It was in the late 70’s and early 80’s when Atari came out with the Lunar Lander and Asteroids games. I was “stoked” that these games represented an environment for understanding inertia and the other laws of motion, and wondered how I could bring that into my middle school classroom. But they were…games, not lessons, so it didn’t happen. Now that so many Maine 7-12 classrooms are 1:1 and kids have very sophisticated gaming systems, that type of environment has become almost second nature to our students.

So, what is it about gaming that engages the gamer? Our own Ruben Puentadura has offered a whole bunch of podcasts available from the Maine DOE iTunes site entitled “Game and Learn.” He suggests the motivators are these:

Cause and Effect – immediate feedback for effort, seeing results of action
Long Term Winning vs Short Term Gains – Tactics, strategy and problem solving
Order from Chaos – Isolating variables
Complex Systems Behaviors – Systems thinking
Obstacles Become Motivation – Accepting challenges and taking risks

If we look over the standards and pedagogy of successful science classrooms, these same motivators are definitely learning goals, as well.

So how can we leverage the tools that we have to enhance the learning of science? And, for that matter, what tools exist on the MLTI MacBook that can apply that leverage?

To begin with, Games Launcher offers Wolfquest, which has been covered briefly in another webinar. Also, ME Explorer has been explained in a webinar and a series of iTunes podcasts. And we could consider the student interaction with Data Studio and Logger Pro to address some of the motivators mentioned above.

Two applications on the MLTI image from Concord Consortium have been included on the image this year that pack a giant science punch by incorporating the immersive environments and concretizing of abstract concepts found in the gaming world. The Concord Consortium folder may be the most powerful and underutilized resource center for science that teachers need to discover.

Geniquest starts off with a fairly simple and engaging premise of breeding dragons…yes – dragons. Students move on to investigate more and more complex genetic concepts that build an amazing learning progression that develop a deeper understanding of the big ideas of heredity.

Molecular Workbench is both a library containing hundreds of models and activities in chemistry, biology,  and physics and it is also a toolbox for building your own custom-made activities with a good how-to manual.

Another MLTI tool that has remained fairly dormant is NetLogo. It, too, has an extensive library of models that support deeper understanding of science concepts through inquiry and interactivity. The models are set up using the mathematical constructs of various phenomena, stripping away some of the fuzziness of the real world, so users can focus on the basic interactions. My personal favorite is “Wolf-Sheep Predation” that models the predator-prey relationship. Students can adjust variables like initial populations, reproduction rates and energy accumulation to see what effects become apparent. The results are displayed in pictures, graphs, and numbers, following the good practice of multiple representations.

OK, those are a few of the tools on the MLTI image. What about teachers searching the web for appropriate standards-based activities that are appropriate for their curricula? There are a couple of websites that collect and review science resources and align them with learning goals, National Science Education Standards and Project 2061 Benchmarks. One of the is PRISMS from Maine Math and Science Alliance. Another is the National Science Digital Library Science Literacy Strand Map.

A visit to PRISMS gives the user a choice of science topics. A click will take you to a page that lists a set of Learning Goals. Pick one, and you will see the review that covers  information that parallels lesson planning, and a link to the resource. You get to see the strengths and weakness and suggestions for the teacher to integrate the activity into a lesson. I would promote PRISMS as a way for middle school science teachers to construct well crafted, technology-rich units that offer deeper understanding than textbooks alone.

The NSDL Science Literacy Strand Map uses the maps from the AAAS – Project 2061 Atlas of Science Literacy. The Atlas was designed to map out the ideas and skills that lead to literacy in science, mathematics, and technology might develop from kindergarten through 12th grade. NSDL has made the Atlas intereactive, allowing users to choose a major content area, pick a subtopic, and focus in on a particular content topic. Then the map is shown on the screen, with lines linking the specific 9-12 standards, showing the relationship among them and the progression from K to 12 of the content topic. If you click on one of the boxes, you get a list of links to resources about it, as well as references from NSES and Benchmarks. Also included on the map is a tab that opens up to explain the various student misconceptions about the chosen topic. Science teachers and departments would benefit greatly from using the Strand Map to design curriculum that aligns with standards and is sensitive to K-12 learning progressions.

