Friday, March 14, 2008

Online terms, safety and blogs

Here is a brief presentation about blogs and other online terms.




Here is a presentation about online safety, ethics and blogs.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Document Camera Project

Our session on Feb. 6 begins with saving and uploading images from your computer, moves through LCD projector use, and winds up with Document Camera training.

You will receive a science experiment and materials. (One group will receive an Author Visit assignment.) Use the document camera and your blog to design a lesson that incorporates the experiment from beginning to end. Each team will present their lesson using a laptop and projector to the group.

Make sure your lesson includes the following:
  • The name and work location of each members of your group
  • The topic of the lesson
  • At least three pictures from the document camera
The following list notes the range of abbreviated experiments, and the names are hyperlinked to photos of the scientists and librarians in action.

Raisin Race

Stefany and Cherene

Water droplets on a penny
Sandy and Chris

Author Visit
Suzy and Steve
Note: Posted to the Washington Library blog

Air pressure and water
Estella and Adwoa
Note: It was hard to deal with the water, fearing a potential spill on the computer.

Mixtures
Suzanne and Deborah

Air pressure
Ilene and Ray
Note: Standing up the cans works better than rolling them.
Also, they tried to make a movie but couldn't get it to work with Quicktime, the document camera software might not interface with quicktime.

Archimedes principle of buoyancy
Jon and Amber
Note: Maybe add food color to the water so that it is easier to see.

Secret color coded message
Dilwara and John
Note: Need to use the color filter in front of the projector rather than the camera, as the intensity of the light from the camera is not strong enough.

General notes:
  • Slides download from the document camera a little slowly; downloading them to the computer gives you more options to manipulate them.
  • Don't use Safari as a browser when working in Blogger. Use Firefox.
  • Know where the circuit panel is in case you blow a fuse from having so much equipment operating at once.
  • We need the microscope adapter.
  • Are there cases for the projectors?
  • This is soooooooo exciting!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Feedback from SciLi second session

  • printed copies of instructions are good to have
  • so is the binder to keep them all in
  • keep the handouts coming
  • pace is good, though is too fast if we get lost (keep up the presence of tech helpers)
  • question time needed at end of each sub-section
  • love the custom search engine-Claire will email instructions
  • some SRTs don't have internet cables--Jack will follow up
  • wireless carts with 10 student laptops are coming
  • accessibility for kids who don't have computers at home--how to find time? need to continue to discuss this, tween SRTs, Library Techs and classroom teachers
  • afterschool programs might be able to incorporate some overt support next year
  • ethical online presence can be addressed in library session
The archives have been added, to facilitate retrieving earlier posts. The links appear at the bottom of the right column.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Science Resources-explore and post

Listed below are some elementary science related blogs and sites. The first group of links are larger resource sites; the second group is a small collection of elementary science teacher blogs.

Explore a site(s), and write a post on your blog about what you encountered. Link back to the blog about which you are commenting. (Use the little link icon, in the toolbar above your post as you are writing.)

Science Resources

Elementary Science; Resources, hands-on experiments, discussions, and tips for K-5 science teachers in Cobb County, Georgia.

Instructify. Instructify is brought to you by LEARN NC, a program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education. LEARN NC finds the most innovative and successful practices in K-12 education and makes them available to the teachers and students of North Carolina–and the world.

HCPSS Elementary Science: From the Howard County Public School System, Maryland.

American Museum of Natural History: A wealth of resources from AMHH in New York.

Hayden Planetarium: A digital universe atlas.

Exploratorium Blogs. Written by Exploratorium staff and project partners, here you can find out what’s happening behind the scenes at the museum.

Open Wide, Look Inside
This link goes straight to the Science Category of Tricia Stohr-Hunt's blog about using poetry and children’s literature across the curriculum. Dr. Stohr-Hunt is on the faculty at the University of Richmond. Wonderful categories, thematic book lists and general resources make this site an exciting treasure of a blog.

Science Teacher Blogs


Ring Mountain Wildlife Blog: 5th grade science at MCDS in Marin.

The Trout Blog: a K and 6th grade collaboration.

A Duck with a Blog: from 2005-06, an edublog winner.

Guidelines for commenting

Practicing and Coaching - Claire's test blog; "guidelines for commenting"

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

What's in a name? SciLiBerkeley 2.0

Ushering in an unprecedented collaboration between the elementary science and library departments in our school district, this blog may either be pronounced "sigh-lie-berkeley" thereby incorporating the two disciplines or, of course, "sil-ly-berkeley", even though we are not.

The main coursework we are utilizing for this professional development is the California School Library Association's Classroom Learning 2.0 or School Library Learning 2.0 (they have the same assignments). This SciLiBerkeley blog will house our blogroll of BUSD participants for the 2007-08 school year, so you might want to bookmark it now for easy reference.

Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2:45-4:45 pm is our first session together. We will proceed to either Classroom Learning 2.0 or School Library Learning 2.0 and embark on Thing#1 and Thing#2, and immediately thereafter, Thing#3 and Thing#4. When you get to Thing#4 and it says "register your blog with your sponsoring organization" that means send an email to Becca_Todd@berkeley.k12.ca.us with the url of your newly created blog.

Wednesday, January 16, 2:45-5:45 pm, will be our next real-time meeting, at which point we'll work through Week 3, Things #5-#7, Photos & Images.

Feb 6, 2:45-5:45 will focus on Visual Presenter use.
March 12, 2:45-5:45 will focus on Probeware use.

There will also be two curriculum development days.

We are fortunate to have secured a "Tech2.0 Coach", Claire Scott, the Library Technician at Emerson School, who is ready to help problem-solve glitches along the way. Contact her through bemail.

Welcome aboard!