Friday, June 20, 2008
STEM Grant Experiences
It is with a certain sense of nostalgia that I read the introduction I wrote for my teaching website almost two years ago. I have since completed 33 credits of graduate school, learned much, and have two more years' life experience including working for NYIT to coach teachers directly in a Title IIB STEM Grant, Phase II of the Digital Immigration Project.
This has been an exciting time and I have had such great experiences and successes doing this teacher training. I've met dozens of new people, been in numerous schools in the Bronx, created and delivered science and technology workshops, taught kindergarten and 4th grade classes, and had class discussions with students in grades K - 5 as I worked with their teachers on integrating science and technology throughout the curriculum.
This time has been very rewarding and satisfying. I was warmly received and appreciated by many - both teachers and students - and shared some of the joys of teaching and learning that are so dear to education professionals.
In some kindergarten classes, I worked with teachers to deliver a wheel-and-axle experience by building wooden models of cars, covered wagons, bulldozers and bi-planes with the students. In another kindergarten class, we got out the laptops and went online to hear the sounds of animals and label the parts of animals. The kids dragged and dropped boxes and jumped with delight when they got them all in place. 4th grade students "oohed" and "aahed" watching a video of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon in a lesson about life cycles, or as they found the iron in their ground-up cereal.
Teachers of all grades and subjects participated in science workshops, and brought some of those resources into their classrooms. It was wonderful to hear of their successes. And to think I hadn’t taken a science class in over 20 years - I presented earthquakes and plate tectonics, hurricanes, simple machines, Newton's laws, the scientific method, and our planetary neighborhood, with videos, podcasts, online interactives, hands-on experiments and added some computer software training. My ratings were excellent and I am very pleased with these accomplishments.
I now live in Rutherford, New Jersey in a house I purchased with two of my friends. I still do the budgeting, coordinating and business work of the FunMasters entertainment company, and occasionally get to perform myself, face painting or doing temporary air brush tattoos. As I near completion of my degree, and have been immersed in elementary school environments and a couple of middle schools as well, I am a better-rounded educator, more seasoned and even more prepared to tackle new challenges.
To teach again would be great, as a cluster teacher in elementary school, even a science cluster teacher, seems a reasonable aspiration, or to get back into a high school and facilitate learning about, and how to use technology to bring new life to students projects. But beyond that, I strive to have a greater influence on bringing technology to a learning community, to collaborate with other educators on making their classrooms more in-tune to the 21st century.
Who knows what challenges await our students? This increasingly complex world needs well-educated students who can think critically, use technology without a second thought as part of their toolbox, collaborate well with others, and navigate a world whose resources are being stretched and whose boundaries are being constantly challenged.
With world population approaching 7 billion people, it is, as Aldous Huxley penned, A Brave New World. Educating our children is an urgent endeavor, and I am anxious to continue my part in it.
I'll be cross-posting to http://bronxdip.edublogs.org/
to all you other educators out there.. keep faith ...
all the best,
Lynne
This has been an exciting time and I have had such great experiences and successes doing this teacher training. I've met dozens of new people, been in numerous schools in the Bronx, created and delivered science and technology workshops, taught kindergarten and 4th grade classes, and had class discussions with students in grades K - 5 as I worked with their teachers on integrating science and technology throughout the curriculum.
This time has been very rewarding and satisfying. I was warmly received and appreciated by many - both teachers and students - and shared some of the joys of teaching and learning that are so dear to education professionals.
In some kindergarten classes, I worked with teachers to deliver a wheel-and-axle experience by building wooden models of cars, covered wagons, bulldozers and bi-planes with the students. In another kindergarten class, we got out the laptops and went online to hear the sounds of animals and label the parts of animals. The kids dragged and dropped boxes and jumped with delight when they got them all in place. 4th grade students "oohed" and "aahed" watching a video of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon in a lesson about life cycles, or as they found the iron in their ground-up cereal.
Teachers of all grades and subjects participated in science workshops, and brought some of those resources into their classrooms. It was wonderful to hear of their successes. And to think I hadn’t taken a science class in over 20 years - I presented earthquakes and plate tectonics, hurricanes, simple machines, Newton's laws, the scientific method, and our planetary neighborhood, with videos, podcasts, online interactives, hands-on experiments and added some computer software training. My ratings were excellent and I am very pleased with these accomplishments.
I now live in Rutherford, New Jersey in a house I purchased with two of my friends. I still do the budgeting, coordinating and business work of the FunMasters entertainment company, and occasionally get to perform myself, face painting or doing temporary air brush tattoos. As I near completion of my degree, and have been immersed in elementary school environments and a couple of middle schools as well, I am a better-rounded educator, more seasoned and even more prepared to tackle new challenges.
To teach again would be great, as a cluster teacher in elementary school, even a science cluster teacher, seems a reasonable aspiration, or to get back into a high school and facilitate learning about, and how to use technology to bring new life to students projects. But beyond that, I strive to have a greater influence on bringing technology to a learning community, to collaborate with other educators on making their classrooms more in-tune to the 21st century.
