Archive for October, 2010

Online Learning


2010
10.18

I decided to go through a couple of online courses and tutorials:

Self-Scoring Google Quiz:

  • I had previously played around with this a couple of classes ago.  I had hoped after watching the tutorial, I would find out how to make it automatically score (I think I misuderstood the word “self-scoring”).  Sadly, it still has to be graded by the teacher – unless you only want it to be one question long. 
  • However, I do think it is a useful tool for homework.

MIT OpenCourseWare: Remixing Shakespeare

  • I’m not saying that I know everything there is to know about Biology, but I wanted to learn about something new.  Remixing Shakespeare seemed like a fun class – and it was.  Basically, they went through how Shakespeare has been transformed on the stage and on the silver screen and how its always being rewritten for the audience.
  • There were the occasional technological difficulties. 
  •  The best was the clip from the silent Movie version of Othello – complete with the a horror music soundtrack, lower-than-B level acting, and boards with script.  If anyone needs a good laugh, check out minutes 15 – 18! 
  • If I was a biology teacher, I would most likely assign a biology video for my students to view and write about.  I might have them include what they learn, the teaching style of the teacher, and whether it worked for them or not.  However, if we were doing a unit on the brain, I may let them choose any of the videos on there.  I would have them wrote what drew them to that video, what part of the brain leads to having a passion about something, and whether they were choosing with their frontal lobe or nucleus accumbens :-)  
  • However, one of the things that I would be cautious of is that before I could let them watch a video, I would need to preview it, which would take a lot of time. 

Audio/Visual


2010
10.08

I hope this helps everyone love Gregor Mendel and meiosis!

I combined the videos of “Hi, Meiosis” and “Gregor Mendel Rap” to make meiosis a bit more exciting or at least funny…

Genetics – Block 2 Lesson Plan


2010
10.06

(Slide 11) I hope this helps everyone love Gregor Mendel and meiosis!

I combined the videos of “Hi, Meiosis” and “Gregor Mendel Rap” to make meiosis a bit more exciting or at least funny…

Current Events and the Science Classroom


2010
10.06

Everyone knows about the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  However, this picture could spark a discussion about Pseudomonas putida, a bacteria that can eat oil.  It would be easy to say, “lets just dump a load on the oil spill.”  But, we are talking about a gram-negative bacteria – something that antibiotics can’t (or can hardly) treat.  If it infected the water supply, it could decimate the world’s population of all species, excluding Pseudomonas putida.