C4T #3

Karl Fisch A Sublime Disruption The Fischbowl
Karl's Biology class is working on an Ecology project. It was suggested by a fellow student to watch a video she had posted on her Facebook page. The video (A Sublime Disruption) depicts cultural diversity and the beauty of the Earth. One of the things I took away from this was that they were able to make a connection with the original author of the movie (Gareth Nolan) who lives in Dublin, Ireland. How small our world has become because of blogging and a connection to Facebook. The students were able to ask him questions about the film and his opinion on what he thought was a major environmental issue. His answer was deforestation. He has been able to witness it first hand with visits to the island of Borneo. He describes the area as a biodiversity hot spot that compares with the Amazon. Seeing the destruction of an area was heartbreaking for the author.
Hi My name is Heather Heiskell, I a m student in EDM310 at University of South Alabama. This is a beautiful video showing cultural diversity. The Earth is a beautiful place and we do not appreciate it and take care of it in the way we should. It is wonderful that just from a video and blogging your students were able to make a connection with the original author. Thank-you for sharing your post and the video.

What job would you hire a textbook to do?
Mr. Fish attended a two day event called Discovery Education's Beyond the Textbook. The main part of the event was to get together in groups and discuss ideas for a 21st Century Digital Resource aka a techbook instead of the traditional textbook used in classrooms. A techbook would be more than just a digital copy of a textbook. There were many thoughts thrown around within the group. Would it be something that was used all the time, or just sometimes as an additional resource? Some things that his group did agree on was that it should adjust to meet the needs of individual students and teachers. It was thought that for example if it were a very complicated trig problem that it would provide a variety of information and ways to solve and that the teacher could decide how much of the information to provide to her students. The group also discussed problems, exercises, collaboration, and the social component of the techbook.
I think the idea of a techbook is a great idea. Math was and is my worst subject. I can't help but think that this might be just what is needed to help students who might not be so good at math. I can see where it would be helpful in every subject. I may have misunderstood, but more information, or different types of examples could be provided that would be helpful to a student that might not be as strong in that particular subject. Thank-you for sharing.