Second Life (SL) and other virtual worlds deserve a good look, too. Scilands in SL offers a area that has islands devoted to NASA, NOAA, Exploratorium, genetics, astronomy, and many other science related themes. In many cases, the environment offers novel and interesting ways to interact with science concepts, like walking through an animal cell and learning about the different organelles. EduSim and Science Sim are a couple of other virtual worlds.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention PhET as a great resource for ready made, interactive science activities. Users can choose from an amazing number of java applets that can be accessed on the web, or downloaded to be included in NoteShare notebooks or teacher web pages. All of the resources are great, and many include a full lesson plan that can be adapted to individual lessons and units.

Good classroom practice demands that any of these resources need to exist in an appropriate learning context. As a teacher, you are responsible for addressing a number of factors to ensure that learning is taking place. Think of the questions you ask in a lesson plan:

What standards are being taught/learned?
What are the prerequisites needed?
How can the activity be differentiated appropriately?
Will this be part of an introduction, practice, homework, extension, or elaboration?
Will the students engage as individuals, small groups, or whole class?
What is your role as a teacher, facilitator, or Socratic coach?
How will the learning be assessed?

CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Generic by factoryjoe

Seymour Papert once said that learning should be “hard fun.” Teachers now have the opportunity to integrate games, models and simulations into their science curriculum, while implementing the 5 E’s (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate.) This webinar includes demos of GeniQuest and Molecular Workbench and review other important apps on the MLTI image. In addition, the PRISMS website from MMSA, and the interactive Science Literacy Strand Map from the National Digital Science Library will be shown as valuable platforms for finding relevant web resources aligned with standards. The renewed emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) challenges teachers from all grade levels to examine ways to foster learning and understanding of esential science concepts. Join us as we investigate new avenues to the development of important science skills and content using the integration of technology.

Please join us at 3:15pm or 7:15pm on April 7th!  To register for this webinar, select the Webcasts tab at the top of the http://maine121.org page and select the time desired to be directed to online registration.

Image by vaXzine, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license

Multimodal strategies can be used by teachers and students alike to convey information, ideas, and concepts, as well as to express knowledge and understanding. Because each individual student effectively responds to unique inputs, such as text, audio, and visual (among others), combinations are essential to successful teaching and learning experiences.  In this webinar, we’ll review the research behind the need for multiple modes (multimodal) learning, as well as examine applications on the MLTI MacBooks that support related strategies. Comic Life, Freemind, GarageBand, iPhoto, OmniGraffle, and Photo Booth will be featured.

Please join Cynthia Curry and Ann Marie Quirion Hutton on Thursday, March 17, at 3:15 or 7:15 PM. To register, click on the Webcasts tab at the top of this page and navigate to the calendar of webinars.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greeneyes.jpg - licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Consider this Part 2 of:

March 18 – Perceiving Reality: Visualization
Recordings: 3:15pm WebCast | 7:15pm WebCast

When we try to define Visual Literacy, there are many factors to consider. Here are four definitions that have been proposed by others:

“Visual Literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences. The development of these competencies is fundamental to normal human learning. When developed, they enable a visually literate person to discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made, that he encounters in his environment. Through the creative use of these competencies, he is able to communicate with others. Through the appreciative use of these competencies, he is able to comprehend and enjoy the masterworks of visual communication.” source

Visual literacy is a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media. Images and visual media may include photographs, illustrations, drawings, maps, diagrams, advertisements, and other visual messages and representations, both still and moving.” source

C.”Visual literacy stems from the notion of images and symbols that can be read. Meaning is communicated through image more readily than print, which makes visual literacy a powerful teaching tool.” source

D.”Visual literacy includes such areas as facial expressions, body language, drawing, painting, sculpture, hand signs, street signs, international symbols, layout of the pictures and words in a textbook, the clarity of type fonts, computer images, pupils producing still pictures, sequences, movies or video, user-friendly equipment design and critical analysis of television advertisements.” source
Any one of these serves as a teachable definition. But where does visual literacy fit into commonly accepted educational standards? The last webinar on Visualization talked about Maine Learning Results and 21st Century skills, but now we have Common Core for both ELA and Mathematics. Not surprisingly, there are many references to visual skills included in the many standards. In ELA, for both Literature and Information, strand 7 has many references to those skills. For Literature, strand 6 also includes many pointers to visual skills.
An example standard from ELA:

Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.

Say, for instance, you wanted to have students understand Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. You could use YouTube video, text, audio or even a Wordle to see it from different perspectives.

In Math, you can see that visuals are important in both Data and Statistics. So, we can feel pretty good that we don’t have to “add” Visual Literacy to an already burgeoning set of standards.

