The Alchemist's Blog

The Alchemist's Blog http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/33_the_alchemists_blog pencehe 2009-11-20T23:52:23Z Using an RSS feed in a Chemistry class http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/33_the_alchemists_blog/archive/146_using_an_rss_feed_in_a_chemistry_class.html This semester I will be trying various approaches to apply social networking to my chemistry classes. In each case i will try to start from a problem that I perceive, and then propose a social solution to this problem. I will begin with my senior seminar class for chemistry majors. The problem that I perceive is that they are not accustomed to following the chemical literature. I could require that they visit the library and read journals on a regular basis, but this has not been very successful in the past. The library is "out of their way' and "inconvenient." The solution I decided to attempt was to have each student set up an RSS feed connected to several ACS journals as well as C&E News. Perhaps if an abstract of journal articles appears on their computer, they will be more likely to at least read the abstract, and perhaps even follow up by finding the article in the journal.RSS is a three-letter acronym that has a number of different meanings, the most common of which is Real Simple Syndication. RSS is an XML-based system that will automatically inform a user when a new post is added to his or her favorite website. Any web site that includes the little orange buttom with the letters RSS can be connected, as long as the user has a program that will read the RSS feed. Such an RSS reader is often called an aggregator. Many journals and web sites have this connectivity; establishing an RSS connection usually provides the user with a brief abstract of the original material and also a link to click through to the original site (as long as the user would normally have access to the site). There are a number of commonly used RSS aggregators, but I decided to use NetVibes, because I already had experience with it, the software included a Del.icio.us (to be discussed in a later post) feed, it worked on both Macs and PCs, and finally (and most important) it was free. The class was relatively small (about seven students) so it was easy to have them all work in a computer lab and set up NetVibes. The installation went very smoothly, and I suspect that if one worte a decent set of directions, students could do this on their own. Next, i had the students go to the ACS RSS feeds page, which is at the URL pubs.acs.org/alerts/rss/index.html. I had each student connect to two journals that seemed to be interesting to them, as well as the normal feed for C&E News. ACS journals connect smoothly to NewVibes, but some other non-ACS journals do not have a button to allow direct connection to NetVibes. In that case is is necessary to obtain the XML address and manually copy it into NetVibes. i also asked each students to set up an RSS feed from Science magazine, which is at www.aaas.org/news/rss. Science list a variety of types of RSS links, and I had my students choose only one. I suggested Chemistry, Physaics , and Materials Science, but they may have opted for one of the other RSS links. Now that each student has a basic set of RSS links, it remains to be seen how they will use this information. I plan to do a survey in a week or so, and I will report on these outcomes in a later blog. General 2006-09-27T10:19:29Z pencehe Lifelong teachers or lifelong learners, which is best? http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/33_the_alchemists_blog/archive/71_lifelong_teachers_or_lifelong_learners_which_is_best.html Recently, in his Weblogg-ed blog, (link at http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/lifelong-teachers/) Will Richardson makes the following comments: ".......So when we reframe our goals in the classroom to include having our students teach as a way to learn, we make an important shift, one that we as educators all know the power of. . . . . . . .We talk a lot about creating lifelong learners. What if we thought more about creating lifelong teachers? Would the learning be a natural outcome? Would the learning be deeper? Would our learners be more passionate if they were asked to share their learning with others? " As an example of this approach he points to the podcasts from <a href="http://bobsprankle.com/podcasts/0506/rm208vodcast.mov" target="_blank">Bob Sprankle’s Room 208 kids.</a> this is interesting on several levels. First, it is fascinating to see how professionally these grade school kids develop the structure of the podcast, but even more important is the enthusiasm that prevails. Perhaps all grade school classes are this enthusiastic, but I doubt it. This brings me to my second point, which is the one I think is most significant, much of the argument, pro and con, regarding using social networking for teaching seems to turn on the question of which is more important, the process or the product. Will proposes that asking students to play the role of teachers provides them with an experience that is at least as important as any information that they may gain from the process. I agree. I suspect that in order for social networking to move beyond the current early adopters and become commonplace in college classrooms, it is necessary to accept that this is not the most efficient way to learn factual material. It is, however, the best way for students to become life-long learners and even teachers. That is more important than any facts that they may miss out on in the process. General 2006-05-04T11:22:37Z pencehe How can you use Blogging in Education http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/33_the_alchemists_blog/archive/70_how_can_you_use_blogging_in_education.html I'm still trying to decide which aspects of social networking can be most useful for teaching chemistry at the college level. I found a wonderful place to start thinking about this; a website that lists dozens of different ways to use blogs. The URL is http://anne.teachesme.com/2004/10/05/ways-to-use-weblogs-in-education/Now all I have to do is find the time to examine each of these suggestions and think about whether or not they would be useful for teaching chemistry. General 2006-04-20T14:45:55Z pencehe Yes, Virgina, the World is Getting Flat http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/33_the_alchemists_blog/archive/69_yes_virgina_the_world_is_getting_flat.html While at a National Meeting of the American Chemical Society several years ago, I went to hear a paper given in a symposium sponsored by one of the smaller Divisions. I was interested because the abstract indicated that the speaker was going to talk about the development of a new industrial product. The actual paper turned out to be much more surprising than I had expected. The speaker explained that a new compound had been synthesized at university lab in New Jersey. A company expressed interest in the commercial potential of this compound, and so the main laboratory was asked to recheck the synthesis and properties. If I remember correctly, that main laboratory was in Massachusetts. The compound still looked promising, so the job of developing a pilot plant operation for producing the compound was assigned to a laboratory in Europe. Finally, the commercial production was scheduled for the company’s main plant, which was in North Carolina. The speaker indicated that representatives