Ask a Scientist Review

For week 2 of the course, we were asked to investigate the website called “Ask a Scientist” developed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  




After spending some time on the website, I had asked several questions about cells and how they work ranging from body cells to brain cells to cancerous cells.  I found out an abundance of interesting information. I enjoyed the fact that I could ask a question and several answers popped up which I could choose from. These answers led me to more questions about cells and how scientists were able to find out so many things about such small living things that they cannot actually see.  The questions that I asked were not answered by a scientist because it was not until I went back to the website or the third and fourth time when I realized that if I selected the phrase “No, not quite! Don’t worry, we can still get you an answer” that it would ask me for my email and the scientist would respond to me through email.  I do not know why I did not see that before. 


I thought this was so cool that a scientist or other expert would answer my question the best they could.  So, once I found this out, I asked three more questions which I did not get immediate answers to before.  However, I thought it was great that there was already an answer in the database about how the brain stores memories both in long term and short term, but it is still being researched by scientists how brain cells or the lobes are able to do this. 

I found the whole experience very casual, but informative which is sometimes a very good thing because the World Wide Web can be so overwhelming when seeking an answer on Answers.com and other websites like it.  Most of the responses that I got when asking several questions were simple enough that I could understand more complex ideas and this led me to even more questions.  I began with one question about how long cells lived and how long it takes a cancer cell to develop into a tumor and learned so many new things that I had not thought about, like mitochondria DNA which is passed down by mothers to their children.

I envision utilizing this website in a variety of ways for my students. I think it is an invaluable tool for students who ask a lot of questions, for differentiating instruction and challenging my gifted students in their thinking.  I also think that I will be able to use this website as an extension activity during literature circles with non-fiction text.  The discussion director is supposed to come up with questions before the discussion about the part of the text they read and they will be encouraged to enter their question into the Ask a Scientist section of the website so they can understand the answer. This may empower them to lead their group into further discussions and a deeper understanding of the content they are reading about.

References:

Howard Hughes Medical Institute. (2012, March 7). Ask a Scientist: Rich Sherwood.

Retrieved from: http://www.askascientist.org/askascientist/answers/20080912-

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Evaluating Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

This week I explored multiple presentation tools which I could possibly use for my presentation on sturgeons. There were many that I viewed but some were very limited in their tutorials and use and some did not exist anymore.  The three that I will most likely choose from are Youblisher, Slideboom, or Prezi.

Youblisher is very good because it is so easy to use. Basically it is a publishing website which converts your presentations and all other pdf documents into publications with flippable pages. Your presentation comes up looking like an ebook with pages. You even get the page turning sound. One thing that I really liked about it was that you could just click on the page numbers to go ahead or go back, page numbers were located in the bottom. Just a double click on any image on the page would zoom in and you can scroll up and down.  There is a video tutorial both in English and Spanish and you can view samples of recent publications. You can share four different ways. Once you upload your document or take a pdf from an internet source, you will get a url which you can put into your website or blog. You will also get an embed code with a small or large cover preview of your presentation.  I would recommend Youblisher for those who wish to create a more traditional form of presentation, such as a book or magazine article about their topic.  It looks very nice when uploaded from the pdf format once complete. You cannot have videos or animations and it is much less interactive. However, it is in the form of a book with flipping pages which is a nice way to present sometimes.

Slideboom is also very good but it a bit more interactive than Youblisher. It is still the same principle because you are uploading something that you have created in PowerPoint.  Basically, it transforms your PowerPoint into something that can be shared on the web. You can also colect feedback from presentation viewers. There are a wide variety of presentations already created as samples in 100+ lanaguages and 30+ topics such as education, nature, and science.  You can share your presentation either privately or publically. One thing that I thought was an excellent feature is that it keeps all of the animations and transitions as well as any audio narrations that you made in your PowerPoint presentation when creating it. Another really nice element that would be effective when presenting on a whiteboard is that you can write or draw on your slides with a marker and save them with slideboom. I would recommend this to someone who wants to use PowerPoint for their presentation, but also who wants to present their ideas to their web by publishing to their blog.

Prezi is the third presentation tool that I explored. I have been teaching science for four years now and some of my students prefer using this tool over PowerPoint. I find their presentations so fascinating and I love how they can work together on the presentation at the same time either in class or at home. This makes it an excellent collaboration tool.  The tutorials and sample Prezis are exceptionally helpful over any other program that I have explored. However, I do not think that it is as easy to understand or use at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it is an amazing tool for presenting.  You can embed videos, images, zoom in, zoom out, you can also type text within text and zoom.  It is very effective and keeps the attention of the audience.  One thing that I like as well about Prezi is that it is more of a webbing tool for gathering information about your topic and then in the end you just choose a path which you want your presentation to flow in.  I would recommend this program for its variety of resources and prezis, the ease of collaboration, and the functionality as a whole.

References:

http://prezi.com/
http://www.slideboom.com
http://youblisher.com/