Chapter 2 Project- Voicethreads

Today in class students were given a rubric to guide their creation of a voicethread.  The voicethread is a web-based digital storytelling tool to which students each have their own account.  Students know that they will have next Thursday and Friday yet in class to work on this assignment, and it will be due on Monday, November 9th.
News article summary # 8 is due on Monday, and the Chapter 2 test will be on Tuesday, November 3rd.  Their notebooks will be checked on Wednesday, November 4th.  Students are encouraged to go to the moodle site to review for the exam.

State Survey

Today in class students took the Pennsylvania State Youth Survey in class.  As it was a 45-minute survey, no other material or lessons were covered.

Students have been told for the past week that their online lab is due tomorrow.  It is imperative that they have their three graphs completed and saved digitally for Friday's in-class project.  If students choose to work on the lab at home, they must ensure that digital copies of the graphs make their way to the classroom, either via email or a thumbdrive.  Printed copies will not be any good for this project.

Also, our second chapter test will be this coming Tuesday, November 3rd.  Students are encouraged to study early and often for this exam.

Finished the packet

Today in class we did the final lab for this chapter from page 2-8 & 2-9.  It's purpose was to identify the relationship between temperature and pressure.  This lab will take 10-15 minutes to make up, and can only be done before or after school.  After the lab, students watched a 20-minute video about the different propeties of matter.  Worksheet 2-11 went along with the video, so students answered those questions as the video progressed.
No homework is assigned.  However, the online lab from last week MUST BE DONE BY FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30th.  Also, we have a test on Chapter 2 on Tuesday, November 3rd.

Section 2-3 Notes

Today in class we discussed section 2-3 notes, which focused on differentiating between physical vs chemical properties, and physical vs chemical changes.  We then watched a http://www.brainpop.com/ that focused on this topic, followed by a quiz using the student responders.  This quiz MUST BE MADE UP, as it is worth 20 points.  After the quiz, students worked in pairs to complete activity 2-3, where they had to decide whether the examples were physical or chemical properties.  We ended the class by completing activity 2-5 together.
No homework is assigned, but the online lab from last week is due this Friday.

Changing states of matter

After reviewing our 7th series of news articles, I asked students to open up to section 2-2 notes.  Our topic of the day was changing states of matter- learning how a solid changes into a liquid and eventually into a gas, and vice-versa.  After discussing the notes and the accompanying diagram (the 2-sided diagram that is right after section three notes), I showed the BrainPop.com video on the same topic.  Finally, students had five minutes to work with their partner to complete Activity 2-2 in class.  We reviewed the answers shortly thereafter.
No homework was assigned.

PVT Lab

There were 20 8th grade students absent today (22% of the total grade).  Please get healthy soon :-)

Today in class we watched the http://www.brainpop.com/ video on States of Matter.  After taking the quiz that followed the video, students opened to worksheet 2-10 and worked in small groups to complete the lab.  Its focus was on relating volume, pressure and temperature of a gas.
News article #7 is due on Monday.

Finish the online gas lab

Today in class students had their final chance to complete the 3-part online lab on behavior of gas particles.  Throughout the lab, students had to develop an understanding of the relationship between pressure, volume and temperature.  They are responsible for creating and saving one graph for each of the three parts, as well as answering all of the questions within the lab packet.
No homework is assigned.

Online Gas Lab- Day 4

Well it was great to be back in the classroom after two days of conferences.  I was very pleased with the effort of each of my classes while I was out.  Today in class students continued where they left off yesterday, working on the online virtual gas lab.  Most students that were here both days were somewhere around the second graphing activity, which required three data lines.  Tomorrow in class will be the last class time that will be devoted to this assignment.  Students have been informed that they have until Friday, October 30th to complete this assignment in its totality.  They know that they can come to my room for help any day between 7:10 - 7:40 or 2:30 - 3:10, or during their daily study hall in the computer lab.  Not having a computer or internet access at home will not be valid excuse for not completing this assignment.
No homework is assigned.

Conference Day 2

Today was my second day in a row away from my class due to a conference at Penn State.  I must say, I actually miss them.  Even more impressive is that I am 99.9% certain that they are now showing enough responsibility that if I was to be absent one more day, they probably would not even notice (don't worry, I'm back tomorrow).  From what I have witnessed through their online work and read through moodle messages and email, everyone has been completely engrossed in the online lab assignment.  I could not be more proud of their effort.
No homework is assigned.

Thanks, guys and gals...

My 1st absence

Today I was at a conference at Penn State on creating the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) for students with special needs.  In my absence, students began their second day of the online lab relating pressure, volume and temperature of a gas.  They must have a good grip on things because nobody has sent me any messages needing help or tech support.  Great job, guys.
No homework is assigned.

Pressure, Volume & Temperature Lab

Today students began an online investigation into the relationship between pressure, volume and temperature of a gas.  Collectively, these variables compose the Ideal Gas Laws.  Students will be collecting data through simulated experiments online and using it to create a graphic visualization of the interrelationships.
Due to my absence this coming Monday and Tuesday, news articles will not be due this next week.

