Posted by David Wetzel
Podcasting Tools
A podcast is a way of publishing audio files on the Internet. With a podcast users do not have to check a web site for new episodes.
They can subscribe (via an RSS feed) and receive new episodes automatically. A video podcast, or vodcast, is a podcast that uses video.
An enhanced podcast is an audio podcast that has pictures associated with it, like a slideshow.
Required Equipment
Many people belief that you must have an iPod or other MP3 player to listen to Podcasts; however, the you can use any of the following:
- Palm handheld computers
- Windows Mobile handheld computers
- MP3 players (include iPods and others)
- Desktop and laptop computers
- Cell phones
How are Podcasts Relevant to Science or Math Education
The following are strategies for using Podcasts in science and math:
- Students create podcasts of their science or math projects that they embed in multimedia presentations or interactive posters using a website such as Glogster.
- A class can take a virtual field trip to a zoo, rain forest, museum, of other locations to support curriculum.
- Students are determining the properties of an unknown substance and recording notes using a digital audio recorder, MP3 player, or a computer. This allows students to capture thoughts and observations in real time that can be used to supplement notes.
- For any experiment that involves sound (examining how the length of a vibrating string affects pitch, for instance), using digital audio recording improves the quality of observation.
- Use science or mathematics in everyday life.
- Overview this day in mathematics history.
- Create a sports news show or sportscaster voice-over, exploring statistics or the mathematics of the physical laws governing the sport.
- Students discuss the impact of mathematics on society, or how the history of mathematics has shaped human history.
- Post a monthly puzzler or a brain teaser as an audio recording. Students have to listen carefully to the words and vocabulary used to figure it out.
Sample Podcasts
Science on the Wildside
Science and nature features, news, and humorous educational songs to listen and learn by.
Examples include:
- Salute to Dragonflies - time 4:35
- Salute to Gray wolves - time 4:27
Scientific American -
Examples include:
- 60 Second Science - Tune in every weekday for quick reports and commentaries on the world of science– it’ll just take a minute!
- 60 Second Earth - Tune in every Sunday for quick reports on the science of the environment and the future of energy. It’ll just take a minute!
The Video Math Tutor - Tips for Students - a series of video podcasts that provides students with a number of tips to help them along with their math classes. These will be most helpful for those from 7th grade through college.
Examples include:
You can also go to the iTunes stores and do a search, under podcasts, for science or math. The podcasts are free.
For example:
Science Education Podcasts - right hand column
Math Education Podcasts - first and second column
Podcasts can be created as an alternative to digital media such as videos, voice, or images. Student-created podcasts provide a good digital medium for student expression of concepts, projects, and related themes.
Posted by David Wetzel
Science iPod Touch Apps
Science applications (Apps) for iPod Touch offer students and teachers excellent tools to help students spend more time learning science content in class and laboratory situations.
Although many Science Apps are loaded with ads and other distracting information, I have found several that are free of ads.
iPod Touch Science Apps
LabTimer - this is a count-up and count-down multi-timer with the following features:
- Four timers, individually configurable as count-up or alarming count-down
- Large display and buttons
- Display in Hours : Minutes : Seconds (limit above 1000 hours)
- Customizable text labels for each timer
- Small icons describing the state of all timers
- Disables iPod sleep, keeping your timer running and visible
ExoPlanet - a database of extrasolar planets. It contains details of all detected exo-planets as well as their host stars.
Students can easily search through the database and view pictures of the host star, visualizations of the planet’s orbits.
Correlation diagrams of various planet properties can be created on the fly.
Worlds Apart - a model of the solar system. Hand tuned for performance and realism, it uses hardware accelerated 3D graphics to give you a higher detailed, smoother and more accurate view of our planetary neighborhood. Prepare for a very different view of the planets than from any ordinary hand held planetarium.
USGS Seismic - this application parses an RSS feed from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that provides data on recent earthquakes around the world.
It displays the location, date, and magnitude of each earthquake, along with a color-coded graphic that indicates the severity of the earthquake.
NASA - this an official NASA App that invites to discover to discover a wealth of NASA information. The NASA App collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated information, images
iFormulas - is a clean, simple, easy to use mathematical formula application. Provides basics to survive your Algebra, Calculus, Geometry or Trigonometry to support science investigations. It does not give you answers but provides an easy navigational guide.
