My first attempts to engage students in the Biomes unit was by showing videos from the Planet Earth series by BBC. I think that this series captures the true raw, beauty of this planet and allows the students to see beyond the walls of the classroom. Rune Pettersson wrote, "It is difficult to describe verbally a concept that is primarily nonverbal" (2009, p. 38), which I do believe applies to the appreciation of the beauty of nature. The students really enjoyed watching the videos, but my goal is to make something that is even more tangible through poems that students will share with each other across an interactive space, picture montages with programs like Photo Story (perhaps even Power point!), and ultimately ending the year with students' video summaries of their trip to the Bronx Zoo (this was a class trip that the 7th grade did every year) and what information they gathered about animals' biomes, and scientific names.
Pettersson's quote, "Academic disciplines are not all cast in steel" (2009, p.38), resonated with me, and it is something I have always felt passionate about. There is no law that says creative writing and animated pictorial representations cannot be applied in a science class, I believe that this is my chance to re-invent an "old school" mini unit that I used to do. In order to faciltiate this, I have joined two Thinkfinity groups: Using Multimedia for Communication & Education and Online Tools for Educators. I think these two sites will afford me the help with better understanding multimedia literacy as well as the proper tools to use.
I am still searching for an outside community, but as of right now, I plan to use a discussion board that I began in my previous course: Mrs. Cella's Bio 101 Discussion Board. It is attractive looking, easy to use, and allows for a great deal of privacy and moderation ... please excuse its current appearance, it will change for this project.
Johanna,
ReplyDeleteI haven't had any teaching experience yet but one of the things I love about your ideas in this post is that you are connecting different disciplines together. I think this is SO important for students to see. As a history major, one of the things I learned was how connected every subject we learn about can be connected together. I think showing students this would make education much less rigid in a way. I think kids are so used to these defined 'subjects' they have i.e math, language arts, science, but they see everything so separate. Maybe the right word is fluid. Whenever I think about how I want to teach social studies, I always say to myself that I want my students to see the connections between all of their subjects instead of feeling like they're just in 'social studies' class. Technology definitely plays a big role in how to make integrating disciplines together. I'm really interested to hear what other technology you find effective in doing this.
Johanna,
ReplyDeleteLike Gina, I think it is great that you are making efforts to integrate the content areas. I may be teaching a course this summer about content area reading. It is important that all teachers teach reading and writing and use research based instruction to improve literacy skills. In fact, if science, math, and social studies teachers understand the basics in reading instruction the students will perform better in the content area itself. I'm reading a great book right now called Subjects Matter by Daniels & Zemelman. It gives very practical techniques to use in your class to help students read and learn content.
Hi Johanna,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see you've joined both of those communities through Thinkfinity, and I hope you find an outside community to learn from as well. One of the things that I feel multimedia and Web 2.0 tools are particularly helpful in doing, is connecting content areas through writing. As Gina and Jim pointed out, writing across the curriculum is critical to students understanding that subjects are not individual entities, but that they are indeed fluid. Writing helps to solidify this idea.
Oftentimes multimedia involves a variety of modes of communication, including audio and visual components. Writing is heard, read, and illustrated through images, video, etc. Remix allows for a combination of all of these elements. Whether you're composing a text that is all alphabetical, or incorporates music, voiceover, still or moving images, it all comes down to writing. To compose is to write in some way shape or form, isn't it? It's good to keep that in mind, especially when incorporating multimedia into the STEM subject areas. Be it the humanities or the sciences, we're all connected through writing, and multimedia helps solidify these ties!
I hope participating in these online communities assists you in your MMP journey! I'm looking forward to seeing how your project evolves throughout the course of the semester.
Erica
Thank you everyone for the feedback. Connecting in any way across the curriculum is definitely an area that I wish I was stronger in and I think that all educators could really benefit to learn about. I'm really hoping that this project will help me gain some confidence connecting students via technology and in language of digital!!
ReplyDeleteps. Sorry for the slownss of this blog ... I'll try to make videos/multimedia smaller on the page!