My Grant Search

After browsing through the available grants at GetEdFunding.com, I found myself most interested in the Association of American Educators Foundation Classroom Grant.  Grants up to $500 are available, and they are available to full time educators who have not received funding from AAE in the past 18 months.  I am only in my fifth year of teaching, and while I feel very comfortable in my classroom and with my instruction, my plate is rather full with teaching and graduate courses.  I would not want to apply for a grant that requires more from me than I can do well.  Therefore, a grant which provides a great deal of funding would require a great deal of documentation and research which I value, but would simply not be able to do thoroughly with my current obligations.   

Furthermore, I am the type of person who prefers steady progress rather than a complete makeover.  Therefore, this grant would allow me the opportunity to design, implement, and evaluate a project which I have been thinking about for quite some time and which I feel confident that I can complete effectively.  The application process would simply require completion of an online application requiring some personal and professional information, a resume, and a grant proposal.  The proposal can be completed online, and it should itemize the necessary materials and costs and a lesson plan demonstrating the use of the aforementioned materials.

 The project for which I would use this funding is a rather simple project which could have a significant impact on the success of my students.  I would request a document camera and a subscription to screen-casting software such as Camtasia to create a series of screencasts (similar in appearance to those found on YouTube channel Minute Physics) for students to view at home to supplement my in-class instruction in an attempt to provide more time for differentiation in the classroom.  The next steps in the process of applying for the grant would be to design a lesson plan demonstrating my use of the new equipment, convincingly write a proposal justifying its use and benefits for students, and create an itemized list of materials in order to request an appropriate amount of funding.

ADDIE Project - Chemical Reactions - Webcast

I hope you enjoy my screencast presenting my final curriculum project.

To view the video with a full screen option follow the link below.

Chemical Reactions - Curriculum Project

ADDIE Project - Chemical Reactions - Development

As I begin the development phase of my chemical reactions curriculum project, I found Google sites to be the most suitable tool for the purposes of my unit and my students.  One feature that I liked about Google sites is the fact that it works across devices no matter the operating system.  Because I have nearly 135 students, I know they and their families have operating systems of preference at home.  It is located on the web and does not require any particular app to be accessed on a mobile device; therefore it will be conveniently accessed from a device of the student’s choosing. 

While it lacks the same amount of collaborative features that Moodle or Edmodo have, it is suitable to supplement in-class instruction and face to face interaction.  It is my plan to use it for this supplemental purpose.  In my district, teachers are encouraged to use the school “fusion pages” which are similar to D2L and serve as our class websites and have features which allow students to turn in assignments, access class documents, participate in online discussions, and directly message the teacher.  Therefore, many of the features offered by Edmodo and Moodle are unnecessary in my case.  While they are amazing tools, they would simply require more time and effort to be equally effective in my classroom than would Google sites. 

Because no registration is required by the students to access my Google sites, administrative and parental permission are not necessary.  Students will simply be required to read, view videos, and complete online tutorials or simulations via Google sites, and they can be held accountable through discussion on the fusion page, class assessments, and laboratory activities. 

I plan to provide one link to a main page in Google sites on our class fusion pages.  Subpages in Google will be designated for each topic within the unit on chemical reactions and on these subpages, links, instructions, videos, and online tasks will be clearly outlined for students.  Because I am already familiar with Google sites, it will be an effective and efficient tool to provide a platform for students to study facts and master the most basic skills necessary to eventually analyze chemical properties of matter by conducting and observing chemical reactions in a laboratory setting.

Chemistry Game HD Lite is too Light in Substance

I was initially drawn to this app because of the word “game” in its title, however I had very little fun playing it, and I suspect most high school chemistry students would agree after playing for more than three minutes. Chemistry Game HD Lite is an educational application for balancing chemical equations created by iTech Developers Inc.  In a market where many chemistry apps relate to subject matter beyond that of a high school classroom and are more suitable for one learning college level organic chemistry, this app looked like it might be something beneficial for my 10^th -12^th grade students.  

While it has its benefits and I would consider recommending it to my chemistry students for some extra independent practice, it is not something that I would find to be suitable in a classroom lesson or unit plan.  Unfortunately the app does not provide benefits that significantly outweigh the traditional, paper and pencil method of learning and practicing balancing chemical equations.