There are some simple strategies that teachers can use to bolster the visual skills of students. At the eduscapes website, they outline five in particular:

Reading Visuals – Seeing what is there
Interpreting Visuals – Looking for meaning in the image
Using Visuals – Constructing meaning by collecting and organizing images
Reconstructing Visuals – Making mashups of images to create new meaning
Making Visuals – Creating your own images

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/digital/digital1.htm

Fortunately, for each of the strategies we have technological resources available to us.

Reading images – the Internet, iPhoto, PhotoBooth, online book illustrations, etc.
Interpreting images – the Internet, iPhoto, PhotoBooth, online book illustrations, etc.
Using images – the Internet, iPhoto, PhotoBooth, online book illustrations, Comic Life, Keynote, OmniGraffle, etc.
Reconstructing Images – iPhoto, PhotoBooth, Comic Life, Acorn, internet resources like JibJab’s Elf Yourself. etc.
Making images – SketchUp, iPhoto, PhotoBooth, Numbers, OmniGraffle, NoteShare’s SketchPad, Acorn, Data Studio, Logger Pro, Grapher, Keynote, etc.

Here are some online resources with lessons and suggestions for incorporating Visual Literacy into different curricula:

What Could America’s Top Models Be Thinking?

Analyzing the Purpose and Meaning of Political Cartoons

Teaching Visual Literacy to Students

Visual Literacy Home

Smithsonian Education – Every Picture Has a Story

Visual literacy K-8

Who Am I? licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/paurian/3707187124/

Two conversations I have had lately have really made me think about students, teaching, technology and 21st Century skills. Added to that, a number of my former students have friended me on Facebook and have talked about what they remember about my class. Basically, my thoughts have been directed to the difference between what we, as teachers, want them to remember, and what they actually remember. Then, I am led to ponder how that melds with the specific memories that lead to success in their lives. Deep, huh? So, once again, I am on the trail of making meaning.

The first conversation occurred in a grocery store with a private college math professor with whom I collaborated with in the 90’s, helping teachers understand more about fractals, chaos, and dynamical systems. We talked about how students are coming into class more prepared to visualize complex concepts, and how a few of his graduates have made a business out of creating incredible visualizations. One example he shared with me was based on the confluence of Obama’s inauguration and cell phones. The first, simple visualization dealt with looking at the national map and a kind of dynamic graph that showed the number of outgoing cell phone calls at any particular time. The map had all these jiggling little points that were cool to look at, and then the “bloom” of calls being made from the Washington D.C. area over the days of the inauguration. Pretty neat, and the results were all to be expected. Then his eyes twinkled as he described the second visualization – the same national map, but the little jiggly points represented the destination localities of those same cell phone calls. Wouldn’t that animation have been valuable to Political Action Committees and lobbyists! I thought about this as an example of how our students may “see” beyond our ken, and how we need to recognize that visual literacy is crucial part of literacy in general in the 21st Century.

The second conversation was during a family gathering talking about all our children as young adults and how they have found their niches. Not all of them enjoyed school, feeling as if they were overlooked because they weren’t necessarily the kids who were good at “doing school.” Conversely, many of their teachers were not skilled at recognizing students as individuals with different interests, talents, and abilities. But these kids grew up, found jobs, and raised families in spite of the way they were taught. When we tried to analyze their successes, we came to the conclusion that they were able to look at problems in a methodical way, and they were mostly self-taught. Yes, learning to read and do math were important – don’t get me wrong. But we agreed that their scores on common assessments generally made less difference to their success than their experiences in authentic learning. To them, learning how to learn made all the difference, and they love to learn in their own milieu. What helped them the most was their ability to adapt – a very important skill in the world of today and the future. I have yet to be convinced that most of the assessments given nowadays to gauge student achievement actually measure the skills needed in the world they will inherit. I thought about this as an example of how universal design and the ability of technology to individualize will help today’s students to show their interests and talents in a way that was not readily available last generation and prepare them for their roles in the 21st Century.

