The Moon and Beyond

I'm so glad to be done with my Capstone project!

Title of work: The Moon and Beyond
Student's name: Summer Weirich
Student's major: Science, Society & Technology and Elementary Education

Artist's Statement:

I adapted a portion of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading curriculum to be more technology based. This web-based curriculum is to be used in tandem with classroom instruction to aid 4th-5th grade students in learning Astronomy. I predict that this website will decrease the cognitive load for students and that the simulations will aid students in fully synthesizing the information they are presented with. My next step is to conduct research to test my web-based curriculum in an elementary classroom in the Fall of 2009.

Updated site

https://atlas.colorado.edu/~weirichn/moonandbeyond3.html

Alright...I finally like my CSS template and as far as content goes: journal link is live, glossary is live, calendar is live (fixing the tables), e-mail teacher link works, cool sites link is live, working on the lessons content and layout. lesson 1 is up, but the rest of the lessons aren't up. having trouble with the calandar tables but that should be an easier fix. need to figure out this iframe thing though...

as for my personal site, i'm STILL having issues with it (and i nearly had a mental breakdown over it on friday)...the link is

https://atlas.colorado.edu/~weirichn/index.html

been having issues with permissions...not sure why, the css file is not attaching right and it's VERY frustrating! i even did exactly what joel (my professor) advised me to do and no luck :(

i'm nervous about this project now...i think it's going great and that it will look great and be effective when i'm done, but writing the thesis next semester!!! ahh! and then if people actually like my lesson i'll have to adapt it for teachers (if i don't decide to do that side this summer in my free time)...woah, dude...intense. i am capable of a lot, i need to keep these skills around for sure.

Design Help

Okay, so I want your honest opinion! I'm trying to choose a style for my website. This website is an educational one geared towards students in 3rd/4th grades. I don't need any help on the content at the moment, I just want your opinion on my design.

This is what my original design was:

https://atlas.colorado.edu/~weirichn/moonandbeyond.html

My class/professor said that looked more high-school-y so I wanted to change it, but not to anything to kid-ish...it is still an educational site. Here's what I've got right now. Let me know if you have better suggestions for color or formatting or whatever:

https://atlas.colorado.edu/~weirichn/moonandbeyond2.html

Thanks!!!

xoxox summ

Website Link

Here is the link to my Website:

https://atlas.colorado.edu/~weirichn/moonandbeyond.html

I am obviously still working on it (and will be for the next month or so) but I would LOVE feedback and constructive criticism. Thanks!

Summer

Controversial School..

What kind of school would I want to work in? They aren't all the same by far and I really wanna check out different ones. This is an interesting one that Kathy told me about:

Summer Hill

To do: Look up more research...

According to my daddy,

"There is apparently some good research out there, which you already may know about, that shows how significantly greater an audience's retention is when they have been taught both orally and visually, rather than just orally. I run into it from the jury point of view, but assume it is the same from the student point of view."

I'm well aware that this is the case, but for my thesis proposal I need to look up more info on this topic...very interesting to have it confirmed by someone that isn't in the teaching profession per se. Obviously this holds true across the board.

Val, do you have any journals that I could read through on this?

Thanks, Summer

Advice from Kathy Broyles

Kathy Broyles (previously a senior vice-president of marketing for CBS, and has run her own design and marketing firm) was our sub teacher today and we discussed my project. Here are the things I took from our discussion on my project:

• Check out the school: Summer Hill (from a while ago but used the nontraditional education that really interests me)
• Retention: maybe test students again a month down the road to see what they still remember from my lessons
• Applied learning? Memory? What am I assessing here?
• NARROW FOCUS

My Thoughts: Rethinking Educational Technology: Some Early Steps

(sorry it took me so long to post my thoughts on this...been very busy!)
Rethinking Educational Technology: Some Early Steps
Michael Eisenberg
Dept. of Computer Science
(thoughts from conference 1.30.08)

Prof Eisenberg seems to have a very specific type of technology and a specific way that he wants to introduce this technology in the classroom. It was interesting to see the other ideas and projects that are out there as well as the thoughts of the other people that attended the conference.

Interesting shareware: Hypergami Program

They have 3-D printers at CU! No way! So rad :)

Overall themes:

• focus on designing content-rich activities as opposed to skill-building
• focus on children's culture/interests that go beyond the classroom
• blend physical & computational media, making use of these tools

Books I want to check out that he mentioned:

• How People Learn (about metacognition)
  
• The Sociology of Childhood
• The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren

Eisenberg focused more on integrating technology physically into the places that children go (ie. malls, and other hang out spots) but he didn't seem as focused as I am in integrating education with these technological devices but he just seemed to want them to be present in childrens' worlds.

Website to check out: instructables.com

One thing I really liked about the presentation was the thought that we should link interests (of the children) to important concepts to increase motivation in the students.

What I really did NOT like about Eisenberg's outlook is that he didn't take into consideration what we can do in the schools because of restrictions

• CSAP prep
• Time required to focus on Lit & Math thus limited time for science & tech
• What the schools have money for

When I brought up these restrictions (another conference attendee mentioned a bit on this and he dismissed her comment pretty quickly -- bothered me a lot!) Eisenberg dismissed them quickly and just went back to what he'd already said...a few people in the audience seemed to agree with me and came to talk to me afterwards but I don't understand why he wouldn't look at theings the way they are. Hell I'd LOVE to change a bunch of the things about the school system but it's not that easy to change things, so I'd like to focus on getting around the problems instead of pushing for change that I don't see happening any time soon.

So it was interesting and I learned a bit, but I really didn't agree with Eisenberg's outlook on things...

Summer’s Research Plan

Aesthetic:
• I would like my project to have a space theme because the students will be learning about space
• Easy to navigate site
• Not too distracting so that students can still learn
• Easy to read

Historical:
• http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/te0cont.htm: Annotated collection of links to resources related to using or planning to use technology in schools.
• http://www.wested.org/techpolicy/recapproach.html: Implementing Technology in Education: Recent Findings from Research and Evaluation Studies
• http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cCorp.dspEffectiveK12: Reviews on the site and of interactive science (and math) simulations
• Essentials of Educational Technology: (Part of the Essentials of Classroom Teaching Series) (Paperback) by James E. Schwartz

Conceptual/Theoretical:
• http://otec.uoregon.edu/arguments_against.htm: Arguments against using IT in education.
• http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Qa/archives/Educational_Technology/Effects_of_Technology/negeffects.html: Drawbacks of technology in education.
• http://www.hudtech.net/Drawbacks-of-Technology%20.html: Drawbacks of technology in education.

Peers:
• http://www.edubloggercon.com/: Blog for education/tech fields
• http://www.explorelearning.com/: Interactive science simulations

Technical:
• I need to learn the required skills (Colorado Model Content Standards) that students need to learn for the age that my project is geared towards (3rd-5th Grades)
• I need to refresh myself in CSS skills for designing the templates for the website
• I need to learn how to record audio and to download it to the computer (I already know how to edit it)
• I need to learn the most effective way(s) to introduce new information to elementary aged students (particularly the way to create sites that are easy to navigate for young students)