http://edingman.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/crayon-physics-deluxe-as-a-teaching-medium/

 http://blog.sciencegeekgirl.com/2008/08/01/a-plethora-of-science-teaching-resources/

 http://dyslexia.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/teaching-physics-with-nascar-data/

 http://nvlibrary.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/physics-phun/

Google Docs is a far less public version of a Wiki, but Wiki’s would have many uses in the physics classroom as well. It would be a highly ambitions project to pick a little known physicist and either expand upon his Wikipedia page or start it from scratch. I believe motivation would come from the fact that these students use Wikipedia every day, and would be proud to see their work accurate, factual and available to anyone for their own research. Using another Wiki site, students could create a complete page for one of the topics we are covering, or try to summarize a complicated topic in Regents Physics that an 8^th grade physical science class could view on the web as part of their lesson. This would take significant inter-grade collaboration. Something tells me that I, or any teacher, would need an unearthly amount of energy, time, and motivation to make a project like the latter work.

Important connections could also be made outside of the school and classroom through these Internet projects. As a class, we could make connections with current college students who could read the wiki’s and offer updates, or even other teachers throughout the school. The students would have this extra incentive to make their work the best it can be.

The Wiki could also be used by the teacher to post lesson information for test review or homework help. Hints to homework problems could be available on this public site so the students could log on at home. Or, a blog could be created to ask homework problems and the teacher could post answers for all of the students to see. This would be an efficient way to answer common questions, helping the students as well as saving the teacher time. 

         The blogs that the students were using in this article got me thinking further about using blogs in a high school physics class. Even before I read this, I had ever so often thought of ways to use the Internet in class. My original inclination was to provide links to other physics lectures, websites we viewed in class with interactive applets, downloadable copies of documents distributed in class and much more. Much the same way that colleges use the Internet to efficiently distribute class materials, assignments and updates.

The first part of this article showed me ways of using the Internet for more than just administrative postings or easy access to links. Using a blog would work, but I have recently become familiar with Google Docs, which allows multiple users (anyone who is invited to the document) to collaboratively work together on one document, each editing and saving a version online. Each user’s contribution is tagged and students would be able to peer edit from home, or in class without the chore of distributing new copies of the editions to every member.

I intend on using a collaborative writing strategy for lab reports in my classroom and Google Docs would be a perfect piece of technology for that application. Each student could post their first edition of their lab report, invite several classmates to review it through the website, and watch as several students make revisions to their work. As a teacher, I would also be invited so that I could grade the effort that each student makes towards revising another’s report.

Another possible use of a Blog in a physics classroom would be to have students create an online version of their laboratory logbook. This could be a yearlong activity. The blog would be organized into separate labs, with data, results, materials, procedures and conclusions. Students could provide links to other research on the same topic from other sources on the web. This would be a great use of the Internet. As a teacher, grading would be as simple as going on to their blog and reading the entries. We would save paper, time printing and handing in, there would be no log books to bring to class, and during the lab the data could be directly entered into the blog. 

             Rachel, the second-grade teacher in this article, used electronic books creatively in her classroom. I was struck by the way in which this method could bypass the funding obstacles that often arise. Using the electronic books could level the playing field in school districts that cannot order class sets of books, keep their libraries up to date, or provide the resources that wealthier schools can provide.

            The use of the electronic books also was highly adaptable to readers of different levels. One could imagine that providing books that suit all of your students’ readability levels could get quite expensive and time consuming. But the e-books provide a way to really focus in on each student’s needs.

            In a middle school or high school science classroom e-books could provide opportunities for students to collaborate in book clubs with trade books, get supplements to their textbook, or a teacher could design a lesson based on a book available online.

            Mark’s recreational reading program in the inner-city seems like a beneficial program for those kids. However, I recall from our Literacy in Secondary School class, that promoting recreational reading does not reap any benefits statistically. From the standpoint of providing structured after school activity that promotes education, this program seems wonderful, but if its goal is to encourage recreational reading, there could be better methods.

            Anderson, R., & Balajthy, E.  (2009).  Stories about struggling readers and technology.  The Reading Teacher, 62, 540-542. 

            Boling, E., Castek, J., Zawilinski, L., Barton, K., & Nierlich, T.  (2008).  Collaborative literacy:  Blogs and internet projects.  The Reading Teacher, 61, 504-506.

            Morgan, B., & Smith, R. D. (2008).  A wiki for classroom writing.  The Reading Teacher, 62, 80-82.