This assignment directed us to look through and choose a Research Web 2.0 Tool that I would find of interest to my middle school science students for teaching and learning. One thing to keep in mind for all of this 21st Century Learning is that the majority is made and launched on collegiate level where security measures and appropriateness is not so much an issue. I had to think about not only what is appropriate for 12 and 13 year olds, but that are easily and readily accessible through the schools limited web access permissions. The site I chose is called Myoats.com, which is a place where one can create all types of designs, and drawings that can be rated, downloaded as an image, png, made into wallpaper or save to a personal account. A member can also rate others designs, edit the archived designs and save new ones. I chose this for several reasons: Art is a wonderful kinesthetic tool used in science to demonstrate understanding, and allow for individual expression that can be used as a measurable tool for assessment.
I played around with the site myself after watching the tutorials just to get a feel of it and boys will my students find this fun! This will be especially useful for my boys that love to draw more than anything else! I created a design that I called Electromagnetic NRG! which looks like several horseshoes radiating their magnetic ability.
The lesson I would create for my students would be to design a drawing or depiction of either of the following: The Cell and 5 of its organelles, Create a Taxonomic Chart listing the categories in order, The Steps of Cellular Division, or Depiction of a 20 base DNA model (double helix). They would have to write a summary to complement their visual depiction of the topic to explain it and therefore show level of understanding of these major concepts in 7th grade Life Science.
The class will benefit as they can comment and make edits to each other's work like a Google docs to model their own learning community in a visual fashion. This would not only facilitate creativity, interest and intrigue but would give kids tools to draw beyond their limited ability with regular pen and paper. Check out my first drawing and let me know what you think!
2008Myoats.createpage.Retrieved on 2009.11.2.
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