Do the Math

Today I was invited to speak to the Science Department at Clayton High School about the use of web 2.0 tools. Since then, I have spent some time brainstorming what science 2.0 might look like.

I can think of many tools that could be used in today’s school 2.0 science classrooms.

Nine Free Tools and One that is Worth the Money

1) Google Spreadsheets – a free way to create a collaborative data sheet to record the results found during an experiment. Documents could then easily be published to a wiki to create an online lab sheet.

2) Slideshare.net – a free way to host your presentation files online. Works with keynote and Powerpoint presentations. I recommend exporting as jpegs before uploading to the site.

3) ed.voicethread.com – use to make online observations of experiments, to discuss methods for balancing equations, and to discuss current events in science. One teacher account with 100 students costs around 60 dollars.

4) Google homepage – a free way to organize all research, online discussions, and current events via RSS feeds that are seen each time the browser is started

5) wikispaces.com Free k12 wiki – a free public or private wiki for K-12 teachers to use in classrooms. Use to create an online textbook, an online lab book, or a website for students to share links and to conduct discussions. Media can be embedded from any web application that shows embed code.

6) Vimeo – a free video hosting site that allows users to upload video up to HD quality. Users are provided 500 MB per week of upload space. Use for publishing student videos, teacher tutorials, and other video files. All video is embeddable.

7) Jing Project – a free video capturing software for both windows and Mac. Use Jing to capture smaller size screencasts from your desktop.

Bubbl.us – a free concept mapping or idea mapping web application much like Inspiration. Use to map out the connections between science concepts such as the food chain or the water cycle.

9) Diggo – a free social bookmarking tool that can be used to annotate, bookmark, and share web content. You bookmark a site and your colleagues (”friends”) find out about it. Think of it as sharing your favorite articles and websites with the world.

10) Create a Graph – We should end with a fun one. Use this free tool to create fun graphs to include in reports presentations.

While not every one of these tools will be something that is useful in your classrooms, if you are just starting out, I am sure you can find something on this list to get your students collaborating.

After reading this post, I started re-thinking the way I organize my curriculum.

Organization is the key to completing almost any task. Whether it be planning an event, writing a textbook, creating a new website, or trying to master a new subject, if there is no organization, it is much more difficult to achieve success.When I was brainstorming the issues with creating an online Algebra 1 textbook, one of the first questions that had to be answered was “How should this textbook be organized?” Usually this would be an easy question to answer. First you start with the title, then chapters, and last lessons. But as I was brainstorming, I realized that this organization structure does not fit the new school 2.0 movement.

What fits?

Whether it be a blog post, a wiki page, or a youtube video, members of the school 2.0 community organize their content by categories and tags.

A movie is 1) uploaded 2) categorized 3) tagged so it is easily found on google

A blog post is 1) categorized 2) tagged so it is easily found on google

A wiki page is 1) linked to from a category 2) tagged so it is easily found on google

So I think we should start rethinking the way we organize our classes and curriculum. I teach Algebra 1, which is similarly taught all over the planet. One thing that has always bothered me is that I cannot find free Algebra content on the web that is really really good. It is hard to find good content that fits the concept that I am trying to have my students learn.

What I Propose We Do?

I propose that somehow we universalize the organization of our school 2.0 content. I am starting with the class I teach. You can see my progress at Flat Algebra 1 Classroom Textbook. I also suggest we start universal online experiences and/or online textbooks for subjects that all schools currently teach. That is why I am trying to get a Flat Algebra 1 Classroom Project started for next school year. I figure that if I can get ten school from different areas, we can offer some great learning experiences for our Algebra 1 students.

Any Algebra 1 teachers want to give it a try?