Common Core & Next Generation Science Standards

On May 22, 2013 the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) hosted a webinar on common core and next generation science standards in education presented by Brian F. Donnelly, Ed.D.  Dr. Donnelly is currently involved with the Davis Joint Unified School (DJUS) district in Northern California as a classroom teacher and district-wide Green Schools-STEM Program Director.  With a background as teacher and researcher, Dr. Donnelly aims to develop project-based learning experiences and assessments for his students.  The core of his webinar presentation delved into ways educators can engage students in the field of science education.

Dr. Donnelly approached the topic of common core and next generation science standards by first discussing the role of primary and secondary education on students readiness for their post secondary education and eventual careers.  He asked specifically, “What does it mean to be ready?”  Moreover, how can educators assure that their students are receiving every resource available to sufficiently prepare them for succeeding academically after they graduate from high school?  Finally, he discussed the role of technology and how it can be applied to creating a foundation for students to grow academically in the science field.

To tackle the question of “What does it mean to be ready,” Dr. Donnelly discussed the importance of creating opportunities for students to take their understanding of topics and translate it into something useful.  One of the projects touched on involved students designing disaster relief housing while accounting for the considerations and special needs of the victims, and other factors such as the ability to deliver and assemble housing quickly.  This design project challenged students in their ability to think critically, collaborate amongst each other, and explore creative options to translate their understanding of materials and construction into a practical environment.  This project is an exceptional example of how the STEM educators in the DJUS are challenging their students with real-world issues in the classroom setting, which facilitate their readiness in solving problems outside of the classroom.

Dr. Donnelly went on to discuss an essential component of project-based learning that connects students’ ideas to successful outcomes.  He used the term “failing up” to describe a process of motivating students to flip their perspective of failing on an idea as a means of eventually achieving their desired objective.  The core of this message is quite simple, in project-based learning, encountering stumbling blocks, or “failing”, is inevitable.  But it is also a valuable experience in developing a successful outcome.  He talked about how the use of modeling software helps students apply what they encounter in their environment or imagine themselves into their project designs.  Developing an understanding of trial and error through the use of virtual design templates affords the students to experiment -or take risks- with their designs while avoiding the consequences of a faulty design in the implementation phase.  This encourages students to “fail” in their project design; and therefore, informs them about the process of cultivating an idea to successfully design solutions for problems faced in the real-world environment.



The binding ingredient of Dr. Donnelly’s presentation involved the essential integration of technology.  Specifically, he and his team of STEM educators utilize the Autodesk Digital STEAM Workshop as a platform for their project-based learning assignments such as the disaster relief housing project discussed earlier.  The STEAM Workshop is a resource for educators and students in designing and implementing project-based learning experiences.  It aims to direct its users toward thinking about the tangible skills educators want their students to develop, and how students can think like scientists, historians, artists, or engineers.  It incorporates items such as design tools, creative resources, and digital study packets to help its users realize the software’s potential as a technological gateway to project-based learning.

In reflection on this webinar, I can visualize how students are significantly benefitted by the integration of technology in their pre-collegiate education to assist them with understanding the real-world challenges they will face as professionals.  Project-based assignments and perspectives that encourage “failing up” establish a framework for students on how they can utilize observations of their environments and their imagination to become great problem solvers of the next generation.

The Social Web: Learning Together

This is a reflection on Chapter 6 of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson, and my experiences implementing the use of this web tool.

Continuing with the theme of organizing information found on the web previously covered in the posting about RSS, social bookmarking is another useful web tool that can aid teachers and students in getting the most out of the Internet for their education.  Social bookmarking takes the standard web browser URL bookmarking function one step further, it integrates a persons own bookmarks with those of other people with similar interests.  That is, it contains a social component which connects people based on their web searching goals.  Through these web searching connections people can share and exchange information amongst each other as if they were researching material in the same library, at the same time.  For example, if a small group of students were working together on a research project they could share all the information they find on the Internet amongst each other with a couple of simple clicks and tags instead of a more traditional method such as copying and pasting individual URL's into email messages.  Hence, the social bookmarking web tool effectively optimizes the process of sharing information and research found on the web.

Similar to my initial experiences with RSS, I was a bit skeptical when I began experimenting with social bookmarking.  The main reason for this is because most, if not all, of my Internet access is conducted from a single computer.  And within the one computer I use, I typically only use one type of web browser (Safari).  Furthermore, I've yet to encounter a group project or assignment that suffered from a lack of information sharing among my fellow classmates.  The entire concept of social bookmarking seemed a bit superfluous to me because I've prospered along well enough without it in my academic career thus far.  Nevertheless, I was quite surprised when I began experimenting with social bookmarking.

To begin with, I created an account with the social bookmarking service Delicious.  I chose Delicious (delicious.com) based on its minimalist, simple design.  When I find a resource on the web that I'd like to bookmark I simply click on the "+ Add to Delicious" button in my Safari toolbar and I'm prompted to add comments or tags about the web page for my personal use in addition to bookmarking the page itself.  This is very much like the bookmarking system I've been using already where my bookmarks are listed under one of the various categories in my Safari browser toolbar.  I started to realize the difference between my standard method of bookmarking and the use of social bookmarks when I went to my personal Delicious page.  

