I have yet to receive feedback from my "Ask a Scientist" question which was, "What would cause the CDK and Cyclin to work improperly leading to tumors, mutations, and cancers?"
I have come to learn through reading and through discussion that environmental factors could lead to mutations in the cell which could damage CDK and Cyclin. I suppose "What causes cancer?" is only a step away from the question that I have posed, and this is still something for which scientists are actively searching.
My students are constantly posing questions in my classroom; some that I can answer and some that I cannot. I think the "Ask a Scientist" website would be a great place to direct my students when their questions cannot be answered. I also think that students think that scientists are somewhat fictitious since they never really get a chance to interact with them unless they have parents who are scientists. By having the students pose their own questions to the scientists and get responses from the scientists, they get a chance to see that there really are scientists out there who are experts in their field. This is something that I plan on using in my classroom when my students have questions that I cannot answer. We will post the questions together on the site by using the SmartBoard and will make an event out of reading the responses we get.
Ask a Scientist Website: http://www.askascientist.org/
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The web tools that I explored were the GoogleDocs, Prezi, VoiceThread, and Glogster.
GoogleDocs seems like a great program if you are creating or needing to present documents or slideshows from multiple locations. You can create, edit, and present your documents from GoogleDocs and save them in your virtual file folder. This makes the documents accessible from any computer that has Internet access. GoogleDocs is very user friendly as it is formatted similarly to the Microsoft programs. GoogleDocs is free to use; all you need is a Google account. The only thing that I didn’t really like about this tool is that it doesn’t allow all of the creativity that the actual Microsoft programs offer. There is no WordArt or animations that can be added to your documents so whatever you create must be very simplistic.
https://docs.google.com/#all
Prezi is a presentation tool very similar to PowerPoint but with a much more impressive end product! When your presentation is complete, viewers tour through your presentation very much like it’s a movie. Titles, video, songs, and information zoom in and out of the screen as you navigate the presentation. There is a slight learning curve involved in the use of this program as it does not navigate like programs that most people are used to working with, however there are tutorials for helping you get accustomed to Prezi’s unique format. The basic (public) version of Prezi is free, however you will have the Prezi watermark in the background of all of your presentations. For $59 a year you can get the “Enjoy” version of Prezi. There is also a student/teacher version of Prezi called “EduEnjoy” which is just like the “Enjoy version, however this version is free! Prezi presentations are able to be accessed online from any computer that has Internet access. For an additional fee, you can get offline access to Prezi.
http://prezi.com/
VoiceThread is a tool that combines voice recordings, slide presentations, blog posting, documents, and most other forms of media all into one location. What’s really unique about VoiceThread is that you can leave comments or add content to someone’s VoiceThread in the form of written comments or voice comments. It is a great tool for collaborative work. There are tutorials available for using this tool and I would assume that you have to be pretty familiar with all different platforms of media to take full advantage of this web tool. For a single educator account with no student accounts this tool is free. If you would like to set your classroom up using VoiceThread the cost is $60 per year. I think this tool would be great for students who are collaborating on class projects. The VoiceThread presentations are able to be shared and worked on by multiple students who have access to the Internet.
http://voicethread.com/
Glogster is a tool that allows you to make interactive posters. I reviewed a few of the posters that were already created and I didn’t see how this was any more than a way to present written information to music. It seemed like most of the posters that I viewed were made by teenagers professing their hurt or love toward someone to the latest top 40 hits. I didn’t really see any interactive components to these posters; it was really just looking at the poster and listening to music. The host website for Webtools4u2use has a Glog as their title page. Their Glog allows you to zoom in on pictures and activate links; demonstrating the interactive components. I think a Glog would be good to use to combine several different types of media that are already in existence or that were created using other tools. Some of the educational Glogs were beautifully made and would be an excellent way to incorporate Webquests into your classroom. There is no cost to Glogster basic and you can access it from any computer with an Internet connection. For a premium version of Glogster, the cost is $99 per year. There is a specific website for Glogster EDU: http://edu.glogster.com/
GoogleDocs seems like a great program if you are creating or needing to present documents or slideshows from multiple locations. You can create, edit, and present your documents from GoogleDocs and save them in your virtual file folder. This makes the documents accessible from any computer that has Internet access. GoogleDocs is very user friendly as it is formatted similarly to the Microsoft programs. GoogleDocs is free to use; all you need is a Google account. The only thing that I didn’t really like about this tool is that it doesn’t allow all of the creativity that the actual Microsoft programs offer. There is no WordArt or animations that can be added to your documents so whatever you create must be very simplistic.
https://docs.google.com/#all
Prezi is a presentation tool very similar to PowerPoint but with a much more impressive end product! When your presentation is complete, viewers tour through your presentation very much like it’s a movie. Titles, video, songs, and information zoom in and out of the screen as you navigate the presentation. There is a slight learning curve involved in the use of this program as it does not navigate like programs that most people are used to working with, however there are tutorials for helping you get accustomed to Prezi’s unique format. The basic (public) version of Prezi is free, however you will have the Prezi watermark in the background of all of your presentations. For $59 a year you can get the “Enjoy” version of Prezi. There is also a student/teacher version of Prezi called “EduEnjoy” which is just like the “Enjoy version, however this version is free! Prezi presentations are able to be accessed online from any computer that has Internet access. For an additional fee, you can get offline access to Prezi.
http://prezi.com/
VoiceThread is a tool that combines voice recordings, slide presentations, blog posting, documents, and most other forms of media all into one location. What’s really unique about VoiceThread is that you can leave comments or add content to someone’s VoiceThread in the form of written comments or voice comments. It is a great tool for collaborative work. There are tutorials available for using this tool and I would assume that you have to be pretty familiar with all different platforms of media to take full advantage of this web tool. For a single educator account with no student accounts this tool is free. If you would like to set your classroom up using VoiceThread the cost is $60 per year. I think this tool would be great for students who are collaborating on class projects. The VoiceThread presentations are able to be shared and worked on by multiple students who have access to the Internet.
http://voicethread.com/
Glogster is a tool that allows you to make interactive posters. I reviewed a few of the posters that were already created and I didn’t see how this was any more than a way to present written information to music. It seemed like most of the posters that I viewed were made by teenagers professing their hurt or love toward someone to the latest top 40 hits. I didn’t really see any interactive components to these posters; it was really just looking at the poster and listening to music. The host website for Webtools4u2use has a Glog as their title page. Their Glog allows you to zoom in on pictures and activate links; demonstrating the interactive components. I think a Glog would be good to use to combine several different types of media that are already in existence or that were created using other tools. Some of the educational Glogs were beautifully made and would be an excellent way to incorporate Webquests into your classroom. There is no cost to Glogster basic and you can access it from any computer with an Internet connection. For a premium version of Glogster, the cost is $99 per year. There is a specific website for Glogster EDU: http://edu.glogster.com/
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