Tim Allison: A Virtual Portfolio
Effective use of the Internet in our Science Classrooms
One of the lesson plans included in this portfolio deals with an internet-based assignment -- an assignment into which the grade nine applied students put a great deal of effort, demonstrating the amazing potential that such assignments have. Many students now have internet at home -- in fact, on my recent practicum, students who did not have internet access at home were marked in a similar way on the attendance card to those who had IEPs! High school computer labs are generally available to be booked by teacher who wish to assign these sorts of assignments to their students, and students will be grateful for the change of scenery.
As teachers, we should be 'keeping up' with technology, as our students will need to interact with an increasingly technological world. That has been the idea behind several of the items included in this portfolio. Technological design (as was frequently discussed in class) is a major part of science, and should be included in our science classrooms. I had never worked with PowerPoint until this year; nor had I done very much in terms of web design, besides a poorly structured personal website, written entirely in HTML. While I realize that I still have a great deal to learn, I feel that I have made some giant leaps in the past year with regards to my own abilities with technology. One of these leaps was the designing of a Chemistry tutorial website (Sciward), which covers material from grade 10-11 Chemistry, along with material to assist students in their studies. While still somewhat rudimentary, it gave me an opportunity to learn to use one brand of web design software (MS Frontpage), and reaffirmed, in my mind, the potential of the internet as a student-assistance tool for science teachers. Using the skills acquired through this project to generate a class page, and perhaps including discussion boards as was done in this class, could be an effective way of improving the vertical and horizontal interactions which Roth discusses.
The website, itself, can be found at: http://members.lycos.co.uk/sciward/. My reflections on how I grew through the process of developing it can be found below.
I undertook this project, the development of a tutorial website, to develop my weak web design skills. While the final product was somewhat less fancy than I had hoped to be able to produce, I have improved my skills in this respect, and hope to further develop them to eventually turn this site into something a little more attractive and interactive. My total time investment in the project including research, writing, planning, editing, and making additional little adjustments, was roughly 31 hours. Clearly, if I’m to improve on the current product, it will require another significant investment, and possibly the learning of better software than Microsoft Frontpage (Corel reputedly makes better software); however, any software which allows one to design a website in this format is far better than typing out the html code!
The most significant achievement of this project actually had nothing to do with the project itself, but rather was the reviewing of the grade ten science material, which I had not seen in some time, and considering ways to make it relevant. This involved trying to come up with examples of chemical reactions with which students might be familiar. For instance, burning pizza was used as an example for how temperature can affect the rate of reaction (it takes a longer time to burn a pizza at 200°C than at 250°C, because the higher temperature accelerates the rate of the combustion reaction). Frankly, I was never worried about applying the material when I took high school science. I found Chemistry absolutely fascinating. The problem (if it can be considered a problem) is that many students, particularly at the grade nine or ten level, would not share my enthusiasm. Several attempts were made in the production of the site to make grade ten chemical principles relevant to the students of that level. My success at doing this, or my lack thereof, remains to be seen.
Further, trying to ensure that the words and equations I used in the site would be comprehensible to students at the grade ten level was another challenge I was forced to face. I wrote entire pages, and subsequently eliminated them upon realizing that the average grade ten student was at least two years away from covering the material. In this matter, the grade ten science curriculum guidelines provided welcome assistance; as I recalled relevant material from much later in my academic studies. There is obviously little sense in designing an aid for students, if those students can’t understand the language or the processes described therein. It required shifting my cerebral transmission into another gear to write the site appropriately.
Finally, this project has re-emphasized the amount of time that teaching will require; in preparation of lessons, of labs, of assessment, of reviewing material, meeting with colleagues, and, doubtless, several other factors. The amount of effort (both mental and physical) and time I will have to invest into my students will be enormous. However, there are few investments in the world that are quite so worthwhile.
