Online Learning Games: Med Myst

MedMyst is an “interactive learning adventure” that teaches science students the scientific method and biology. I would use this in a middle school science classroom. I have never had an easy time learning science myself, and the use of this tool would have helped me greatly. I learn much faster when I get wrapped in a story and the lesson is so much a part of it that I don’t realize I am learning.

“In MedMyst: Reloaded and MedMyst: Original students use the scientific method and science process skills to investigate infectious disease outbreaks.”

The student becomes part of the story with MedMyst and it makes it interesting as they are solving problems in a fun way.

Instead of just learning the scientific method in a lecture and having to repeatedly write it down to learn it, students can learn it through the Disease Defenders MedMyst game. The student is given a choice of ‘training’ with an epidemiologist, microbiologist, or veterinarian and help solve an infectious disease outbreak using the scientific method.

I have played a couple of the games on the Web Adventures site by RICE University and found them extremely engaging and captivating. I was able to move around the game like it was a virtual world and make decisions that affected the outcome.

I would use this as a center in the classroom or as a full lesson if the resources were available for the whole class to use a computer. The website even gives the learning objectives that correlate with each game and has printable worksheets available as supplements to the game, along with assessment options.

Chapter 6: Engaging Leaners with Digital Tools

Q: What is information management and digital content?

Digital content in schools is educational information conveyed to students using technology. Digital content mainly refers to information from the internet. Using digital content allows the teacher to access ways of conveying curriculum content to every type of learner in a more streamlined, interesting, and efficient manner.

Information Management in schools refers to the way information is stored and organized. Teachers use programs and the internet to teach and to track things such as grades and assignments. This information is also stored digitally. This would be information management.

 Tech Tool : Goodreads

When I am looking for a new book, I browse the shop on my Nook Simple Touch. I love how convenient it is for me to find a new book without leaving my house, especially when I finish a book at midnight and eager to begin another before going to sleep. The one thing I miss about hardcopy books however is browsing the shelves of a bookstore. Reading lists of titles based on loose genres is not the same as standing in front of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy shelf in the store and scanning the covers and seeing the new releases .

Goodreads helps to bridge that gap between the old way and the new way of reading. When I read, I become wrapped up a specific  subgenre for a few books at a time and crave more of the same until I get it out of my system. While my Nook makes suggestions based of my reading history, Goodreads allows me to browse specific book sub genres along with making recommendations based on my favorite books. Goodreads also has an online community that helps to substitute for speaking to a bookstore employee about recommendations and upcoming releases.

Sign up is not required to browse Goodreads, but if you do sign up then you can catalog what books you have already read, are currently reading, and have lined up to read next.  Your books are arranged on ‘shelves’ where you can arrange them any way you like and can see the cover of the books. You can also share your shelves with friends so they can see what your reading.

I can also choose to add a widget to my blog or website to display my books and reviews. If I need to have a physical list of my books, I can export my shelves to a spreadsheet for a printable list.

 

Summary
Digital content and information management are essential to teachers is they want to be organized. Along with information management bookmarking tools can be used to organize websites and virtual teaching tools. They also allow teachers to share the suggested educational websites with their students in a way that is easy to access from  any device with internet access.

Along with storing their favorite websites online, teachers can access curriculum standards and curriculum based lesson plans online.

Webquests are great ways for teachers to put their lessons online in an organized and interactive way. These can also be shared with other teachers.

Educational websites allow students to learn in their own way and at their own pace.

Chapter 5: Researching and Evaluating Internet Information

Q: How can teachers respond to problems of plagiarism when students use online sources?

Plagiarism is defined as the direct copying and misrepresenting of someone else's work as one's own. When using someone else's words you must give credit, whether the words were written or spoken. To not give credit would be considered plagiarism and cheating in all areas. Technology has made it easier for students to plagiarise. It's easy to click download on a paper so you don't have to write it yourself. It is also easier to copy and paste words from digital books and text, and websites than it used to be to write out someone else's work.

Programs are available to teachers to check for plagiarism such as Turnitin. Some students plagiarise because they do not understand what constitutes plagiarism. Teachers can try to avoid this problem before it happens by educating students early on referencing their work and what plagiarism is.

