Hawkins,+Jennifer

=**Deliverable #2**=

Integrating a blog into a lesson plan: I chose this lesson plan from this particular unit because, the unit tends to be harder for students to be motivated about because there are no real hands on lab experiments, but rather, it is student driven research. The students are assigned an alternative fuel to research as a collaborative group of 3 - 4 students. They make a presentation to the class. As each presentation is given, students are taking notes on a graphic organizer. As a final product, the students need to write a paper comparing and contrasting two of the alternative fuels and make recommendations on the one that they feel is superior.

How I feel that the blog will assist in this task is I can use it to post sources or news articles for the students. Also I can use it to generate interest on the first day, by having the students first read an article and post comments to the blog. We can then have a whole class discussion about what we learned by reading the comments and asking for input. I think the blog will help the students get motivated because they will feel like their voices are being heard, not just by our class, but by who ever reads the blog.


 * Title**: The Fuel of the Future: Energy and it's impact on society (Lesson 1)
 * Subject/Grade Level:** 9th Grade Physical Science
 * Author**: Jennifer Hawkins
 * Time -** 90 minutes class period

This is an introductory lesson to the students unit on Alternative Energy. Prior to the lesson, students have learned about various forms of energy such as: Kinetic, Potential (Chemical and Gravitational), Thermal, etc. They have also explored how these various forms of energy transfer from one form to another and how some energy is lost as heat (Thermal Energy). This unit on Alternative Energy allows the student to apply their knowledge of energy transformations and apply it to a real world scenario.
 * Description of Lesson**

Content Standard 9.3 - Various sources of energy are used by humans and all have advantages and disadvantages.
 * Standards**

Students will... - investigate an assigned form of alternative energy - work collaboratively to prepare a presentation for the class on their assigned form of energy
 * Objectives**

- student laptops - various sources for the students to research
 * Materials**

- have students visit classroom blog: [|khsscientists.blogspot.com] - have students post comment on blog
 * Opening**

- Create a concept map on smartboard: Why research Alternative Energy? Generate some ideas to get the students motivated to do the resarch
 * Activity 1 - Introduction to the Activity/Why research Alternative Energy**
 * -** Class will discuss blog comments. Ask students how they think they are impacted by the current usage of alternative energy.

- pass out source evaluation worksheets - Show students an example of a good source and have them fill out the source evaluation worksheet - Show students an example of a bad source and have them fill out the source evaluation worksheet - Show students examples of several sources and have them predict whether or not it is a good source
 * Activity 2 - Evaluating a Source**

- Advise students that they are to research their fuel and present their findings to the class. This research will take place over the course of a few class periods. After they present the students will be instructed to write a paper comparing and contrasting two of the fuels. - Students to chose roles (team leader, time keeper, recorder, etc) - Pass out graphic organizer for fuel of the future - Students to visit class website and start to review some sources
 * Activity 3 - Collaborative Research**
 * -** Assign students to collaborative research groups. Each group is assigned a different fuel that may power their car (propane, natural gas, electricity, biodiesel, ethanol or hydrogen)

- Remind students that they will be continuing their research tomorrow.
 * Closing**

=Deliverable #3 - Proposal for Freshman Science Team Wiki=

Dear Mr. Vose,

I have been researching the use of wiki's in education and I feel that utilizing a wiki for our content teams would streamline our organization of classroom resources and data. As I am sure you are aware, a wiki is a webpage in which groups of people can collaborate and edit and post content

I would like the Freshman Science Team to create a wiki page in which we can share resources, data and other educational materials. We collaborate as a team at least once a week for at least 45 minutes. Although this face to face time is valuable, a lot of it can be lost in finding and organizing materials. Also we tend to share worksheets, articles and other valuable resources in order to make the freshman science experience consistent across the board. Sending these materials through email or handing them to each other in person is helpful, but can be frustrating and complicated to organize. We collaborate using a google doc for our data and with the wiki we can create a link to this google doc so that way anyone who needs our resources will only have to click on the link to access that information. In essence it will offer us a way to keep all of our resources together.

Wikis have been used in many different settings and organizations, educational as well as cooperative environments. For instance, at Westwood High School in Camilla, Georgia, Vicki Davis uses wikispaces for her computer classes. Her wiki: flatclassroom.wikispaces.com helped her students to collaborate with students in Bangladesh; a feat that would normally not be possible in the traditional classroom setting. The wiki allows the students to collaborate, as well as share their knowledge with a wide audience. Louise Maine uses wikis in her biology classes to create an online virtual textbook for her students. This wiki can be found at tinyurl.com/nr91yr). Another example of how wikis have been used in education is hillviewwebclass.pbwiki.com. Michael Kaelin, who utilizes this wiki, discusses how convenient it is to have all of your information stored in one area. Other examples of more well known organizations that utilize wiki software are the CIA and Nasa. The possibilities for sharing knowledge and collaborating with a wiki are endless. I have used wikis in the classroom before and the students found the ease of use and convenience of having their work stored all in one place extremely valuable.

One possible road block that we may encounter in this endeavor are getting my fellow colleagues up to speed with how to use and add to a wiki. With new technology there are always learning curves and sometimes technological glitches to overcome. Sometimes the issues in technology could keep fellow faculty members from buying into the new technology because they may feel that it is wasting their time. WIth all of the administrative tasks that teachers have to do, adding a new one to the list might create apprehension.

My response to these issues is that using the software will save us time in the long run. The web interface is easy to learn and simple to use. I do not anticipate any of my colleagues. Also I do not anticipate any extra time being spent adding our resources to the wiki, save the initial tutorial on use of the wiki. Being familiar with this technology, I would be happy to facilitate training for my colleagues as well as answer any questions that they may have. I feel that the teachers in my content team will find the wiki a useful resource and eventually it will become second nature for them to upload items.

The specific software that I had in mind for use to utilize is through wikispaces.com. The software would not cost us any money as it offers free services for K-12 education. The free service would be more than enough at this time to fit our needs, so the school department would not incur any cost in that respect.

My vision for the future is that by using this software we will be able to collaborate more efficiently. My hope is that less time will be spend on organizing and locating our resources and materials and more time will be spent on creating or finding new and innovative resources for our students. We will also be creating a data base that will make our resources more accessible, so in the future, teachers that are new on our team will have a library of resources to utilize. I also hope that the success of the wiki, on the science content team, will inspire other teams of teachers to create a wiki for their content team, thus creating a virtual library of our schools entire curriculum.

Thank you,

Jennifer Hawkins