Seeing What Can’t Be Seen

Using Simulations to Enhance Learning

A central challenge in education is ensuring that students connect what they learn in the classroom to the tangible world around them. The challenge is especially conspicuous when students are asked to understand concepts that have no visible analog, like microscopic processes or historical events. Virtual tools, including animations, simulations, and modeling, enable students to experience the ‘reality’ of what they are studying, whether the subject is a chemical reaction, an account of a voyage in the ancient world, or the mechanics and result of a social conflict.

To help students visually comprehend unseeable, Lisa Ammirati is using PhET simulations to animate what is invisible to the eye through the use of graphics and intuitive controls such as click-and-drag manipulation, sliders and radio buttons.  PhET stands for The Physics Education Technology Project at the University of Colorado. A set of simulations was developed at the University of Colorado and is covering diverse topics in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Math.

Please watch Lisa Ammirati 's presentation at NYSAIS Teaching with Technology Conference and visit her website.



Read more at NYSAIS Education & Information Technology (NEIT) Wiki.

Additional Simulation Sites

Explore Learning: Premier collection of teaching simulations for science and math

Molecular Workbench: Concord Consortium resouces for molecular modeling & simulations

Brainpop - Animated films on a variety of topics Elementary & Middle School

Mr. Taylor: Google Earth Simulations

Google Earth is a free application that uses satellite and aerial imagery to produce 3-D visualization of the globe. Google Earth allows viewers to zoom in/out, rotate views, see terrain, roads, rivers, and oceans (from Teaching and Learning with Google Earth). Google Earth is available for free download.

WHY SHOULD TEACHERS USE GOOGLE EARTH IN THE CLASSROOM?

Mr. Taylor, US Latin Teacher, is using Google Earth in his classroom to create simulations. In this video, Mr. Taylor demonstrates a simulation he created for his students when he taught Bayeux Tapestry. 



Mr. Taylor always starts his simulations from the view of North America, New York State, Brooklyn, and zooms into a current location, a Poly Prep campus.



In Google Earth, with some effort you can create seamlessly flowing tours. First, you have to select the actual locations for your virtual tour and spend some time exploring them. In Google Earth, the large cities, as New York City, have many 3D buildings. The satellite images show mountains, canyons, oceans, and rivers, and provide teachers with opportunity to teach not only History, but also Geography.




Mr. Taylor takes students to the airport which gives them a sense of leaving the country and going somewhere else.





Students travel across the English Channel, and then the simulation brings them to the various cities and locations where King Harold traveled in Bayeux Tapestry.

Please watch a video with Mr. Taylor's discussing his Bayeux Tapestry simulation in Google Earth.

 

If you would like to create your own Google Earth simulations, watch Mr. Taylor's Google Earth tutorial.

Mr. Taylor was a presenter at NYSAIS Teaching with Technology Conference, and you can view his workshop at http://youtu.be/fBnEAsyxQCs

Dr. Peter Rice: Tumblr in the Classroom

Tumblr is a web-based social media platform which allows users to post content to a short-form blog. It is a great tool for educators to post course material, assignments, and multimedia resources. Dr. Peter Rice is using Tumblr with his 9th grade Biology class.

Please watch Dr. Rice's presentation at NYSAIS TWT2013 at http://youtu.be/PfYdRfrMd_k

Interview with Austin Sansone '16 and Joshua Brooks '16

Please watch a video with Dr. Rice using Tubmlr in his Biology class and an interview with Austin Sansone '16 and Joshua Brooks '16 at http://youtu.be/fSDXjlZXKio

Read more at NYSAIS Education & Information Technology (NEIT) Wiki or Poly Technology Integration Wiki.

