Virtual Classroom

[Erin Nash]

Our work has certainly come a long way this year. In our short time working in this space (since only September 2009) we have attracted quite a bit of attention for our open approach to learning.  Your sharing, reflection and synthesis have earned two nominations for Edublogs awards in as many years.  Impressive is a good word.

In the thread below, please reflect upon our use of free, open online tools to enhance our classroom this year. I'm always proud of how your work ends up being all about the content and the learning process, and not about the technology used to accomplish those goals.  In reality, this is the mark of a good learning technology...  one that doesn't get in the way, but instead allows the classroom environment to flow in the best way possible.  In our world, classroom technology is a tool to facilitating thinking and acting.  I like that.

How has the use of this online public learning network, and educational technology affected our work in Dual Credit Biology this year?

[Ali Bargu]

First of all: It is over?!?! It felt like yesterday when I walked into this room full of technology!

Being introduced to a NING was really interesting. I was skeptical at first. But i changed my opinion really quickly. Being able to work on a webpage opens the world up to you in a simple classroom! You can simple include pictures, videos, drawings that you did online (cacoo) and other awesome features. Being introduced to new technology every week was interesting and even though i didn't like each one of those, once in awhile we found something that is on my Top Pages now.

Each class should have the opportunities we had in this subject. You can always go ahead and improve your writing after a while and add content. It is faster to communicate with teachers and fellow students!

To wrap up this entry I want to share this picture of me and kerstyn! :) ENJOY!

[Blayr Bolton]

I'm pretty sure that I could write for pages and pages about the way this network has affected our work in Dual Credit Biology, but I'll keep it pretty to the point, so everyone doesn't have to read a novel. First of all, typing this right now is my first example of how the ning has helped my overall development as a student in DC Biology. I am sitting here reflecting on the year and the difference that social networking has made. Well, the difference is the ability to reflect. Not only to reflect for my own self discovery and enhancement in the classroom, but to reflect for others. All of my reflections from this year are available for the public to see and comment on, as well as for my fellow classmates to read and help them understand new topics and ideas. I also can read my classmates reflections on new learning objectives to help in my understanding. Reflecting has become a huge part of this class and honestly one of the best tools I have learned to become a better student.

Along with reflecting, I have learned about several other tools that help in my reflection of what we learn. For example, we have used sites like etherpad, todaysmeet, googledocs, cacoo, and the ning. All of these have helped in my journey throughout the year to better understand topics. For example, we used cacoo to draw up our own ideas of Protein Synthesis. This required a decent amount of creativity, time, and planning for me, but in the long run it was a great way to understand the true process of Protein Synthesis. I guess who better to teach me, than me? Another example of these online tools is using googledocs. We have used googledocs to create study guides and I personally use google docs to do all of my writing and reflections. I start there so that I can save my work and come back to it to write more or finish what I've started. It's basically like a Mircrosoft Word on the go.

Another positive to this public learning network is the way we have approached it. Mr. and Mrs. Nash plan out exactly how our activities in class are going to work out and then parallel them with how we will come back to this website and respond to what we've learned or our opinion on a topic. For example, with Evolution we started by going to our group Class of 2010 and writing a response to what we believed Evolution was. After this, we got onto the Wise Projects through the University of California Berkeley and did some projects that were revolved around the theory of Evolution. Once we finished that, we went back to comment on our first post to compare how our views had changed. (It was that reflecting again) We then proceeded to work through Evolution in class with powerpoint slides, notes, and discussions. We truly started to understand this concept and finally were given a "How has your view changed about Evolution?" post to complete. All of this allowed me to literally see how my views had changed in as little as a few weeks. I can see exactly how I've developed and truly started to understand the theory of Evolution.

The ning has also been used to challenge me as a student and learner in several different ways. Most of the posts that I make about topics we've discussed aren't too difficult because it is reflecting and all of it comes from my own personal views and flashbacks of a topic, but when we're asked to write blog posts or answer research questions, then things start to become a little more tough. For example, when we had to write a blog post about Carbs, Lipids, and Proteins we were all sort of on our own on what to do. This required me to be creative in how I approached the assignment because there was a lot of content that needed to be added, but I had to do it in a way that was understandable and beneficial to me. This was one of the most challenging projects we did all year long, but as a student I thrive on these type of assignments because it's making me a stronger student and it's preparing me more for the future endeavors I may encounter during college.

All in all, the free online tools available to me as a student at Benton High School and a future educator are unbelievable. I can look back through my posts throughout the entire year and see how my writing and ideas have grown and become more advanced in just a short period of time. I have learned about tools that I can one day potentially use in my classroom to track how my students develop as writers and readers. Technology is something that I can say I feel very lucky to have access to and is also something that I hope to be able to pass on over the next few years. But when it comes down to it, I don't think technology would be near as beneficial or even useful if it weren't for the teachers who set it up; Mr. and Mrs. Nash. They do a phenomenal job at making technology friendly and eye opening for students and I can't thank them enough for the opportunity I've had this year to experience what it's like to be able to learn in this way. It's remarkable the ways I have been prepared for college and the future through these two teachers and through the tools they've provided me; it's truly a blessing!

[Terra Younger]

Using technology in DC Bio this year has helped improved my learning strategies tremendously....

This site is obviously a major factor in our online approach. I must say, I really love this site. It's been nice getting to read what your other classmates have to say about what they've learned and getting to connect with them in the processes. That's been one of my techniques for learning: learning from my peers.

I also like how we can link to things that remind us of what we’ve learned or link to sites that further our understanding of the subject at hand.

Being forced (not literally, but if you want a good grade) to find the information on the web yourself and posting it here, makes you learn! I know I've learned a lot over the course of the year...

Overall the online approach to learning is a very positive/cool thing in my opinion. It's gotten me ready for college in a since; I mean you have to learn most of the information yourself and ACTUALLY study for things. This website has helped me grasp that, thanks.

[Aziz Siddikov]

As the student from the other country I have to admit that we don't have so many freedom in our schools. It is really good opportunity that we have. Non of the classes that i have taken are like this. When i walk in that classroom, i feel the 21 century, we have so many electronic applications that can help make class more interesting and more helpful. A lot of teachers try to limit the usage of electronic devices as much as they can, but they don't know that as much as they try it is not going to work. Instead of banning the usage of the electronic devices, teachers have to come up with the way so those devices will work to make learning easier.

And our biology is the great example of that. We have freedom to learn in the WAY that we want. We all different and everybody has it's own way to learn. In this class we do research, search for the resources, and share our ideas online. I think that that is very important thing that we are not just reading of the books and writing down thing in our notebooks. Everybody can copy book into notebook, it is easy thing to do. But it takes a lot of thinking and work to make research and learn thing by yourself, with the little guidence of the teacher, Actually I rather prefer the word COACH INSTEAD OF TEACHER. In my opinion every class should be like this one. We are FREE TO THINK and FREE to share our ideas. And that's the thing that made me learn a lot more then I would've from reading book...

[Sean Grinstead]

There were tons of different things we used in this class that i can't even begin to decide where to start. The most important tool that i used in this class was the internet. If we weren't allowed to use the Internet we would have had to use the outdated books that we were given. By the time the book can be published the information in it has changed drastically. That is why the internet is so important. Some of the things that we used were the databases on the Benton Media Center site.
The learning network made it easier to see what we have previously worked on so we could go back and look at it. it will always be here for us to look back at.