Using Blogs in Science Education » News

2008 Edublog Awards

missbaker — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:43:51 +0000

The Edublog Awards are calling for nominations.

My nominations are:

Best Educational Use of a Social Networking Service: Principles of Biology
Best Individual Blog: What It’s Like on the Inside
Best Teacher Blog: NashWorld
Best Educational Tech Support Blog: JoeWoodOnline
Best Educational Wiki: Periodic Table Wiki
Best Class Blog:

Extreme Biology – we aren’t supposed to nominate ourselves, but I’m nominating my students so maybe it will still count
Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Biology in Action

Last year my students’ blog was nominated for Best Teacher Blog. I’m very happy that Edublogs decided to create a Best Class Blog category this year which is much more appropriate. Good luck to my nominees!

Blogging the NSTA Portland Conference

missbaker — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:38:04 +0000

I’m blogging about my conference experience over on the NSTA Conference Blog!

Preparing for the NSTA Portland Conference

missbaker — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:56:36 +0000

My original intent was to begin preparing for the conference weeks ago. But, life has a funny way of ruining plans. Having your car die on the interstate and spending the next week trying to find another car is just one example. Does anyone actually enjoy the process of buying a car?

Anyway, I finally have some time this weekend to work on it. I’m giving an hour long presentation on why you should use blogs in science education. Here’s my rough draft outline:

Brief Introduction – 1 minute
Discuss the value of using blogs in science eduction (I’m going to assume that if they showed up to the session they are already somewhat convinced of the value of blogging so I plan on this part being fairly short); Show video of my students’ thoughts on blogging; Discuss the great opportunities that can develop due to blogging and how to make those happen – 15 minutes
Show several science teacher and student blogs; discuss different styles – 15 minutes
Hand out packet and discuss: contents include several possible student/parent contracts, grading suggestions, student post and comment writing checklist, etc. – 20 minutes
Q&A – 10 minutes

It would be nice if there was a way to have at least a general sense of my audience prior to giving my presentation. Will the audience be absolute beginners or have some blogging knowledge? I’m hoping it will be a mixed audience. To break up the monotony of just having me talk, it would be great to have others in the crowd who can bring ideas to the discussion.

How does this sound? Suggestions? If no one comments and leaves any suggestions I’m going to assume it’s perfect.

Or no one is reading this post.

What If You Couldn’t Blog Anymore?

missbaker — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:26:31 +0000

My student (Yahoo web hosted) website is down for the first time in 3 years. Of course, this would happen the day I told the Head of School to check out the website. He said he’d look at it this evening. Figures. Tried to call customer service, but there’s an hour wait time.

Do…not…panic. I check it about every 1.2 minutes to see if it’s working. No, I’m not panicking. Ironic that earlier today I wondered what would happen if my blog just disappeared and the 3 years of work I spent building it up was gone. The amount of anxiety I felt with that thought makes me wonder if I have a problem.

Nope, still not working.

This got me thinking. What are some reasons I’d stop blogging?

Death
Sent to prison

Well, after about 5 minutes of thinking that’s all I could come up with. While #1 is certainly out of my control, I’m definitely sure #2 is not going to happen.

I guess now would be a good time to share my new favorite thing to do when I’m bored: explore Vimeo. Right now there’s a great competition called Climate Matters. Here’s one of my favorite entries, a very child-like view of global warming:

Green to Blue from Brighter Planet on Vimeo.

1.2 minutes later…BLISS…

I never thought I’d be so happy to see kangaroos punching each other.