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Beaker

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Beaker is a free Chemistry App available on Android and Apple devices. The app itself is free, but there are in app purchases that some people might like. For students, in app purchases can be a little worrisome.

PROS

  • A cheaper alternative to actually experimentation
  • Can lower student anxiety if used as a pre-lab, because students will already have expectations as to what will happen
  • Can spark a great intrest and passion in students. They might learn to LOVE chemistry!

CONS

  • The app itself is very user friendly, but some previous chemistry knowledge is definitely required.
  • When explosive Chemicals mix, there is an explosion, which could encourage students to want to try these reactions at home. Safety is a concern as there isn’t at lot of lab safety in app, which could potentially downplay how dangerous mixing volatile chemicals can be!

Use in the Classroom

As this is a free app, I would definitely be willing to give students a chance to play with it before doing the actual lab. I don’t this it is a replacement for a real beaker, but it is definitely a great additional tool.

Earth Viewer

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Earth Viewer is a free, interactive app available on apple and Android devices. It allows students and teachers (all users) to view an interactive globe. Users can add cloud cover, rain, light, sun reflections, etc.

This application is confusing, and I wouldn’t recommend it for classroom use. It is available for Apple, but the app for apple is very different. The apple version allows users to go back 4.5 million years in history to see the formation of the crust, and how it has moved and changed over time. Earth can be rotated in any direction and zoomed in and out. There are also options to see the major geological events, biological events, mass extinctions, impact events, fossils, cities, and the latitude and longitude grid.

While the apple version seems useful for the classroom, the android version is complex, and poorly organized. Once the user had added an option to the globe, it is hard to get it removed again, so layers upon layers are added.

Use in the Classroom:

Android: I would only use this app as a globe, to look at perspectives.

Apple: With a lot of pre-teaching, this app could be used to reinforce ideas about plate tectonics, as well as other historical events.

Overall, its free, I might give my students some time to play with it, but I wouldn’t use it as a teaching tool!

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Image credit: biointeractive, http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/earthviewer

Whole 30 Coleslaw

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If you are anything like me, coleslaw is comfort food. Its a staple at family BBQs, often home-made by my ever-so-talented grandma. But it is far from guilt free – smothered in mayo, and oh, so high in calories.

I’ve developed a recipe for coleslaw using, fresh, natural ingredients.

The Dressing:

  • 2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
  • 1 Tablespoon of Red Wine Vinegar
  • 1/4 Teaspoon of Salt
  • 1/4 Teaspoon of Pepper
  • 1/4 Teaspoon of Dill

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The ‘Slaw

  • 1/2 of a Cabbage
  • 1/2 Apple
  • 1/4 Red Onion
  • 1 Carrot
  1. I don’t have a food processor, so I chop the cabbage and onion, and grate the carrot and apple.
  2. Mix all together with dressing, and let stand for 30 minutes.
dav
nfd
nfd

 

This is the easiest, and most delicious coleslaw! It’s light, fresh, and so tasty!

nfd

 

Whole 30 Breakfast Skillet

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I. LOVE. BREAKFAST.

I think breakfast is the best meal of the day, and I get great joy out of preparing a delicious, healthy, stick-to-your-ribs, kind of meal to start the day. Weekends are the best, because you can pour a cup of steaming hot coffee, and take your time preparing a delicious breakfast.

Today, I made a whole 30 compliant, super yummy breakfast.

Step 1:

  • 2 small potatoes
  • half an onion
  • half a red pepper

Chop potato, onion, and red peppers. Saute them until the potatoes are cooked. Add salt and pepper.

Step 2:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 handful of spinach
  • salt and pepper to taste

Scramble eggs (add a splash of water). Remove potato mixture from pan, and add eggs and spinach, constantly stirring until eggs are cooked.

Step 3:

Add potato mixture back to the eggs, mix all together, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with salsa and sliced avocado.

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Enjoy your weekend!

Curating

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Curation: a field of endeavour involved with assembling, managing and presenting some type of collection.

In today’s world, where sifting through piles of information can be tedious and overwhelming, RSS – Rich Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication – create feeds that can help users keep track of many different sites. Some examples we used in class were:

Diigo

diigo

Diigo is a book marking site, that allows users to keep track of sites in one, easy to use platform. You can highlight parts of a site, or bookmark the whole thing, keep your sites private or share with individuals or groups.