As I started searching topics like ESL education, science education, and teacher standards I found that the search results were a little different from what Google or Yahoo provide.  There seems to be an extra layer of refinement in the search results from Delicious, in addition to not being bombarded by advertisements or other visually distracting banners.  I easily found a lot of useful resources and promptly began tagging them with keywords for later use, because tagging the bookmarks is where social bookmarking stands out from other search tools.  Within an hour I accumulated numerous bookmarks with corresponding tags that effectively organized everything I was finding in a single place.  Since the day I initiated my experiment with social bookmarking I've gone back daily to follow up on what I've tagged and discover more information.  I found that my web research has been significantly optimized, and I'm going to my Delicious page more often when a simple Google search is insufficient.

I'm excited to be discovering and experimenting with social bookmarking at this time because I intend to use it in my future teaching practice.  I envision designing an assignment around research collaboration among my students where they utilize social bookmarking as a tool for communication inside and out of the classroom.  Moreover, by creating a common tag for all resources my students and I discover we can build a learning environment more reflective of the type of learning we all do in our everyday occupations.

RSS - The New Killer App for Educators

This is a reflection on Chapter 5 of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson, and a review of my experiences implementing the use of this web tool.

I imagine my mornings start very similar to most people in modern civilizations with access to first world technology.  Upon waking, I check my email, text messages and twitter feed from my smartphone, a routine that propels my conscious back into reality from a nights sleep.  More often than not, this conditioned process drives me out of bed and to my laptop where I investigate more about some piece of news or communication I've just come across.  Through a series of web bookmarks and google searches I spend at least 30 minutes "surfing" the web.  I don't know how else to think about it other than this routine evolved naturally as I grew with the Internet in my life.  Given the enormity of the Internet, it's quite naive for me to say that I've never felt that I was missing out on something with my routine, but that's how I've always felt.  My relationship with the Internet has been kept at an arms distance.  I engage with the World Wide Web at my own pace, directed by my own interests.  I think I've got it down pretty well.  What could possibly make my routine more interesting and efficient?  Then I met RSS.

To be fair, I'd heard of RSS years ago.  I just never took the time to fully understand what the little symbol that looks like a Wifi signal meant as I browsed articles, journals, and message boards.  On the surface it all seemed kind of redundant.  How do I benefit from information presented to me in a simpler format if I'm already going to the source itself to consume the same information?  Alas, that is where my acknowledgement of RSS and its functionality ended.  What I didn't realize is that RSS is designed to bring information specific to my liking from areas of the Internet where I'd never explored or imagined I'd find. 

I've now set up an RSS feed reader through Feedly.com, and my overall impression so far has been mostly positive.  At the time of this posting I receive feeds from a handful of websites and blogs about ESL education, teaching with technology, and science education.  As I try to integrate checking my RSS into my morning routine I've occasionally found interesting information from these sources.  The types of things I'm finding I probably would have only stumbled upon by chance.  Now I have them compiled in a single place for more efficient consumption.  From this perspective, RSS has been a very useful tool.

On the other hand, I've yet to experience anything significant that will substantially transform how I access and consume information on the Internet.  This could be a product of the reader service I started with, but I occasionally find RSS to be cumbersome.  I sometimes feel like I'm sifting through a haystack to find the needle - at least at this initial point of evaluating my experience with RSS - while my conditioned routine of checking familiar websites in my bookmarks bar tends to be more effective and rewarding.  I use the term rewarding because I find a sense of satisfaction from having an idea, searching it out, researching the information, and sharing it with others to be more satisfying than checking a RSS feed programmed to show me things that I might or should be interested to see.  I suppose finding a fantastic RSS feed to follow can elicit the same feeling of reward that I enjoy when coming across something spontaneously on the Internet, but I've yet to realize that experience.

The one area where I definitely see the value of RSS is within the classroom.  Thanks to Richardson's text, I clearly see how using this web tool can be extremely effective for students.  While I mentioned that my personal experience with RSS thus far has involved some frustration with picking through the feeds I've subscribed to, I strongly believe that a focused RSS feed can provide valuable resource for students and teachers in the classroom.  I mostly imagine using RSS in my future science teaching practice.  I think it would be a very useful and efficient tool for my students to compile and source information for reports and research projects.  In this sense, I view RSS as a gateway tool for primary and secondary level students to learn about pursuing scholarly research.  The advanced library databases can be confusing for even college-level students, and Google search results tend to be too broad for the maturing student.  I see RSS as a middle ground between these two areas.  With RSS, students are given - instead of searching for - focused material that aids them in their classwork without the need to be well versed in navigating library databases.     

Another thing I thought about while reading this chapter was how RSS essentially removes all chance of accidentally accessing inappropriate material on the Internet.  I realize that Internet search control settings are becoming more advanced, but a simple Google search still holds the potential to present results inappropriate for children and the classroom setting.  This is really only a minor concern because well intended, responsible Internet searching is unlikely to result in undesired content, but teachers are still taking a risk with letting their students search the Internet freely under their guidance.  Implementing the use of RSS feeds allows teachers to directly control what is being consumed in their classroom and ensures that students are focusing their Internet research on material pertinent to their coursework. 

In summary, RSS is a web tool that I'm trying to integrate into my daily routine in an effort to understand its limits and effectiveness for my future teaching practice.  It probably won't significantly change how I interact with information on the Internet, but it is a useful tool nonetheless, and I hope to find opportunities to experiment with RSS in an effort to become a highly effective educator.