Graph to Wiki

Today we had shortened classes due to a clubs schedule.  Students took the data they collected from yesterday's "Weight of Air" lab and used it to create a line graph.  Students saved that graph to their "Documents".  After logging into their wiki site, their final task was to upload that graph and paste it into their science wiki page.  Any remaining time left was used to finalize their glog.
No homework was assigned, other than to finalize their glog before the end of school on Friday.

Weight of Air Lab

It's all around us and we need it to survive.  What is it?  Air!  Air really seems to be weightless...or is it?  That's what we had to find out.  In today's lab, students investigated how much, if anything, air weighed.  They performed the lab from pages 2-6 and 2-7 and discovered that air does, in fact have mass, albeit VERY VERY little.  They discovered this by forcing (pumping) small amounts of air into a sealed 2-liter bottle and measuring the change in mass from the empty bottle.
No homework is assigned, however, their glog/wiki is due on Friday.

Solids, Liquids, Gases & Plasma

Students were given their new packets for Chapter 2.  I used a PowerPoint show to present the notes for section 2-1.  The focus of today's lesson was to distinguish between the particle arrangements within the 3 basic states of matter.  Students logged onto Moodle and went through several tutorials, participated in a Discovery Education simulation and took an online practice quiz.  We ended class by going over worksheet 2-1. 
No homework was assigned.

Columbus Day

Today was a half day for students, with an 11am dismissal.  We only had 25-minute classes, so we tried to do quite a bit in a little time.  We first reviewed our sixth news article of the year.  I handed out the rubric for students' wikis, which will be graded on Friday.  Students also were given a password "cheatsheet" so that they can organize their collection of eight usernames and passwords.  Finally, students created accounts for Discovery Education.
No homework was assigned.

Tech Week, Day 5

On our final day of tech week, students learned about a great application called voicethread (http://www.room104science.ed.voicethread.com/).  It allows students to upload a picture, video or document and leave a text, voice or video comment on those uploads.  For today's example, students uploaded pictures of objects that measure mass, volume, temperature and length.  They then left text and/or voice comments that identified how the object is used and why it would be used.  After saving their voicethread, students have the ability to leave comments for each other and even embed their voicethread onto their wiki.  The potential is limitless.
Back to science topics on Monday.  News article #6 is due on Monday.

Tech Week, Day 4

Wow...what a week this has been.  These students are drinking this technology like it's a ice-cold Pepsi.  Today I demonstrated how to use Windows MovieMaker software to editing and creating digital videos.  Students were given small clips of video from our recent measurements lab.  They were shown how to create special effects on a video, use cool transitions between clips, include titles, captions and credits throughout the video and cut/splice the video clips.  Although they only had about 40 minutes to learn the software in this crash course lesson, I think they all realize that their finished movies are only limited by their own imagination.
Tomorrow:  The district premier of VoiceThread.

Tech Week, Day 3

Well on Monday we introduced wikis, and yesterday we introduced glogster.  Today in class we combined the two applications into one interactive website.  Students demonstrated the ability to create new wiki pages, copy a hyperlink to those pages into their glog, and embed that glog into their wiki frontpage.  A successful wiki frontpage should allow the viewer to see a link to each of a student's five core classes clearly and without having to scroll down the page.  The rest of the glog is limited only to the creativity of the author.
The last two days of tech week will deal with editing digital movies and creating voicethreads.

Tech Week, Day 2

Now that students know how to log into their wiki page, they need to have content to fill it.  To that end, today's topic was creating a "GLOG".  Using http://www.edu.glogster.com/, students created accounts that allowed them to make virtual posters to pin on their wiki's main page.  They were instructed to create 5 blocks that would be used to provide future links their 5 core classes.  There is a lot of new and intuitive technology out there, and students are starting to get a huge of all the potential.
Tomorrow we will be finishing up the glogs and wikis, and hopefully begin creating voicethreads.

Tech Week, Day 1

After reveiwing our 5th week of science news articles, students were given the keys to their own brand new wiki.  Using PBworks.com, students created a front page off of my science page.  They learned how to hyperlink an image or text to another wiki page, outside website or email address.  We demonstrated how to grab an image off of the web and embed it into the wiki page.  There was no concrete homework assignment except the option to "spice up" their own page.
Tomorrow in class, we will show how to create a "Glog" and embed that onto the wiki page.

Notebook Check

Today in class students had their chapter one notebook's checked for completion.  During this time students were shown a "Mythbusters" episode that focused on scientific method to confirm or deny societal myths.

News articles are due on Monday, and all next week has been proclaimed "TECH WEEK".  Details to follow...

Returned the tests

Today we had limited time in class due to the Thursday Clubs schedule and our afternoon showing of "The Outsiders".  We had only 20 minutes per class.  In that time we were able to go over yesterday's test in its entirety and students were able to see any mistakes that they made.
Tomorrow's class will be used to check their chapter one notebooks.  During the notebook check, students will watch "Mythbusters", a show on the Discovery Channel that uses the scientific method to test the validity of common societal myths.
News articles are due on Monday.