The way a teacher constructs the assignment can also help to avoid plagiarism. Do not ask students to recite facts, but give an assignment that requires them to think and give their personal viewpoint on a subject.

Tech Tool

 iGoogle lets you personally design you Google search page. A teacher can choose to have news from their subject area i.e science or mathematics displayed on the homepage. This would allow the teacher to easily begin lessons with up to date news articles.
iGoogle also allows you to view your google calendar without going to a separate page and add a to do list which would be useful for lesson planning.
After creating my own iGoogle page I saw a notice at the top saying the iGoogle would no linger be available after 1st November 2013. They suggest changing to google chrome for similar features.


References

Maloy, R. W. (2011). Transforming learning with new technologies. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

Turnitin : Products : OriginalityCheck. (n.d.). Turnitin : Leading Plagiarism Checker, Online Grading and Peer Review. Retrieved February 14, 2013, from http://turnitin.com/en_us/products/originalitycheck

Chapter Four: Integrating Technology and Creating Change

Q: What are “digital inequality” and the “participation gap”?

Digital inequality, also known as the digital divide, refers to the separation of technology access between low-income and high-income households and different social groups. While libraries and schools offer free use of computers and the internet, they are not avails available during certain times of day or weekends.  Lack of free access to technology at home also leads to a lack of media and technology literacy known as the participation gap. If a student only has limited access then they cannot play learning games online or freely explore the internet without a libraries network restrictions on downloads.

The participation gap is being addressed by schools in a number of ways:

One-to-one computing – This is where students each have a personal computer for use during school.

One/two/three time activities – This is where students are split into groups that move through sets of activates. One or two of the activities use technology.

Electronic textbooks – Electronic textbooks are much more interactive.

 

Tech Tool

Edutopia is a website that among many things helps educators implement technology into their lessons.

I liked the section called “How to Integrate Technology”  and the article titled “Guided Homework Help Goes  Online”  which helped me discover the New York Public Library’s Dial-A-Teacher Whiteboard where students can connect with teachers in real time: The students logs on for free and connects with certified teacher where they can use an interactive whiteboard and upload homework assignments.

 

Chapter Three: Developing Lessons with Technology

Q: How can teachers evaluate and assess their students?

Types of assessment:

*Standards based assessment:

These begin with the curriculum that gives a framework of expected outcomes for each grade level. Tests are then made to assess how a student is doing working toward those goals.  

Standardized Testing: These tests are administered and scored in a standardized manner and can include multiple choice, high-stakes, and time limited tests.  Standardized tests allow for an easy comparison of outcomes between test takers. High-stakes tests currently play a major role in college admissions and high school graduation. Since teachers are held accountable for their students test scores, this type of test is given often.

Norm-referenced tests: These tests rank students by grouping of age or grade level to show how a student s doing in comparison to the norms of the larger group.

Criterion-referenced tests: These tests compare a student’s performance to specific objectives or standards instead of to other students as with norm-referenced tests.

 

*Instructionally supportive assessment:

This type of test uses assessment results which can guide the teachers instructional practice. Assessments cam ne a mixture of teacher observations and student work such as portfolios. This allows the teacher to see different learning needs.

*Performance assessments:

These measure how a student does within the context of a certain activity.

Student performance rubrics: These can used in performance assessments to evaluate assignments and activities. Rubrics give students a clear framework for evaluation and grading

 

Technology can be used to conduct standardized tests and for performance assessments. Performance assessments can be used to evaluate PowerPoint presentations  for example.

Tech Tool:

Gliffy allows teachers to be better organized with its free diagraming tools.  

Teachers can create classroom floor plans and seating charts. It also allows teachers to organize information into flow charts and Venn diagrams for visual learners.

Gliffy provides a few pros like free use of most features, it’s browser based, and collaborative.  I attempted to make a flowchart to illustrate my this blog post but found what should have been a simple task to be time consuming and frustrating. In order to make the flowchart look presentable, I had to mess with alignment way too much. While pressing the undo button to put back an arrow I had moved, I somehow ended up deleting half of my flowchart with no way to get it back.

Gliffy would be a good free diagraming tool in a pinch but I don’t think it’s the best.