 

The app allows the user to pick 1-3 equations to balance at a time, and also allows a choice of difficulty level ranging from one to three, with three being very challenging equations to balance.  I found the application to be rather one dimensional in the fact that there is no actual instruction provided to the user, without a significant amount of background knowledge in chemical reactions and the concepts of coefficients and their meaning in an equation, a user would have very little success using the app.  

It offers nothing over paper and pencil practice other than young students might be more engaged using the technology, but I think this engagement would fade quickly as the novelty of the app wears off.  In addition, because of the one dimensionality of the app, in order to balance more challenging equations, a student would still need to use a pencil and paper to successfully choose the correct coefficients. 

On a positive note, however, this app could serve as a good review tool for a student who is preparing for a cumulative exam who has already mastered balancing chemical equations, but may be a bit rusty.  The app is fast, clean in appearance, and user friendly if one has the background knowledge in chemistry, but lacks the substance to really provide any meaningful learning experience.

Images from: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chemistry-game-hd-lite/id424640348?mt=8

ADDIE Project - Chemical Reactions - Design

This project is designed for high school chemistry students. The goal of the project is to design a unit in which students can learn basic facts and concepts at home, so that class time can be better utilized for laboratory skill building and analysis of chemical properties of matter by conducting and observing chemical reactions in a lab setting.  The completion of online tasks will be monitored through written assignments which students must complete and upload to the class website.  Further formative assessment will include weekly quizzes in the classroom and lab reports for experiments conducted during class.  A summative assessment in the form of a test will take place at the end of the unit.  The activities in the action map below include both online and classroom activities to be completed by students.  In addition, some of the prior knowledge necessary to complete the learning activities will be covered in prior units while some will be learned during online tasks.

ADDIE Project - Chemical Reactions - Analyze

I.            Who is the audience?

                A.       High school academic chemistry students in grades 10-12

                        II.            What do they need to learn?

A.       Write the instructional goals

1.       To design a series of online activities that students can independently complete at home to build the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to conduct, identify, predict products of, and write proper equations for chemical reactions of varying types so that class time can be dedicated to hands on laboratory exercises.

B.       For each instructional goal, write the instructional objectives 

1.       Make online activities easy to navigate

2.       Reduce the number of links to external sources of information to reduce distraction for students

3.       Incorporate video, text, and interactive simulations into the activities to meet diverse learning styles

4.       Make the platform for the online activities visually appealing and interesting to promote student engagement and motivation

                              III.            Create a concept map based on preliminary research

A.       Products of a series of brainstorming sessions, and are the starting points for the flow charts providing clear directions for the production of the product

                              IV.            What are the delivery options?

A.       iTunes U, Edmodo, Google Sites, etc.

1.       Google sites can be utilized for individual activity webpages, and a link to the unit homepage will be on our class webpage.

                               V.            What constraints exist?

A.       Some students may have limited internet access or computer resources at home.

B.       It may be a challenge motivating students to complete activities at home

C.       Time constraints due to busy student schedules may present a problem

                              VI.            What will the students do to determine competency?

A.       Accuracy in completing assignments, worksheets, quizzes, etc.

1.       Students will be required to complete short assignments at home and submit them online via the class webpage.

2.       Weekly quizzes will be given in class assessing their knowledge of fundamental concepts learned in online activities.

3.       A summative assessment will be given at the end of the unit in the form of a traditional test.

4.       Lab reports for in class exercises will be required to assess students’ abilities to apply fundamental knowledge of chemical reactions in a lab setting.

                            VII.            What is the timeline for project completion?

A.       Including management, assigning tasks, flowcharting, storyboarding, design, etc. 

1.       Research and resource location (1 week)

2.       Design and Development of activities and encompassing webpages (3 weeks)

3.       Classroom implementation (4 weeks)

4.       Summative assessment and student feedback (1week)

                           VIII.            What are the classroom/Web learning differences?

A.       Ensuring all students do their own work, teaching of the Web concepts, computer literacy, etc.

1.       It will be difficult to ensure that all students are completing their own work considering I will not be there to monitor their at home progress.  Parent involvement will be necessary.

2.       Students may need some web navigation guidance before beginning the unit to ensure that tasks can be completed independently from home

                              IX.            What are the pedagogical considerations?

A.       Verbal, visual, tactile, auditory, etc. 

1.       Students’ prior knowledge must include naming chemical compounds, writing chemical formulas, ionic bonding, and general lab equipment and safety.

2.       Information will need to be represented by multiple means to meet diverse learning styles. 

3.       Formative assessment will be necessary via online quizzes and/or classroom quizzes and discussions to ensure that students are not falling behind.

