It's Over

The end of 2010. The first quarter has came to an end. School was out for 3 days due to snow and ice. It took a toll on students and teachers. It meant that some things had to be cut so that students could take finals. A lab and the graphic organizer were cut from the respiration unit.
Next year the unit will continue to change. The videos clips that I added into the presentation will be used to create questions about the processes taking place and will also be used as review. They will be the main part of the unit, linking everything together.
Overall creating something for someone else is very hard. Not because of the work, but because some people are not very good communicators. It was hard getting someone else to work with me because they did not see the urgency or think about the amount of time it takes to create such a substantial technology based unit. It was not the kind of unit I would design for myself, but ultimately it is not for me, so my consultee must like it and be satisfied with it. That she was.

G.O.

The last part of the unit that I designed is the graphic organizer or energy flow chart. I am unsure at this point if it will be integrated into the unit. We have had one snow day and if we have anymore some of the unit will have to be cut due to time. The graphic organizers were designed to help students review how energy flows throughout the unit. The culminating graphic organizer is designed to use Inspiration software where students will be able to create their own unique flow chart. They can add pictures or links to video or whatever they want as long as they do include the words available for them and show the direction of energy flow. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Oops... I Forgot

I added a very good video showing open alcoholic fermentation. I thought the students would understand it and they would be able to relate to it. It was a streaming video (see title) and unable to be downloaded. Since it was a steaming video it was blocked by the school server. Of course, its a beer fermentation video. I can't believe I did not think about it when I was adding it to the notes. I will continue to look for the video available somewhere so it can be downloaded.

First of the Reflections

The first few days of the new unit on respiration has begun. There have been some good and some bad.
First the good: According to the consutlee, "the new notes are going great." The students really like the integration of the videos that go along with and help describe the notes and processes. "The two videos used on glycolysis and pyruvic acid conversion really helped the students to understand." My consultee even told me that students that were not always paying attention and less interested in the class, seem to be more interested and paying more attention. The videos are doing their job.
And for the bad: The linked video did not work, probably because the internet connection at the school is very slow and takes videos a long time to download and play. I did show my consultee how to download the video to the computer and play it from a file. She used the one I saved on the desktop for her. My consultee tried emailing and saving some videos to her jump drive but neither method worked for her. I need to trouble shoot her methods again. This means more time working with her and showing her again how to use www.keepvid.com. Another issue my consultee told me about was that when she used the YouTube video converter, she did not know where her videos were going after she converted and saved them. She is going to bring her laptop by this week for me to look at to see if I can find the videos. I am going to make her show me how she is using the converter and then we can work through it again. I will make her a step-by step plan of what to do so that she can have it saved on her computer and be able to do it without my assistance, even though I don't mind.