Dr. Rice is using Tumblr to post… 

• Homework 
• Test Dates 
• Links to Simulations 
• Videos 
• PowerPoint Presentations 
• Student Suggestions

Mr. Adams' Debate Team: Dropbox, Evernote and Google Spreadsheets

TWT2013 - A Day in the Life: A Sample of Cloud-Based Technology at Work in the Classroom

NYSAIS Teaching with Technology Conference Presentation

Coaching a debate team at a day school presents certain challenges. The first is that 6:00 p.m. is the witching hour, so the window of time during which we can practice together in a physical space is limited. The Team uses technology to overcome some of these limitations. I have a mnemonic device that I teach the kids to help them remember how we are organized technologically. Here's how it goes: In the wake of the recent presidential election, Every Elephant in 
DC Gets Angry. This stands for Evernote Evidence, Dropbox Cases, and Google Administrative.

Read more at NYSAIS Education & Information Technology (NEIT) Wiki or Poly Technology Integration Wiki.

The Debate Team: DropBox, Evernote and Google Spreadsheets

Caspar Arbeeny '16, Daniel Westrich '15, Katie Pazushko '15, Eitan Ezra '16, and Nick Wehbeh '15

DROPBOX

https://www.dropbox.com/

Debaters save their cases in a shared Dropbox folder, which enables all team members to have access to everyone's case. In addition, I have set up a "Coach's Corner" in Dropbox in which I save samples and ideas. Finally, there is a "Ready for Review" folder into which students place documents when they are ready for me to review them. I use "Track Changes" in Word to review the documents and, when done, I move the documents back into that team's folder.



Debaters' Dropbox

The Forensics Team's Dropbox

EVERNOTE

http://www.evernote.com/

Evernote enables us to pool research and evidence in a central, shared location, and the "clipper" features allows you to clip articles directly from online into Evernote. Also, importantly, because internet access is prohibited at debate competitions, Evernote permits offline access and searchability, so evidence can be retrieved while a debate is ongoing.

Evernote, the Team's current China Notebook, which contains over 100 articles.

Evernote, the Team's Notebooks

Google Spreadsheets

Read about Googel Spreadsheets at Poly Technology Integration Wiki.

Why Evernote?

1. Plan and organize your classes with tags - using tags is a great way to organize your classes. For example, if you know that there is certain content that has to be taught during the second week of the school year, then for all related content you can use the tag “week 2″. Once you’ve created this system you can keep adding additional items throughout the year.

2. Professional development - if you use the summer break or vacations to improve your skills or continue your education, keep all your notes, resources, lessons and new ideas learned in Evernote.

3. Classroom templates - if you use templates such as grade sheets or student assessment forms, keep them in Evernote.

4. Prepare for your absence - share a notebook with lesson plans, worksheets, answer keys and examples of completed work with the substitute teacher to keep your class up and running even if you aren’t there.

5. Share a notebook with your class - after you create a public notebook, share the URL with your class.

6. Whiteboard photos - take photographs of the whiteboard or Smart board. You can title or tag each photo based on the class date to make searching for specific photos easier. Also, you can share the photos with students that miss a class, so that they have the day’s notes.
7. Flexibility – you can check their notes on all computers and on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android.

8. Simplify grading - take photographs of graded tests and add them to Evernote (from http://blog.evernote.com).

Jamie Nestor, Dean of Student Life & Latin Teacher

TWT2013-A Day in the Life: A Sample of Cloud-Based Technology at Work in the Classroom

NYSAIS Teaching with Technology Conference Presentation

http://neit.wikispaces.com/TWT2013-Day+in+the+Life

 

Our school manages communication through the Google Apps suite; one of those applications is Google Sites. Google Sites allows you to easily create a website with little to no web development experience. It’s intuitive while allowing for creativity.
At the start of the year, I walk my students step by step through how to use the site
Here is a screenshot of my middle school Latin homepage. It’s very basic. I put up only my contact info on the first screen. They use the sidebar on the left to navigate the site easily.

.

You can see up there there’s a link to our assignments page, class docs, links like news articles or videos, and a link for a flashcard program that my students use.



