Learning from Experience - Stellarium

I remember having an astronomy lesson in science class. The teacher was trying to let us explore the sky and one of our assignments was to observe our night’s sky. This was difficult because some students lived in more rural areas than others. Because each student had different views and light effects it was difficult to come to a consensus on student’s observations. We were also supposed to research a specific constellation and give facts about it in a simple report as well as a graphic representation of the constellation. The problem arose first when not the entire student body did the night observation assignment. The second was that those who did didn’t have the same experience and did it on different nights, times and locations. A third issue was that not all of the students were able to determine which starts were the correct stars they should be looking at when it came to larger known constellations like Orion’s belt and the Big and Little Dippers. However with the use of Stellarium, your computer becomes a planetarium. There is a lot of control with Stellarium from the telescope to the time and location (coordinates). I think this would have benefitted the students a lot more if they were able to scroll around the sky looking at what interested them. It would have also promoted the students to choose their own stars or constellations for research. An interesting addition for the project could be a pseudo ‘trip’ to the star by using computer video recording features students can record adjustments in their view to simulate them ‘flying’ or getting closer to their star or constellation. This could be something interesting a student could include in their presentation of information on their researched star or constellation.

Open Source Software Review - Maxima

Open source software has been introduced to the class in a variety of different ways. I remember overhearing the word Audacity come up a few times as being software available for download that allows you to do sound editing, recording and much more. Although this was something that was useful in classroom applications, I felt that I should find something more appropriate for what I want to teach (math, science, physics area). The Virtual Terrain Project caught my eye. This software allows a person to render terrain in 3D. The website offers real terrains of cities like New York and parts of Hawaii. I think it would be interesting to incorporate this into a project where the students are designing their own cities and required to include all of the necessities like schools, police and fire stations while considering the physical layout needed. Additional Open source software that I thought was really interesting was Maxima, a computer algebra system. I remember learning calculus and the pictures in the book were sometimes very vague and hard to determine what you were looking at. Maxima allows for the plotting of very higher end equations and expressions. The extent of this software encompasses simple plotting to very complex items which I know were covered in my years at college including vectors, Laplace transforms and 3D plots. This can be used in lesson plans frequently. Because it’s competition is Maple, which I’ve used and is difficult to come across because it is expensive, isn’t readily available for simple calculations like integrating and differentiation, Maxima is convenient for high school calculus applications where students might not have access to higher end calculators that do the calculations and graphing for them. This can be used in a lesson plan for students to check themselves in answers, get significantly accurate graphs and plots as well as many other uses. Maple used to be available to all Drexel students with the newest version, but this is only good for so long and I myself have had significant issues with the software. I am very tempted to download Maxima and try it out.

Essential Conditions for Technology Integration

Blog Prompt: Do you feel that this article (After the Bell, Beyond by Eric Langhorst) encompass the Essential Conditions for Technology Integration? Why or Why Not? Cite information from the article to support your answer.

I do feel that the article encompasses key parts of technology integration. There is incorporation of the internet, blogs and different forms of media into the general use of education. Typically a student would receive a piece of paper with a list of items which they needed to know for a test. Sometime during the preparation for the test the teacher would go over each one requiring the students to write down as much as they could in a small amount of space and time. Giving students the ability to hear complete definitions and topics which are important for a test would be beneficial. Granted that doesn’t mean you can’t review in class, it is just a more appealing form for which students and parents can also be involved. Having this also gives a great advantage to the parents who even if they wanted to help all they could, might not be so bright on the topic and haven’t sat in on all the classes, so it gives them a more level playing ground in which to help their children succeed. When it comes to reading a book, I remember my teacher making us write in little journals that only she read every few weeks. We were enticed into doing a group discussion but it wasn’t always interesting or fun. By using technology in the form of a blog, each student can see what others have written and become more engaged in the learning process.

I did have one concern though. The teacher described making these StudyCasts using recording software and putting them up on the web for students to access. I know a good portion of people that are over 30 would not be so savvy with internet terms of ‘putting things up on a website’. I myself have taken things off of a website that were put up there. There’s a link that’s given to me that directs me to the file I want and then asks me to Open or Save the file. The file then downloads and does the appropriate actions. However, I have no idea how someone would go about posting a file like that on a website. I wouldn’t say that it’s common knowledge for putting items up on iTunes either. The idea for making StudyCasts and other recorded media is a great idea; I just hesitate to think it can be mainstreamed into the curriculum when even a person who knows computers proficiently wouldn’t be able to put one such item together and posted for students to have access too. As well I’m not sure if and how you would go about making these things available but only to those who you want to see it. The teacher described having a man from Spain contact her regarding a biased opinion in one of her StudyCasts. I would not be sure if I’d be comfortable in putting those out into the internet for anyone to have access too. I think applying a type of program access or website access would be more sufficient where documents and files would be protected and unable to be shared unless given permission or with a correct password.

Although I may have some slight issues doing something similar with a classroom, I definitely agree that the teaching practices he used with his students were more engaging, enthralling, and better overall fit for today’s students and would have no objection to using similar practices in my future (once I learned how to do it of course!)

Text Blog: Chapters 1 & 2

Chapter 1:
Chapter 1 focused on what multimedia is and why teachers should utilize multimedia in the classroom. A key part of multimedia is its ability to be incorporated into the classroom and curriculum and to aid student learning. Part of the chapter described including the theory of multiple intelligences into multimedia projects. I think that this is something that is useful to keep in mind when creating projects. If you are able to activate different intelligences within each student within one activity of a project then you can help promote active learning, activate learning by means they will best benefit from as well as give them important roles which the overall project and learning will benefit from because of their strengths. Incorporating different intelligences into a multimedia project also allows for students to have different ways of understanding the material. The chapter further went into cooperative learning which I feel is an important part of education today. Communication is an important part of today’s world and starting with the fundamentals of working with classmates is a good way to get a good structure and base for students when they get older.


Chapter 2:
Chapter 2 focuses on the DDD-E model which is decide, design, develop and evaluate. This model allows the student to be given guidelines and structure while not limiting their creative and learning capabilities. The teacher sets the goals and standards as well as what the project is plus how the students will be evaluated on the results. The students are given an array of different methods to keep them focused on the task at hand and guide them through the project. I think that this is something that is important to keep in mind. Evaluations should be done first so that you know what you want from the students, what they should know when they are finished and what should have been accomplished. From there the activities should be designed to direct the students toward the common goal. I feel that there are many different applications of this that can be seen in education that have mostly been based off of the backward design. However there is definitely applications for the DDD-E model throughout education regardless of its multimedia inclusions or not.