Then, there have been my Facebook conversations with former students as “friends.” I would agree that it has been a small, self-selected sample, but it has been both a pleasant and provocative experience to “hear” them. They have shared a bit of their journeys through life and I can’t help feeling a little pride in having had a small part in their successes. When I think back to my interaction with most of them and their classes, I realize that usually they had “permission” to be themselves and they took full advantage of it. Then I recognized that Facebook actually promotes a similar kind of self-realization. Web 2.0 social networking can educe personality and individualism in ways that old-school education often couldn’t. What users choose to reveal about themselves is a reflection of what they think about themselves. This kind of reflection and connection with others can lead to a higher level of personal interaction that has the potential of enhancing learning as individuals and in groups. So, finally, I thought about this as another example of how we, as teachers, need to appreciate how the world outside of school has changed, and how we need to adjust our practice accordingly to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.

So, to take all these random thoughts and apply them to making memories and meaning, let’s try to consolidate them. 1) This generation of students can visualize in ways we might not have appreciated before, so we can try to take advantage of that “open door” to their learning to help them remember what we think is important. 2) Our students are definitely distinct individuals, with different experiences, talents and learning styles. Providing them with relevant avenues for learning and assessment will allow for better retention of processes and content. 3) The potential for self-realization that social networking provides is important to include in the 21st Century classroom as another avenue for constructionist teaching and learning.

Is it developmental?
How do we know when we see it?
Can it be measured?

A website that provides perspective about the developmental aspect is Kids on the Net: Critical Thinking Skills for Web Literacy – An Analysis of What Kids Should Know about Cyberspace. This site explains the development of cognitive, emotional, moral, and psychological issues of different children’s age groups. Their resources show that learning critical thinking should address these issues in a developmental way, building skills step by step.

There are quite a few different models/definitions/attributes of critical thinking that attempt to make it possible to observe it in action. Every description depended on the discipline it came from, i.e. psychology, philosophy, educational theory, etc. Here are some of the exemplary websites:

Discussion and Model of Critical Thinking from Ed Psyc Interactive
Model of Information Seeking and Critical Thinking from Baltimore County Public Schools
Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Critical Thinking

How are we to deal with the issue of standardized testing and the teaching of critical thinking? In an ERIC abstract (ED312622) of “Literacy and Critical Thinking: The NAEP Literacy Studies and What We Are Not Teaching about ‘Higher Reasoning Skills,” by Craig Walton (1989,) the author states that the elements of synthesis or summary, analysis or problem solving, argumentation, and experimentation are skills that seem to be lacking in students. He sees a correlation of that lack with educators’ ignorance of those higher skills and how to teach them. That was quite an indictment, and worth challenging.

Socratic questioning is a way of helping students face the issue of critical thinking. The questioning can be used first by the teacher, and as the students start to become more aware of  how the questions help their thinking, the students can begin questioning each other and themselves. This website from Northern Illinois University Consortium for Problem-Based Learning provides the foundational precepts and a matrix of exemplary questions.

Web 2.0 has been called the Read/Write Web. That is because you become an active participant, not just a passive viewer – You interact with the information. How does this help critical thinking? By the fact that people make comments. All of the following websites provide examples of ways that teachers can provide students examples of commenting that they can see, critique and respond to.

Comments about places to stay:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/

A “safe” current event website that kids can practice making comments:
http://tweentribune.com/

International Movie DataBase – using movie reviews and forums as examples of critique:
http://www.imdb.com/

Going beyond the Wikipedia articles and looking at the discussion and history of the content:
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Responding to visual examples:
http://www.flickr.com/

Commenting both textually and visually:
http://voicethread.com/#home

Finally, any blog or wiki could be used to help kids learn and practice discourse and critique, as well as the Gallery, Discussion and Chat in Studywiz.

Measuring critical thinking can be a wicked problem, depending on what you are looking for. Perhaps you can develop small rubrics based on your deconstruction of pertinent elements of critical thinking. In that manner students could review or make comments based on individual aspects of critical thinking skills on which they are focused. Here is a higher education rubric for critical thinking that can be used as a reference for ideal goals. And here is another that has been used for higher education and business with a rationale as well. An accompanying document from Insight Assessment proposes that there are dispositions as well as skills involved in critical thinking and provides self-reflective questions.

Just to be provocative, here is a quote from a recent article to think about:

“DEMOCRATIC THINKING REQUIRES THE PURSUIT OF MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
Much as Darwin’s theory of natural selection depends on genetic variation, any
theory of democracy depends on a multiplicity of ideas. It is the responsibility of
the citizenry, the media, and the schools to safeguard the expression of those
ideas. Schools have particular responsibilities in this regard. Healthy critical
analysis is one hallmark of a mature democracy, and educators have a responsi-
bility to create learning environments that help to realize these ideals. There are
many varied and powerful ways to teach children and young adults to engage
critically – to think about social policy issues, participate in authentic debate
over matters of importance, and understand that intelligent adults can have
different opinions. Indeed, democratic progress depends on these differences.”