Science Glossary - this is an extensive glossary of scientific terms and short biographies of key scientists. All definitions link to related terms and detailed science learning modules.
LabCal - this Laboratory Calculator is an utility to calculate the molarity, to convert gram and mole and to compute dilutions of stock solutions.
Promega - this App provides lots of great information for life science, including quick access to molecular biology calculators, technical tips, protocols, and multimedia presentations.
The calculators provide a range of functions essential to molecular biology experiments, including DNA and protein conversions, melting temperature, molarity and dilution calculations.
Topics include basic amplification techniques to real-time PCR, from simple cell-based assays to complex imaging techniques, and from protein expression to more involved protein interactions assays. Multimedia elements can also be easily accessed via a separate menu.
Features include:
- DNA, Protein, Tm, and Dilution Calculators
- Step-by-step protocols
- Illustrations and example data
- Extensive background information
- Animated movies demonstrating key techniques and cellular events
Mild EleMints - is an interactive Periodic Table. It offers a Periodic Table, a Plot Graph, Element listing, Electron Diagram, and a wealth of information on every element.
Features include:
- The Periodic Table can be shaded according to a particular property, and zoomed to get more information at a time.
- The table will rotate itself for both Portrait and Landscape orientations.
- Mild EleMints only supports the following properties: Classification, Electronegativity, and Physical State.
Resource
All of these Science Apps are available free from iTunes.
Related Information
Readers may aslo be interested in 10 Math Applications for the iPod Touch
Posted by David Wetzel
Using Technology in the Classroom
As many of you may have discovered, I also found that many of my previous colleagues have little use for technology for teaching.
They are mired in excuses such as using technology is cheating, students learn best through lecture, the stresses of NCLB makes it too difficult to do anything but have students memorize facts to pass the tests, etc.
So what are the advantages of technology?
Technology has tremendous power to help students obtain, organize, manipulate, and display information. Students can use technology tools (such as word processing, database, design, and graphing software) in the same ways as do professional scientists and mathematicians.
Using technology for meaningful activities also helps integrate a variety of disciplines, more closely resembling activities that people undertake in the world beyond the classroom. For example, word processing is a real-world technology that can help students develop better writing and thinking skills.
Using the computer, students write longer, more complex sentences and are more willing to revise and edit their work; they are able to concentrate on the thoughts they want to express rather than the mechanical skills of penmanship, spelling, and grammar.
Using technology in science and math class promotes learning activities in which students work in small groups rather than in isolation or as a whole class demonstrations. The technologies used in the classroom are not those designed explicitly to teach basic skills, but rather are real-world applications that support research, design, analysis, composition, and communication.
For example using Google Docs to collaborate on science laboratory reports, data analysis, and presentation of findings.
Another example is using classroom Wikis in Science and Math for collaborating on projects and sharing their findings.
A third example is use Twitter or Skype to communicate with students in other locations to collaborate on projects and assignments.
An Example of Teacher Resistance
Three years ago I was hired by a school district to teach middle school science teachers how to integrate Calculator Based Laboratory (CBL) Probeware in their curriculum.
After four weeks of providing staff development and in-class support regarding how to use these data loggers, with the eight science teachers in the school. The science teachers began to come up with strategies and techniques on their own for integrating CBL Probeware data loggers in their lessons.
At the same time all the teachers confided in me that they had all agreed in advance that using this technology was a waste of time and that they would resist every step of the way.
I was taking back by this statement, I thought that the integration difficulties in their lessons were due to not understanding the technology.
Their minds were changed as they discovered their students were more interested in science experiments, grasped the technology quickly, better understood concepts, and were able to make connections with other concepts. The teachers also found out that they were not behind in their curriculum and students scored better, on average, on chapter tests.
Fast forward to today, CBL Probeware has expanded to all areas of the science curriculum and has also moved into the math curriculum in selected areas as real-time data loggers.
So What Does This All Mean?
Students today are more technologically literate than many of their teachers. Today’s students have grown up in the digital age; they use Facebook, they Tweet, and they use the Internet for almost everything.
Instead of resisting technology, the goal should be to harness the technological energy in students and become a guide for the best ways to use technology to learn.
Any suggestions?
David R. Wetzel, Ph.D.
