BioBlog. For whatever reason, I find that many students seem to struggle when it comes to learning about plant life cycles. The whole sporophyte/gametophyte, meiosis/mitosis thing really gets them – & that’s even before we start looking at how the life cycle is modified in different groups of plants. Yes, the textbook has lots of diagrams & yes, I’ve always started simple & worked on from there, with opportunity for plenty of questions, but still there are those for whom the topic fails to click. (Not to mention the lecturers in third-year classes, asking whether we really teach this stuff in first-year.) This year the issue’s become even more of a challenge, given that about 2/3 of my large-ish (N>200) didn’t study plants in year 12 at school.
So this year I wondered if it would help if I drew a really basic cycle on the board, as preparation for a more detailed session in the next lecture. Which sounds fine in practice, doesn’t it? However, all is not lost. eLearning Technology. Edutech for Teachers. Why Curation Matters. I spend a great deal of time looking up stuff. Whether that stuff is blog posts to get a pulse on what is happening in the edusphere or researching new tools to share with teachers, I come across a wide variety of resources that I need to save, catalog and be able to come back to later.
Curation is a large part of my day. But what is curation? Why is it important and how can you do it easily? I absolutely love this video. The definitions everyone gives for what curation means to them are so totally different yet the same. The Internet has allowed us to retrieve as much information on any topic from pretty much any source we want. But that is only half of the curation process. Once we find the good we have to be able to store it and find it again. Curation is an important part of my learning and professional development process. For that I rely on 3 important web tools in my arsenal. Evernote-Hands down, my favorite app for organizing. Diigo-This is another place I save web resources. Best Teacher Blog 2013. Playable | The Weblog of Dean Groom. Edudemic - Education Technology Tips For Students And Teachers.
Integrating Tech. NZ Interface Magazine | Teacher Blogs.