Good to find old projects easily.

I love how easy it is to find old projects that I have finished when I can remember that I have done them.  Just today I need my old resume, and found the link to it here at my blog.

Back Again, Now if I can just remember those passwords!

I am back. Thought that I should make a new entry to keep this account active. I see that I am going to need this past knowledge for current class and teaching. Lyle

Trying to do a Voki.

Here is my first stab at Voki.




Get a Voki now!

New tools I have picked up.

Here is some new stuff I have picked up lately. Also, I wanted to post a new blog entry so as to keep my blopper spot active.

The 'tool' I have found lately is "delicious"; it is a utility that allows me to centralize all of my Favorites into one location.

Another 'tool' I have been introduced to is "dropbox", a place (actually some cyberserver) that allow me to upload files to the web from any computer that has Dropbox installed and then download them to any other computer that also has Dropbox installed. This seems to be like Goggle docs, but may be simplier to use. I don't know as I have yet to really use it.

Also another graphic 'tool' is Voki. It is a graphic that you create a cartoon avitar and it speaks for you, possibly explaining a lesson, email, directions, .... The narriation is limited to 60 seconds which is usually plenty of time to get a point across,

Thats all for now.

WebQuest about the Precambrian Era

I have just put the finishing touches on my Precambrian WebQuest and published in using zunal.com.

I realize that our instructions were to use GoggleSites to develop our webquest, but one of the overaching themes of this course has been to use web-based applications that allow us to quickly and efficiently use our time producing education material and not on figuring out procedural routines to produce the educational material. This is what zunal.com allowed me to do. This application guides the teacher through the setup of a WebQuest and does all the formatting for you. Very easy to use and has all the components of a WebQuest.

I tried to produce roles the students would fill that were not science-based, that way I could reach a wider array of student interests. I had an artist, technology guru, and daydreamer. They were to act as a team working for a graphic arts company to produce museum exhibits. Each role had a particular type of exhibit they were to build, ficused on their own strengths. There were several examples of similar products, even a couple of videos that they could parallel for the video exhibit. All of the web site resources were directly tied to the assignments. Finally I suggested a method of presenting the exhibits to the classroom based on how a real museum exhibition would be presented to the public. Feedback from other students viewing the exhibits would support the success of their project.

As for the HEAT (Higher-order thinking, Engaged learning, Authentic learning, Technology use)levels, I think the technology was at a level 6 since a video using internet resources must be produced. The learning experience is probably a level 5 since authentic applications were proposed (creating museum exhibits by a graphic arts company). Engaged learning is probably is a level 5 since the third exhibit was totally open-ended, requiring the students to produce a novel presentation method using their imagination and a vision of the future of humanity on Earth. This was constructivism at its best. Higher order thinking was at level 4 as the students were using the research questions/answers for an application.

Using what I have learned.

This post is an illustration of using what I have learned in this course. I needed to grab a screen image to show our staff a problem I am having with gradequick.

Manipulating Data

I have had experience working with Excel spreadsheets before, especially the formula tools, so this assignment was relatively straight-forward. I did learn how to create multiple worksheets and combine information between them. This is a very powerful feature. In the distant past, we had to simply make one huge spreadsheet and then manipulate the cells within that one spreadsheet. This was very awkward and cumbersome. The ability to 'link' between worksheets is a feature I will be using from now on.

The only real trouble I had was the final step, emailing the Excel spreadsheet to Dr. Pierce. I uploaded the Excel file to GDocs and published it. I then went into Gmail and created an email to Dr. Pierce. When I attached the file to my email, Gmail went to my home PC and uploaded the file, apparently as an Excel file. I sent it out, CC to myself to check it out. I found that the 'Download' option on opening the attachment allows one to get the original file, formatted the way I set it up.

Creating an Assessement in Google Docs

I have created an assessment for my Earth Science course. They will have a chapter test on Friday and I plan to give them this quiz on Thursday to motivate them to study Thursday night.

I found that editing the quiz after I had saved it was a bit tricky. I had to open the file given in the sent email to allow editing of the questions. You must make any later changes to you quiz by using the file that has the Google Docs menu active, most of the cases the menu was inactive (grey). Now go to the Form menu and select Edit Form. This will allow you to directly edit the questions just as when you were composing the quiz. VERY IMPORTANT, look at the link at the bottom of the Form/Quiz page in black and tells you that you can see form at this address. Highlight and COPY the entire address. I believe that this is your only chance to grab the link to the quiz, so DO IT NOW. Paste it into the blog editor immediately.

After changes are saved, all the versions of the quiz are updated, even the version displayed in this blog. I also had trouble finding a link to the quiz after I finished the quiz as discussed above. Apparently that info is gone after you close the Save screen. I later found the file address when I edited the quiz and created a link to my Rocks Assessment. I also embedded the quiz in this blog but this embedded structure greatly slowed the loading of my blog. Thus I opted to delete the embedded version.

Create a Lab Report Rubric using RubiStar

Rubrics have become common in high school assessments, especially in the humanities. In addition to using them as a less subjective alternative to assigning grades, they also convey to the students what is expected of their work. I see this second function as a more beneficial use of rubrics.

I signed on to RubiStar and created a rubric for a science lab report. I have expended a great deal of time and effort to teach my students was a proper lab report should contain. Unfortunately I see time and time again that they have not learned what I have tried to teach them! Hopefully this rubric will help.

RubiStar is straight forward and intuitive. I saved the lab report rubric and a rubric about simple graphing on the Rubistar permanent storage so I can retrieve them later. There are several ways to output the finished rubric and I played around until I was satisfied that the regular Excel was the best way to go. I retrieved my lab report rubric from their storage and saved it as an Excel file to my home computer. I then uploaded it into GDocs and published it (Share, with everyone, view but not edit). It appeared to be saved into Google spreadsheets. You can see it here.

I was not happy with the Excel format that the rubric was displayed in, so I copied and pasted the rubric into Word, edited it and uploaded it to GDocs. I will probably use this version to show my students.

Publishing a MovieMaker version of Drake Equation Presentation on YouTube

I created a MovieMaker version on my Drake Equation presentation. This was fairly straight-forward using Dr. Pierce's Sample Video. My biggest problem was adding narration at the right moments.

I published the Drake Equation video on YouTube. You can view it here.

I embedded the video directly onto this blog entry, using the instructional video in YouTube Help. Simply go to the Embed window while the video is running, highlight code, copy and paste onto the blog editor (remember to be in the Edit Html mode when you paste).