Mrs. DuBose’s Class: AdVeNtUrEs iN ScIeNcE

Hey Super Scientist,

It’s BrainPop time. BrainPop is the only website around with over HUNDREDS of animated videos that you can watch to help you learn in reading, science, math, social studies, and more! Mrs. DuBose has a classroom subscription and we will meet Tim and Moby as they take us on adventures in different science topics. We will use the videos to help us introduce new concepts, review at the end of class, open up class discussions, and more. Lastly We will be using the online quizzes to to play quick review games in class to help assess your understanding. BrainPop also offers at-home science experiments, homework help, and much more.

BrainPop has offered some FREE videos that you can watch at home.
Check OUT the VIDEOS BELOW. If you feel like this is something that you want definitely, maybe ask your parents and see what they say. Hmm..you get learning and fun at the same time..What parent wouldn’t love it. Click HERE to check out how much a FAMILY subscription would be. It is quite AFFORDABLE. Of course, before you buy it, TRY the FREE 5 DAY trial. BE WARNED YOU WILL PROBABLY BE HOOKED after the 5 DAYS..

Our First Podcast

Welcome to our 1st podcast. This summer I have really enjoyed learning about Web 2.0 tools.  One of the coolest is podcasting.  A podcast is an audio recording, which could be anything from a 10-sec sound to a 30-min radio show, stored as an MP3 file that anybody can download.The result is a new way of sharing audio via the Internet.  The real power in podcasting comes from it being so INEXPENSIVE. Everything was free except for the microphone which was $9 (it was noise reduction enabled bought from Walmart)

How did I made my podcast?

I made my podcast I using Audacity, Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds.  The next step is to get some free music,  that is totally FREE & LEGAL and licensed under Creative Commons, to spice it up a bit.  I really liked Jamendo,  a community of free, legal and unlimited music published under Creative Commons licenses. The next step is to host it online so that it can be heard through the internet.  I chose Gcast which is an online website that allows you to upload your PODCAST for free. They even have a cool option where you can record from a CELLPHONE.  I thought this would be cool if we go on a field trip and want to mix in some animal sounds.

The POSSIBILITIES………….

I am so excited about using podcasting and all that it has to offer. This really tears down the walls of traditional classroom learning and allows students to broadcast their voice to other students around the world. Students are also learning important presentation skills because they realize that their voice POSSIBLY may be heard around the world. Another awesome benefit of podcasting is it allows parents a peak inside your classroom. While they are at work, they can quickly hear a podcast from their own kid.  Wouldn’t that brighten your day!.  I JUST CAN’T WAIT…check out our 1st podcast below

Our First Podcast

RESOURCES:

• LearninginHand a great beginner’s guide to learning to podcast
• Check out the Audacity Tutorial
• Check out these great examples of podcasts in the classroom:Radio WillowWeb, Coulee Kids, and ColeyCast

Discussion Question: What are your thoughts on ways to include podcast in your science class?

Do you want a cool way to tell about things that interest you. Here’s mine.  I thought it was pretty fun.  Well, Wordle is a [software program] for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share..(remember though that all information is PUBLIC so do not put anything you DON’T want others to see)

Ways to use in class…

• use as a wordsplash and have students guess what the new unit is about
• give students a Wordle and have them try to ascertain what a news article is about
• as an end of unit review where students choose the most important words
• beginning of the year activity where students create something about themselves
• for literature, have students pick a character and then chose adjectives.  The more prominent character traits would appear BIGGER & BOLDER

These are just a few I could think of….

DISCUSSION:Do you have anymore that you can think of??

Suppose you would like your class to do some digital storytelling. The hardest part about creating a digital story is the thinking and planning – which, if you think about it, is exactly how it should be. The reason? Tools like Photostory make it incredibly easy to create a competent production without very much technical expertise, and even without any money: because Photostory is free. The downside is that it is available only for PCs, not Macs, but then Mac users do have iMovie.

So what can you do in Photosotory? In a nutshell, you can instruct it to take pictures and apply various effects, such as panning across each one, and the transition effects between photos. You can add music, and you can narrate a commentary. To find pictures, there are many resources: Flickr Creative Commons

Digital Storytelling in the Classroom Resource Link

Have you used the PhotoStory in an interesting and purposeful way for SCIENCE?

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