After the Seminar Activities

Dr. Jack Hassard
 
Using the Internet as an Effective Science Teaching Tool

Introduction

To apply what you learned in today's seminar "Using the Internet as an Effective Science Teaching Tool," you might want to do some of the activities outlined below. I've selected "activities" that serve as a method for you to reflect on the the seminar, as well as experiment with some of the key practical activities and ideas to bring to your classroom. If you have any problems, let me know.

Post-Seminar Activities

1. Join the e-GROUP

An e-Group has been set up for the seminar. This will be a good experience for you if you have never joined an Internet discussion or e-mail group. After you join you can then send a message to science-projects@egroups.com which will then be distributed to all teachers who have subscribed to the group. When you successfully join, send out a message telling of your success.

Subscribe to Science Projects

science-projects archive

Hosted by eGroups.com

2. Post a Message on the Seminar Bulletin Board

Visit the seminar bulletin board (http://venus.beseen.com/boardroom/m/25950/) and post a message. You might also use the bulletin board to invite other science teachers to join you in a collaborative project.

3. Use an Internet-based Lesson Plan Template

Design an Internet-based lesson using the on-line template (http://www.gsu.edu/~mstjrh/webbasedtemplate.html/) shown in the workshop. If possible, field-test the lesson plan with a group of students.

4. Design a Hunt

Design a science lesson based the "hunt" format on a topical area in science in which groups of students are assigned specific sub-topics. Go the Activity Design Formats page. Here you will not only be able to design a lesson around the idea of a Hunt, but also learn about Hotlists, Scrapbooks, Sampler Activities, and Webquests. Here is a page with many sample science Hunt Activities.

5. Nicenet

Develop a website using the Nicenet (http://www.nicenet.net) web site. Go slow here. I suggest you set up a Nicenet Website for only one of your classes. Go to Nicenet and click on "create a class." Type in for the name of the class the title of your course and the period it meets (Chemistry - 2). You can add other classes later once you've set up your initial course.

6. Hotlists, Yahoo and Google

Use the Yahoo website to begin developing a Hotlist for your professional work as a science teacher. If you are a biology teacher, for instance, begin your Hotlist by looking ahead at the major topics you will be teaching, and try and find three - five websites for each topic. When you use Yahoo, besure to scroll to the category of "SCIENCE," and use the Yahoo Database rather than the search tool. You might also supplement your Hotlist by search for sites on google. Here are some sample Hotlists.

7. Bulletin Board

Set up a bulletin board or chat room using the Beseen website as a source. To do this activity effectively, you will need to have a web page set up so that you can a link from your web page to the bulletin board or chat room. Note: you can make links to these two items from a Nicenet website.

8. Project Water Watch

Participate in a pooled-data analysis project by using the GTP Project's Project Water Watch.

9. Other Pooled Data Projects

Participate in the River Keepers or Ozone projects located at the CLEO website (http://cleo.terc.edu/cleo/cleo-home.cfm). This will mean that you will have your students monitor a river near your school and share data with the River Keepers Website.

9. CLEO

Using the Cleo website, design a collaborative activity using the author section of CLEO to create your project. Try and use the activity with a group of your students, if possible.

10. Join a collaborative project

You might look at either the Global Thinking Project (http://www.gtp.org) or EnviroNet (http://earth.simmons.edu).

11. Internet Structures

Choose one of the Net Structures identified in the seminar and in the handbook and design an activity that you would do with your students. Recall that there are 12 different Net structures.

12. Web 101

Go to the Web 101 site, and select one of the lessons to do with your students.

13. Internet Based Lessons

Try out any of the Internet-based science lessons with your classes that are contained in the handbook.

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