“No Child Left Thinking: Democracy at Risk in Canadian Schools,” Joel Westheimer; CANADIAN EDUC ATION , Spring 2010; Canada Education Association; p 5-8

Afternoon: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p32117522/

Evening: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p97793153/

MLTI is proud to partner with Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Vital Signs initiative, a  program that encompasses technology, content and pedagogy using inquiry-based learning. Incorporating the four strands of science learning to deal with essential questions regarding invasive species, Vital Signs offers teachers and students a way to be real scientists dealing with real observations and data.

Vital signs website, http://vitalsignsme.org/, provides a rich environment that allows users to set up accounts so they can add to the data and make comments on fellow citizen-scientists’ observations. However, even if you do not register, you can access the ever-expanding datasets about invasive species through the Expore Data tab.

After formulating an essential question, a user can set up a useful query using the Advanced Search feature. The results of the search can then be downloaded as a CSV (comma separated values) file and inserted into a spreadsheet like Numbers, using the Sort and Export feature.

Once in the spreadsheet, pertinent data can be specified by deleting the extraneous data columns. Then charts and graphs can be made using the appropriate data.

Even better, Google Fusion Tables, http://tables.googlelabs.com/, can be used to take the latitude and longitude data to place information on a map, and then export the map as a layer (KML) into Google Earth. Wow!

This is just a general overview. The specific steps are outlined in a document available at

http://vitalsignsme.org/how-create-google-earth-map-layer-your-own-data-set.

The four strands of science learning are explained in Ready, Set, Science:

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11882&page=17

Recordings for the sessions are available here:

Afternoon: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p67885867/

Evening: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p80153293/

What is/are Data?

I used to teach my middle school students that data are observable facts.  In most cases, data are results of measurement as one form of observation. I guess you could state that these would be quantitative representations of reality. On the other hand, data can represent qualitative observations of reality as well.

If we were to get deeply philosophical about data, we could look at how data are related to information and knowledge. In this way, we can look at levels of meaning. Data all by themselves really have no meaning – they just exist, regardless of whether they have been measured or observed.

Data that has been given some relativity or relevance by an observer or collector becomes information. To provide context think of how the word information is used in terms like: information processor, information technology, information desk. In each case data are given some kind of context and that context provides meaning. As educators, we try to help students find that meaning from data. Think of the difference between an almanac and a textbook. An almanac is a collection of data, a textbook by itself offers information.

To go one step beyond, to reach the level of knowledge, it is necessary to provide avenues of larger context, even context that doesn’t exist yet. How sets of information exist as links to each other and how those links can be retained in context provides a much broader and deeper meaning as knowledge. Again, as educators in an inquiry-based classroom, we provide opportunities for students to gather both data and information, find the relationships, and incorporate it all into knowledge. Think of using an almanac to get the data on an area’s climate, and compare different area climates for a set of information about world climate. By relating those sets of information about climates to special features about the areas, you can construct knowledge of biomes.

All this explanation helps us to understand that there is a continuum of abstraction that reaches from the lowest level of abstraction, data; through a higher level, information; to the highest level, knowledge.

Entering Data

So, as teachers, we try to do what we can to help the students derive meaning from data. But first, we have to get that data. So, let’s take a look at what we can do to collect data.

Of course, there is the old observe and record method. Just look and take notes on paper. We can always use a computer to log our notes, as well.  NoteShare can do this very well, whether the data is in text, numerical, image or audio form.One method that can save a lot of trouble and focus on the data we want folks to work with, would be to fill out forms. You know, the old Last Name First routine. Probably most of the forms you filled out were on paper, but the data on those paper forms probably made their way into a computer somewhere to become part of a database.

You could always type the data directly into a spreadsheet, cell by cell. Or you could employ probes or sensors to get immediate real-time data into some form of collector, be it spreadsheet, graph, or database.

Spreadsheets

Way back when in prehistoric times, 1980, VisiCalc was the killer app. It was one of the progenitors of the personal computer revolution. It was simple – a ledger type format that allowed mass formulaic calculations and showed graphs. Wow! Now the idea has evolved into an integral part of office suites of applications, like Excel in MS Office, Numbers in iWork, and the like, such as NeoOffice and OpenOffice. There’s even a spreadsheet in Google Apps.

