Cells Alive! Technology Tool/Resource

Cells Alive! 

"Explore, Study, and Play" 

Description: 

This website went online nearly thirty years ago! It is constantly updated about revised since its publish date in May,  1994. Nearly everything provided on this website (created by Jim Sullivan, is free of cost for anyone. This website gets 45,000 visitors a day. James Sullivan also includes his resume on the website which includes his information about both his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Biology. Therefore, the website could include possible errors since it is created by an individual, but the information on his website seems to be very accurate.

What's included? 

-Interactive Cell Models of Plant and Animal Cell

-Interactive Bacteria Cell Model

-Cell Puzzles and Games

          -Match, Jigsaw & Crossword Puzzles

-Interactive Eukaryote Cell Cycle (Mitosis, Meiosis, Cell Cycle)

-Virtual Labs

-Study Aids

-Quizes

-PowerPoints and Videos (costs may apply)

-& SO MANY MORE ONLINE RESOURCES!!!

Potential uses: 

There are so many tools on this website would fit perfectly into essentially any phase of the learning cycle. The interactive cell models could fit perfectly into either the explain or the explore phase of the learning cycle. The Virtual labs would work really great for the explore or elaborate phases. The puzzle and games would be good for review before the evaluate phase or even for the evaluate phase. The teacher could also create a webquest for students to complete. During the web quest there could be different requirement students must find and complete on the website. There is so much to do on the website, it would be a good idea for the teacher to have a plan for the things they definitely wanted students to accomplish. Or this could also just be a supplementary activity that students who finish early could log on and do in order to keep them occupied. 

Here's some images of what Cells Alive! has to offer your classroom: 

Plickers

    

What is Plickers?

 Is a tool used as a form of formative/summative assessment. It is administered by the teacher who will give every student plickers cards that are embedded with their own shape to match with answers ABCD.  The teacher can create an assessment that will access student's prior knowledge and results will be shown on your I-phone and or Tablet. This will help the teacher understand what students know and still need to learn to help teachers modify instruction to meet their needs and help students modify learning. All the answers are unanimous but students can see their own results and see what they know.  All the results can be saved into your account and can be used for future references!

 

SeeSaw Class

What is SeeSaw?

SeeSaw is a student-driven learning portfolio allowing students to use their various devices (i.e. smartphones, tablets, Apple devices) within the classroom in a collaborative manner. After accepting an access code from the instructor, students will be placed into a digital classroom where they can share photos, videos, drawings, files, notes, or hyperlinks. The content will be uploaded into a cloud-based News Feed, where students can see their peers content simultaneously, similar to how most social media apps are run. The instructor has the ability to accept or veto content before it is directly uploaded to the News Feed, allowing for greater relevance of information. 

Instructional Usage

SeeSaw has a multitude of usage related to middle grades science instruction. It allows for various forms of assessments from students. For example, a unit on force and gravity can be formally assessed by students uploading images of Newton's Laws within the classroom or at home, create small videos with peers demonstrating such content, or share links to news articles pertaining to airplanes or sports. The ability of the instructor to veto is powerful, as it allows the students the chance to redo the assignment in order to achieve better results. The News Feed allows for greater collaborative learning opportunities and "remedial" sessions, where students can refer back to previous posts. This also works well with absent students, where the instructor can share images or videos of the lesson and send hyperlinks of related readings for the student, thus ensuring greater equitable learning. 

Anna's Tech Tool

TechSmith Snagit is a screen capture and screencasting tool that allows you to take and save screenshots of parts of your screen easily. To install this tool, you can go to the Google Play store and download the free extension to your Chrome browser. The tool does not work in any other browser. 

To take a screenshot of any part of your screen, you click the blue and white S icon in the top right corner of your browser and select the type of screenshot you want to take. Once you take your screenshot by clicking the camera icon, you can either download the photo or copy its URL to insert into a document.

As a teacher, this tech tool would be great for creating worksheets, presentations, or any other media that you want to insert pictures, charts, or graphs into. It would also be great for students to use when they are creating media products.

The Hickory Crew!

The Hickory crew only meets once a week for secondary science methods. When we do though, these determined teachers to be work hard for three and a half hours straight. So much so that we haven't had time to take too many pictures so far this semester. Here are a few shots of them in action...

 

New Year, New Faces

Happy 2016! We have a bunch of fresh, new faces in our Secondary Science Methods (GS4403) course eager to become the best science teachers out there. Here is the Hickory cohort:

Ms. Keaton

Mr. Nakota

Ms. Anna

Ms. Justin

Below they comment on their 5 goals for their students...

EEEEE!!

What I like most of the 5E framework is that it is a method that places the focus on the students, and how they can learn better. The 5E Learning Cycle method also gives you more flexibility in terms of time. You don't think in terms of individual lessons but as whole learning cycles, some taking more lesson time than others. My favorite phase is the Engage phase. I love trying to figure out different activities to engage my students. I think this phase is the key to the other four. If you have a strong Engage phase, the rest follow easily.

My biggest challenge when working with the 5E method I think will be putting in practice my creative ideas. Based on my experience, creating lesson plans following the 5E template, requires good disposition of the students, resources, time, and a good handle of the class. Also I think that every class is different and you can’t apply the same learning cycle plan for everyone and the modifications will be totally necessary depending where you are and the resources you have available to you. The challenge will be to adapt learning cycles to difference circumstances and environments.