Who knows what challenges await our students? This increasingly complex world needs well-educated students who can think critically, use technology without a second thought as part of their toolbox, collaborate well with others, and navigate a world whose resources are being stretched and whose boundaries are being constantly challenged.
With world population approaching 7 billion people, it is, as Aldous Huxley penned, A Brave New World. Educating our children is an urgent endeavor, and I am anxious to continue my part in it.
I'll be cross-posting to http://bronxdip.edublogs.org/
to all you other educators out there.. keep faith ...
all the best,
Lynne
Labels: aspirations, education, educational technology, instructional technology, stem grant, teacher pd, teacher training, teaching
Friday, November 16, 2007
Jeopardy PowerPoint Game Update
Finally, I have had the chance to update my PowerPoint Jeopardy Game template for downloading. This new version is contained in just one file, with both regular and double jeopardy game. Since PowerPoint XP, or 2003, embeds the sound files, it is not necessary to download the sound files separately!
Click here to visit the d
ownload page.The old version will still be available if you are using older versions of MS Office and want the sound effects.
Edit the master slides to customize it for your school or class. It's easy to do through the formatting menu. Check out the tutorials on the webpage for more help. If you use it, why not email me with your Q&A's to share with others.
Need a testimonial? I got this lovely email from Jane in August:
Hi Lynne,
My name is Jane Spieker and I used your template for the First Aid "final" for the Scouts in my son's Boy Scout Troop. The boys really enjoyed playing, and the activity made the meeting fun for all. I also teach Urology to R.N's in the Operating Room at the Hospital that I work at and I'm going to use the Jeapordy format as a learning tool as well.
I just can't thank-you enough for making education fun. Yours is the best template. I also really appreciate the tutorial.
Sincerely,
Jane Spieker
It's really wonderful to hear from someone who's using my work - Thank You Jane for writing - and that's what it is here for! Back to my studies... lots of deadlines to meet ... working on my masters degree in instructional technology at NYIT!
Best,
Lynne Marie
Labels: education, jeopardy, powerpoint game
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Engineering School has 40% Female Students!
I was just browsing through the NY Times online and came across this article about Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. The school opened in 2002 and it teaches Engineering in a non-traditional way: they used Project Based Learning and an interdisciplinary approach to learning. The small, tuition-free college is attracting a lot of buzz and making a mark as a new "Ivy" league school. Under the direction of Lawrence W. Milas, the president of the foundation, college President Richard K. Miller created a school that seeks to educate a different breed of engineer - entreprenuerial, ethically minded and collaboratively trained in he humanities as well as technology- to think critically, and boldly. Miller, on his President's Message web page puts it this way, : "Olin will always be bold, innovative, flexible, and creative -- just like the students we have attracted. Our curriculum emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, teamwork, hands-on design, business, creativity and communication."
The article also noted that 40% of its student are GIRLS, a high percentage for an engineering school. The Class of 2011 consists of 79 new students (34 women and 45 men). So yes, this is a very small school, but it has some very BIG ideas. Perhaps if more universities adopted such an approach, they would attract increasing numbers of engineering students, and a greater number of women to a male-dominated profession.
Re-engineering Engineering
The Hands-On Approach: Building a different breed of engineer at Olin College. 'In an era when software matters more than steel, Olin College wants to produce technologists with soul.'
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 30, 2007 NY Times Magazine Section
The article also noted that 40% of its student are GIRLS, a high percentage for an engineering school. The Class of 2011 consists of 79 new students (34 women and 45 men). So yes, this is a very small school, but it has some very BIG ideas. Perhaps if more universities adopted such an approach, they would attract increasing numbers of engineering students, and a greater number of women to a male-dominated profession.
Re-engineering Engineering
The Hands-On Approach: Building a different breed of engineer at Olin College. 'In an era when software matters more than steel, Olin College wants to produce technologists with soul.'
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 30, 2007 NY Times Magazine Section
Read the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30OLIN-t.html?ex=1348891200&en=6c28466b3eb78d2f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink"WHEN NONENGINEERS THINK ABOUT ENGINEERING, it's usually because something has gone wrong: collapsing levees in New Orleans, the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. In the follow-up investigations, it comes out that some of the engineers involved knew something was wrong. But too few spoke up or pushed back - and those who did were ignored. This professional deficiency is something the new, tuition-free Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering wants to fix. At its tiny campus in Needham, Mass., outside Boston, Olin is trying to design a new kind of engineer."
Labels: education, engineering school, Olin College, project based learning, Richard K. Miller, undergraduate curriculum design
Friday, December 22, 2006
PowerPoint for Teachers
Jeopardy Game Template !I just redid my web pages at www.lynnembailey.com with a new page, PowerPoint for Teachers. You can download my Jeopardy Game Template to use with your classes. You will have to customize the template for your school, subject and grade. There are tutorials to assist you. Perhaps your students can help write the answers & questions.
Send me your Q&A's and I'll post them on my website. Hope you have fun using it.
Labels: education, instructional technology, powerpoint, powerpoint game, teaching