Spreadsheets incorporate data entry, either manually or by forms. Remember, these data have no meaning unto themselves. Most good spreadsheets allow you to design forms for users to input data so they won’t be put off by the look and expanse of a spreadsheet – sort of “the man behind the curtain” thing. In a way, the given choices of data to enter add some meaning and point the way to information.

Data can be manipulated in spreadsheets, too. Even the most rudimentary spreadsheets have many formulas that allow you to play with your data in a meaningful way. This is another example of the transition from data to information. The relationships among the data add meaning.

Finally, the data can be analyzed, as well. People who are lucky enough to look at numbers and see trends can glean a lot just by looking at the resultant values. However, spreadsheets can take those results and add even more meaning by turning those values into graphs and charts. Visualization helps to lead the way to knowledge and makes the extraction of meaning easier.

Science Example

Let’s take a look at an example of spreadsheets in science. First we see the blank template for data entry. Next, students visit the US Naval Observatory website to get sunrise and sunset data for their locale. They then enter the data into the spreadsheet. So far – it’s just data with no meaning yet.

Next, the formulae in the spreadsheet calculate the length of sunlight for the dates selected. A sharp person can see the trend in the resultant values. Next, a bar graph that displays the duration of the daylight in a visual form allows students to see what is happening. This is information derived from the data.

The final steps would be to provide context that leads to knowledge. That context could be lecture, comparing graphs, or other forms of synthesis.

So, spreadsheets present opportunities to deal with reality at a number of different levels and can make meaning for students.

Probes, Sensors and real time data entry

A very powerful way to leap from data to information to knowledge is exemplified by two applications on the MLTI MacBook: Data Studio and Logger Pro. The key feature of applications like them is using probes or sensors to monitor a system. The probe continually reads the data it is designed for (temperature, distance, force, etc.) and enters them into a spreadsheet or graph.

The graph instantly relates time and the data collected and displays that relationship. Multiple sets of data can be monitored at once, like temperature, air pressure, humidity, and altitude to immediately show how they might be related. Instant meaning! Both companies supply learning experiences with their probeware and software, usually in bundles, and even ways to construct your own activities.

Here’s an example of a “workbook” from PASCO. Teachers can put together workbooks they way they might use a word processor. These workbooks provide for forms for data entry, along with real time data collection from the probeware.

Databases and Management

In general, you can think of a database as a large collection of data, sorted by records and fields. Think of a bank of filing cabinets, with file folders (fields) that contain data (records.)

There are thousands, if not millions, of databases floating around the internet and on company servers. They are very useful, but only with some form of data entry and retrieval. Most folks use some kind of database management software (DBMS) to get reports that extract data in a form that is meaningful and useful. Again, providing a context to observe the data.

Most of us will not be creating databases, but we can all access incredible amounts of data from databases in our district or on the web. Your school most likely uses a Student Information System, like Powerschool or Infinite Campus. These are ways to interact with databases. You have probably entered data into the system, and retrieved information that you wanted.

Those of you who use MARVEL! (and I hope that is a great number of you) are interacting with a collection of databases in ways that are helpful in your students’ and your own research and information retrieval.

PASCO’s MyWorld is a Geographic Information System (GIS) application that loads a database into the system and relates the data to geographic data to help visualize how place is related to data or phenomena. ESRI’s Arc Explorer is a more widely used GIS application and is available as a free download.

There are all sorts of databases for all sorts of data:

like this one from the US Census Bureau
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en

or this one from the CIA (spooky, huh?) for information like an almanac
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

or this one from OECD for education with a global spin:
www.oecd.org/education/database

or this one from NOAA
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/

Other Resources

Using Numbers to investigate the meaning of Pi
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=15245&version=3572&page=2

Daylight lesson for Excel
http://www.microsoft.com/education/investigatingdaylight.mspx

Pasco resources page
http://www.pasco.com/resources/index.cfm

Logger Pro Labs
http://www.vernier.com/cmat/cmatdnld.html

Arc Explorer
http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/index.html

Activities for MyWorld
http://www.myworldgis.org/activities/

Enactive

• Line Rider
• Sodaplay
• Phun/Algodoo

Iconic

• Scratch
• Squeak
• Alice
• StarLogo TNG

Symbolic

• NetLogo

As you explore these tools and think about possible classroom uses, please share  your ideas with us in the comments section.