more authentic paths than are available with out them. (3) Encourage communication Yes to communication where opinions and ideas are heard and thoughtfully questioned and built upon. I am NOT open to using technologies (1) To be faddish I feel, and my students concur, that some aspects of PowerPoint presentations are quite faddish. Why invest time and/or money into something that is done for flash only. (2) Just because we own them Why would I use a temperature probe over a ther...
Read more