Feedly

Feedly-As-Google-Reader-Replacement

Feedly compiles news feeds from many different sources using RSS. In our course, it is used to pull in blogs that have the same categories and tags.

 

Hootsuite

Screen shot 2018-10-19 at 12.21.16 PM

Hootsuite is social media management platform that supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. It allows you to push out the same message onto multiple platforms!

 

 

Dissection Lab

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I think that dissection lab is the best alternative to live dissections. It offers students the opportunity to virtually dissect a frog (free), rat, earthworm, cockroach, starfish, shark and pigeon.

The Good:

  • Free (in app purchases)
  • Interactive
  • Engaging
  • Includes a lot of extra information (taxonomy, habitat, life cycle, etc)
  • includes assignments and quizzes
  • realistic

 

 

The Bad:

  • In app purchases (from $1.99 -$14.99 per additional animal)
  • Perfect (there is no way to make a mistake and correct it)
  • overly guided
  • Possible for students to go too fast through dissection, and be bored for the rest of class

Screen shot 2018-10-20 at 10.18.26 AM

Overall, the app is well laid out, and intuitive. I would use this app as a dissection alternative in my classroom – perhaps on a class iPad.

iNaturalist

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iNaturalist is a citizen science project. It is a platform based on crowd sourcing. People record their findings in the app, and the app collects biodiversity information. It also includes an automated species identification function, using AI. Cool.

There is a version called “Seek” by iNaturalist that is “kid-safe” and “family-friendly,” because no registration is required and it collects no user data, meaning observations are not submitted to the iNaturalist database. This is a great function for the classroom, because you don’t need to worry so much about permission. It keeps kids’ locations safe and secure.

Users can collect their own observations, join projects near them, and view all the collections near them.

The Good:

  • Engaging for students
  • real life biology
  • a way to get outside and still learn
  • Free

The Bad:

  • The app itself could cause problems for teachers needing permission, as it collects user information (location)
  • American app, information collected goes to the USA

Definitely would use for my classes!

Frog Dissection

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Dissections are a regular part of the Biology classroom, but for many reasons, they can prove to be difficult. Some students (and teachers) have ethical issues with dissection real animals. Some schools may not have the budget, or the materials needed to perform real dissections.

Frog Dissection is an app available for iPad. It offers an alternative to real dissections in Biology class.

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The Good:

  • Ethical choice for those against dissections
  • Provides a visual for students
  • Interactive

The Bad:

  • $5.00
  • No where to make a mistake. When you click on “cut”, it cuts a perfect line, exactly where it should
  • Some glitches

Screen shot 2018-10-20 at 10.07.13 AM

Overall, The app is OK, but I think there are better alternatives. Frog Dissection is an old app, and has some flaws, so as a science teacher, I would use a different app, not this one!

 

PSII

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Today, we visited the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry.

PSII

It was such a cool experience to not only hear first hand the process of opening a school, but to see an “ideal education model” in practice. Throughout the first few months of the PPD Program, and over arching theme has been that the system is broken, but we are slowly trying to fix it. It seems as though PSII is on the right track for what education SHOULD be, in a perfect world.

I had the opportunity to sit with a student as he walked me through his inquiry project. It was amazing to hear how many “subjects” he was covering by exploring something he truly WANTED to explore. BINGO. Relevant, interesting, engaging.

So, why aren’t we all doing this?

Because – it’s not so simple.

  1. To have an inquiry based school, the school needs to stay small. There is a maximum size cap in order to maintain the integrity of student driven learning.
  2. Students need to be intrinsically motivated. This model isn’t for everyone.
  3. It takes time to change the “system”

It was an honour to be welcomed into such an innovative learning environment. Although I may never open my own school, its possible to weave these practices into my own class.

Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is a time for families and friends to come together, eat, and be thankful for their many blessings. This year, I had the pleasure to be home, and cooking with my grandma – something that I have cherished since I was a little girl!

First of all, it was great to spend this time with my family. I had the chance to play games, shop, cook, and go to the corn maze with my sisters and brother-in-law.

Although I won’t share all the recipes here, as Thanksgiving isn’t the time to follow your diet, I will share this – Health is important – good, natural food is important, but sometimes you’ve got to eat the pie, drink the wine, and enjoy the company!

 

Photo from emilymayneoliveira (3)

Cheers to great celebrations!