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Hoot! Presentation

Heres a link to a presentation I made with friends Tania and Julie on the Carl Hiassen Book Hoot! Enjoy... https://docs.google.com/ presentation/d/ 1reumFApc6W2ybyYmJlEykxoSihxH3 pt8u5fo9zxbjuc/edit?usp= sharing Thanks Liam

Online Literacy Tools; Mindomo

ED 625 Literacy Tool Modeling Liam Breathnach In this assignment I will be working with Mindomo www.mindomo.com . The program helps students   with the construction of diagrams and flow charts. These tools can help differentiate the way students visualize, link and therefore retain material. The interface for the tool is clean and simple. I found the tools to be quite easy to gain some mastery of. There is a tutorial linked here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmLcA13bsqg . The opening allows for a number of prepared templates, and you choose which basic one you wish to work with. Each heading allows you to drag from it and you can write your sub points or subtopics by clicking on each new opening. You have a tool bar for each which allows you to change shapes, colors, trim, fill and the other usual toys you see in programs like this. I do like that is a similar program to other ones people are likely comfortable with. Bits of Word or Photo Editing programs look simila...

Tech Standards and Literacy

ED 625 MD Tech Standards and Literacy Liam Breathnach I work in a school which has a 1-1 iPad program and if you ask the teachers how they feel about that, well, the jury is still out. There is no questions but we can do many more things than could be done in a classroom even 10 years ago, but technology comes with a burden. I often try to think back to my own days in classes and compare with modern day. Is the iPad the modern equivalent of staring out the window? Is it worse? Whatever your stance, technology is here to stay, in school and beyond. As teachers, our job is to send out mature people, capable of functioning in the world, and that does includes being able to use technology in a productive, safe manner (Flinders and Thornton, 2013). It may seem to anyone of my age that I am already slipping behind the waves of technology and that teenagers do not need my help in navigating new systems, but that is not entirely true. While students do adapt and adjust more quickl...

Framing Reading; Semantic Maps

Framing our Reading – Vocab Mod 6 Liam Breathnach The three words I chose were endocrinologist, genome and variant. They were all included in an article on how genetics influences height.   The article linked here, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170201131513.htm details how genes are linked to height and how we may learn from, and influence this in future. There are many reasons I chose the word endocrinologist. Its length goes against it initially but it is a great example to show how we can break up words in to sections to get to the meaning. Teaching the word we can expand biological vocabulary and talk about prefixes such as hemo_, and group words like pulmonary, renal, cardiac which pertain to body parts. There is also an opportunity to teach about the various specialized medical professionals you may encounter such as oncologists. The lesson could even stretch to scientists in other fields, such as ecologist or botanists.     ...

Teaching a reading lesson on Mutations...

Ed 620 Framing Our Reading Mod 5 Yetunde and I stayed with genetics this week choosing an article linked here https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170419091616.htm from the website www.sciencedaily.com . The article is very interesting. The headline is an attention grabber, certainly in the all-boys school I am in. The word mutant is going to grab their attention. The overall concept throughout the article is good too. On initial reading, students might just get stuck on the idea that we can manipulate DNA in wasps, but there is the underlying idea which can be drawn from them - If this works there are endless possibilities with the CRISPR technology. There are many attractive things about the article. It does give the teacher an opportunity to review or teach about the life cycle of insects to some extent. An easy conversation would be why lots of these type of experiments are done on insects. You would expect to hear about cost and accessibility, but you could hav...

Teaching the Genetics of Height and its Implications

Teaching the Genetics of Height and its Implications This week Yetunde and I stayed with the area of genetics. We chose this article https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170201131513.htm from the website Science Daily.   We chose this article as it is cutting edge and can be used to serve as a template for future studies of polygenic traits. The topic of height is also likely to be at the forefront of the minds of many of our students and will therefore have added relevance. We decided to stay with genetics for a number of reasons. It is a large part of the Biology course. We can show our students that Biology is always learning and changing, and I have found that students are fascinated by the power and influence of genetics. I was immediately interested by the article. I have always liked to know facts and dimensions and always wanted to be tall. That I am a centimeter taller than anyone else in my family is still a source of some (childish) pride! Any reflectio...