One of the most used functions on the site is my homework calendar. I teach four sections of the same course, and each meets on different days of the week. Their classes are differentiated with color. If they’re absent from class, forget to copy down the work, or have a question about an assignment specific, they check our assignment calendar. What this actually is a spreadsheet that I’ve embedded into the site. When I update the spreadsheet, changes are automatically reflected here. In addition to embedding spreadsheets, you can do lots of different stuff – embed videos, images, audio, etc.




Another function of my website is the document repository, aka the “file cabinet.” Here, I can upload worksheets, photos of notes from the board, audio files of me singing Latin declensions, etc.



For my upper school classes, I use this site for posting video lectures. You can organize your files by date, file type, whatever you want.



Students can even comment on each other’s posts – and they often do. Communicating this constructive way is not only good classroom behavior, but it’s a great lesson in digital citizenship, as well. Yes, I do talk to them about what’s appropriate and what’s not before we begin sharing pieces of our selves on the internet, even if it is a Latin class website.

Google Site Tutorials

The Google Site tutorials are posted at http://classroomtothecloud.weebly.com/google-sites.html

 

Josina Reaves' Paperless Classroom

				If you would like to learn how to use the Google Drive Folders to collect student work, share assignments, and have a paperless classroom, please watch a video with Josina Reaves, Form V Dean and US English Teacher. Ms. Reaves uses the Google Drive Folders with her Forms V and VI students in My Gods and Monsters elective class. How to Create a New Folder in Google Drive? Go to faculty.polyprep.org and log into your account. Select My Docs from the Menu. Select My Drive and click on New folder button. How to Share the Google Drive Folder? Click on Share button.  This is a Google Drive Folder for My Gods and Monsters class students. Students can post their written assignments, view and make comments on each others work, which helps them to participate in a collaborative experience. Ms. Reaves finds that having student work on Google Drive is fantastic, because the Google Drive folders keep everything together, so she doesn't have to worry about the printer problems or locating files on her hard drive. She can make comments and grade student work directly on the page. Students can click on comments, read them, and contact Ms. Reaves for clarification. The graded papers can be grouped together by selecting different options: "Last edited by me," "Last modified," or "Last opened by me." Google Drive helps Ms. Reaves to keep her class paperless. The Google Drive folder is neat and stores all student documents, so Ms. Reaves doesn't have to walk around with stacks of paper. It takes Ms. Reaves half a time to grade student work and gives students an opportunity to look at other students' work and get an idea how other people think about the same assignment.

Mandy Pabon's Histology Slides: Google Presentation

Please watch a videowith Ms. Pabon explaining how she incorporated Google Presentations with her Anatomy & Physiology (Forms V and VI)
students. The hardest part about teaching a lab-based science is to figure out whether students are looking at the right specimen in the microscope. To make sure that students are looking at the human tissues, instead of observing air bubbles, dust and eyelashes and thinking that these are the specimens, Ms. Pabon put together the histology slides. She took pictures with a digital camera, uploaded them into a Google presentation and shared with her students. The students had an assignment to look at several tissues in the microscope and answer questions about these tissues.

How to Create a Google Presentation?

Go to faculty.polyprep.org and log into your account. Select My Docs from the Menu.



Click on Create > Presentation

How to Insert Images?

There are a few ways to insert an image into your presentation.

You can Drag-and-drop an image from your computer directly into a slide or click the Insert image icon in your presentation toolbar.




You can use your webcam to take a snapshot or enter the URL of a publicly available image from the Internet.



You can also upload an image that’s saved to your computer.

How to Add Text and Draw Lines or Shapes?

You can type text, draw lines, shapes and other objects in Google presentation.

Chat and Comments

Google Drive lets multiple students in classroom or at home collaborate simultaneously on the same file from any computer with Internet access. When someone is viewing or editing something at the same time as you, you’ll see a colored tile with their name in the top right of your screen.



Click on the colored tile and start to chat with your collaborators.



Click on Insert comment button and type your comment in a window.

Additional Resources