Augmented Reality in the K-12 Horizon Report

http://www.nmc.org/publications/2012-horizon-report-k12

As I began reading through the executive summary of the K-12 Horizon Report, I felt relieved to see that the significant challenges that occur at the local level in education in executing ambitious plans in technology implementation were acknowledged with the sentence,  “ While there are many local factors affecting the practice of education, there are also issues that transcend regional boundaries and questions we all face in K-12 education; it was with these questions in mind that this report was created.”  This article was not written to address what can be done now but what could be done sometime soon.   After reading that, I felt more motivated to continue reading the article, because I felt that it would be an informative guide to things on the way, but I felt no sense of urgency or pressure that such technologies would or should be put into districts right away.

It was reassuring to be familiar with all six technologies, although I have no real expertise in them.  Nothing was completely foreign to me.  After reading about each of the technologies, I thought that the technology that would have the most significant impact on my instruction as a high school chemistry teacher was augmented reality.  However, I found it interesting, and worth noting, that AR on a large, practical scale would not be possible without the other mentioned technologies, particularly mobile devices, apps, and/or tablet computing.  It is exciting to think that with the exponential growth of technology, in five years, as predicted by the report, AR could be commonplace in many classrooms.

From the information presented in the report, the suitability of AR in education was obvious to me although it is still most commonly used for marketing or entertainment purposes.  It makes me proud to see Philadelphia as a front runner in AR implementation.    The project of the City of Philadelphia Department of Public Records, which makes historic photographs visible via a mobile device at the location where the photo was taken, would be great for a field trip, and although it was not created specifically for education, it is surely of value to anybody interested in learning about the history of the city.

From what I read, it seems that the technology necessary to create AR experiences is becoming more accessible and easier to create.   Since I am still in the early stages of my teaching career, I hope that I will one day be able to use it in my own chemistry classroom.  I think that most teachers would agree that active learning and an environment in which students can be actively engaged is far more effective than an environment in which students are passive.  While the video linked below shows what AR for chemistry might look like, it would be far more exciting to have 30 chemistry students viewing and manipulating the enzymes and complex molecules, analyzing the data that can be calculated, and making it accessible to their teachers and classmates via the internet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZxK6j4JTHQ&feature=youtu.be 

AR would make my classroom environment more active, because it will provide a more dynamic representation of the atoms and atomic interactions which my students study than I can currently provide for them.  “Dynamic processes, extensive datasets, and objects too large or too small to be manipulated can be brought into a student’s personal space at a scale and in a form easy to understand and work with.”  Helping students to visualize such processes or datasets, has been one of my biggest struggles as a chemistry teacher.  Physically bringing them into the student’s personal space would be remarkable.

My Thoughts on the National Education Technology Plan and Karen Cator's ACU Presentation

I do not question why the National Education Technology Plan was developed.  Nor do I question the intentions of those who designed it.  I do not question Karen Cator’s enthusiasm for sharing the ideals of this plan.  Technology is not only the way of the future, but the way of the present.  Its proper implementation needs to be a top priority in the world of education, and education needs to be a top priority for us all.
However, I did find myself questioning, how this plan is going be a success.   As this plan continues to be implemented over the next two years…

1. How will access to technological resources be made equitable among ALL learners when educational funding among different school districts is not currently equitable?
2. How will this plan ensure that, if ALL learners have access to a device and educational content 24/7, they will be proficient in using them?
3. How will a homeless high school student be motivated to use this new technology to learn, when he is worried about where he will be sleeping that night?
4. How is this plan going to be fully implemented by 2014 as planned, when unfortunately some educators, including administrators, still don’t know that it exists?

Personally, I found Karen Cator to be inspiring due to her professionalism, knowledge, and passion.  I too am passionate about technology and using it in my classroom, but I think that the use of technology needs to have a very specific instructional purpose.  The use of technology for its own sake, or throwing technology at schools and students in hopes that it will solve an unknown or underlying problem will most likely be ineffective.  I don’t think that the American education system is broken, but that it is a work in progress.

The principles upon which this plan is based are principles that I as an educator hold with utmost importance.  We should teach the individual.  Students should have personal choice in what and how they learn.  Research on cognitive development and learning science should be the basis for curricular and instructional changes.  However, with my current (relatively limited) understanding of the details of the National Education Technology Plan, I remain skeptical of its success by the year 2014.