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Leadership Day 2009

Dr. Scott McLeod of the blog Dangerously Irrelevant put out a challenge for all edu bloggers to write a post related to effective school technology leadership.  Below is my contribution to Leadership Day 2009: I have found that the biggest hinderance to effective school technology is not a lack of funding, resources, or technology.  The biggest hinderance has been teachers who are unwilling to learn something new.  For me, “life long learner” describes the ideal teacher.  There are many reasons teachers find not to learn to use technologies to increase student learning.  They may be overwhelmed with duties and tasks currently being imposed on them by administration.  They may have lesson plans that they created 20 years ago that they have become so attached to they can’t imagine adjusting or scrapping them.   They may have inadequate technology support so even when they do use technology, it never works properly and they throw in the towel.  They may believe that they don’t have time in the curriculum to add “one more thing”.  They may believe that they don’t have time in general to learn something new.  All of these issues need to be addressed, but at the heart of every teacher needs to live one thing.  A desire to learn.  Excellent teachers need to be constantly learning, and modeling that learning process to the students they teach.  They must be willing to adapt their lessons and teaching as the world changes to properly prepare the students they teach.  For effective school technology implimentation, administrators need to change the culture of the school.  They must nurture and encourage teachers as learners.  They must ensure that teachers have the proper support so that when they do learn to use a new piece of technology, it is working consistently.  I believe if administorators truly transformed the school into a rich learning environment for teachers and students, the technology use would naturally begin to fall into place.

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Virtual Dinosaur Dig

Posted by admin | Posted in Fun & Games, Geography, History, Interactive Whiteboard, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Social Studies, Teacher Resources, Virtual Field Trips, Websites | Posted on 16-10-2009

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What it is: The Smithsonian site is full of amazing activities and interactives.   A few weeks ago I stumbled on their Virtual Dinosaur Dig interactive and immediately sent it on to our second grade teachers who are teaching a dinosaur unit.  During the Virtual Dinosaur Dig, students act as paleontologists who find a virtual fossil, learn how vertebrate paleontologists excavate the specimen, learn about the anatomy of the specimen and where it lived, view an illustration of what the specimen may have looked like, transport the speciman to a museum, and reconstruct the speciman (a stegosaurus) at the museum.  Each step of the interactive gives students information about the tools used to excavate, and why the tool is used.  Students get to virtually use each tool to excavate, transport, and reconstruct the dinosaur.

How to integrate Virtual Dinosaur Dig into the classroom: This Virtual Dig makes students virtual paleontologists.  The activity is perfect for a interactive whiteboard or projector.  Choose a student team of paleontologists who will help with the excavation.  Each student can use one of the tools and explain their portion of the excavation to the class.  While these students are at the board demonstrating the excavation, students at their seats can fill in their official “Paleontologist Field Guide” to record the steps and tools used in the excavation (I created the field guide for our second grade teachers and will post the pdf version below).  The Virtual Dinosaur Dig could also be used as a center activity for teams of paleontologists to visit on classroom computers or in a computer lab setting.  Students can fill out their Field Guides as they work.  After the virtual dig, set up a hands on dig.  Students can “excavate” chocolate chips out of a chocolate chip cookie by carefully digging with toothpicks.

Tips: I created this Paleontologist Field Guide journal to accompany the Virtual Dig.  Included in the pdf is an answer guide. Print these pages back to back to create a book that is folded down the center.  dino dig field guide The field guide asks students to match the tool picture with its name and order the sequence of events during the excavation.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Virtual Dinosaur Dig in your classroom.

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