Video Plan

For my video I am going to teach how to a balance chemical equations. This is an important chemistry concept and conservation of matter idea. There is a large gap between the students who can pick it up super fast and then can balance equations in their sleep and those who really struggle. I am going to make a video for those who struggle so they can have extra help and extra practice. It will also create another teaching method rather than me just showing it on the board. I have looked at some good ideas at how to present it. I plan on using the i-movie on the macs. The thing I think I am going to have trouble with is finding a sound that goes well with balancing equations. Hmmmm. But other than that I haven't run into any other issuers. I have spent over an hour storyboarding and finding material but I haven’t started on the actual movie yet. I’m excited; all is going well so far.

My Class Website

I had a lot of fun learning how to do everything for the site. I now have a new found respect for programmers. Here is my website I created for my future class. It's not perfect but it has potential. Check it out!

http://sites.google.com/site/8thgradesciencemrslarson/

Class website

I've been thinking about enhancing education with technology. I think an website would be a convenient way for the parents to get involved. It would be nice to post instructions for major projects and their due dates. This is so the parents would know exactly is going on. Along with that have a master calender that shows when all the major projects are due. I think it is important to make the parents feel like they are involved with their students education as much as possible. It would also be cool to spot light some of the accomplishments of the students as well. Possibly posting some pictures etc. I think a website could be very informative and beneficial.

Blogs and RSS Feeds

I think blogs would be great for having a way that students and their parents can access information about that class anytime. I would put important documents or assignments that the students and parents could access. I think it would also be fun to post any cool activates we did in class for the parents to see and get excited about. Also I think it would be great to help the parents feel more involved with their students learning.

Some of the RSS feeds that I thought would be cool to use in the classroom is first an RSS feed that tells all the recent earthquakes around the world that are larger than a 5.0 in magnitude. This would be fun to have the students connect what they learned in class to the real world. It would also be cool to look at the location of the earthquake and determine what type it was. Also I subscribed to the NASA earth observatory image of the day. That is just to have fun looking at awesome high resolutions images. Lastly I subscribe to some self help RSS feeds to better manage my time and become a better teacher.