from all the different units were deeply involved throughout the process, but the entire process was managed by a series of teleconferences. At no time did these representatives assemble in the same room. I came away from the paper with an uneasy feeling that I needed to think about how to prepare my students for this new type of industrial environment. I am currently reading Tom Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat.” and that uneasy feeling is growing much stronger with each page that I read. In order for our students to compete with the rest of the world, it is essential that they not just understand, but be comfortable with, the process of network collaboration. More and more of the processes that once were performed totally within our national boundaries are now being shifted overseas. The availability of high-speed Internet communications and highly-trained professionals in India and China is changing the industrial environment. Increasingly, American workers are responsible for coordinating their efforts with research that is taking place thousands of miles away, and doing it in real time. Our educational system seems to be moving in the opposite direction, increasingly emphasizing independent work on high-stakes examinations. With relatively few exceptions, students are left to develop their social networking skills on their own. If anyone thinks that students are learning about a network by using Xanga or MySpace, they have not looked at pages on these sites. A typical page is almost guaranteed to make a real web designer cringe. Some students may become competent if left to their own devices, but most of them need some guidance. If you agree with me that this is a problem that needs to be discussed, it involves several separate issues. What skills should we be teaching our students; how are these skills best taught; and how do we fit another large topic into a curriculum that is already threatening to burst at the seams? General 2006-04-18T09:17:30Z pencehe Defining a Virtual Learning Space for our students http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/33_the_alchemists_blog/archive/68_defining_a_virtual_learning_space_for_our_students.html I recently read the following description of a podcast on the new information literacy. It sounds as though it is in the direction I would like to follow, so I will link to it.The link is:<h4 class="itemtitle"><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/higheredblogcon/XUAX?m=15">Teaching information literacy: Who’s teaching the teachers?</a></h4><h5 class="itemposttime">Posted: 07 Apr 2006 08:12:27 +0000</h5>Ewan McIntosh University of Stirling, Scotland <a href="http://edu.blogs.com/">http://edu.blogs.com</a> For many educators, “information literacy” is just another buzzword with little meaning for their day-to-day teaching and the learning of their students. So far, it’s fallen to IT departments and librarians to teach students the intricacies of university email systems or library catalogs. Information literacy in the 21st century, however, is less about technicalities and more about the way we teach. Students learn in the classroom and outside it. (emphasis added!) Social software has created new ways to seek information. Less relevant today is the official reading list and the subsequent frustration when paper books and journals are not in stock. Far more relevant are the decisions formerly taken by the educator but now transferred to the students to make. It this viable information I’m looking at? How can I turn it into useful knowledge? How can I gain a greater wisdom in my subject? Knowing where to find knowledge and how to interpret it is where information literacy comes in. This screencast will explore some of the reasons why these skills are not being taught as well or as often as perhaps they should be. If taught, and not just caught, skills in exploiting social software can help student and teachers make better judgement on information and opinion and turn this into valuable knowledge. If caught, and caught wrongly, social software can lead to false information, narrow scope and less rigor. General 2006-04-13T14:20:32Z pencehe Defining a Virtual Learning Space for our students http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/33_the_alchemists_blog/archive/67_defining_a_virtual_learning_space_for_our_students.html So, what do I hope to accomplish by writing a blog? My basic intention is to try to understand how we can help our students at SUNY Oneonta develop a personal Virtual Learning Space (VLS) during their four years here. What are the components that should be included in a student's basic education to connect him or her to both humans and organizations that serve as the foundation for his or her VLS. I think that this is the new information literacy. Knowledge no longer consists of what is in my head or in my books, but rather is the collective wisdom of the group of individuals (“nodes”) that I am connected to and share with. Can I define the set of social software tools that will support this.The importance of some parts of the VLS seem to me to be clear, for example, podcasts and blogs. These can be very valuable sources of information, but unless a student knows how to manage them, they can become a time sink. It also seems to me that any education major should have a clear idea of some of the ways that these could be used for teaching. Both techniques have already penetrated into grade school in some places and sending out new teachers need this background. The importance of Instant Messaging goes without saying, but I have no idea of how to describe the possible effect of IM on education. Then there is Really Simple Syndication, which provides a way to attempt to manage blogs, podcasts, etc. There are many different sites that are designed to serve as aggregators, including netvibes. Trying to find the most useful blogs is still more of an art than a science (as indicated by the fact that <a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000420.html">the most popular blogs are Boing Boing and EnGadget</a>. I think that both Blog and Pod searching are important skills for our students.Wikitextbooks are a more difficult piece of the puzzle. Those who believe in wikis are true believers, but it is not clear that their ideas will prevail over the more traditionalist approach to education. It is important for education majors to understand the issues involved in deciding whether or not to use wikitextbooks, especially since my feeling is that the argument breaks down into process vs. product, with neither side being willing to accept the logic of the other position. Personally, I believe that wikitexts ultimately may not fly, but I’ve been wrong in the past, and even if I am right, their crash may strew quite a bit of debris upon the surrounding landscape.That brings me to web search. It seems clear that we have reduced to three major search engines, and all three are aiming to become basic entertainment tools as the media converge. If this happens, will they continue to serve as true information conduits, or will our students have to look elsewhere for academic search? Tags and social networking seem to be the main current hope for organizing the flood of information. The leading site of this type seems to currently be <a href="http://del.icio.us/">del.icio.us</a>, but there are a number of other options. There is an interesting article on the web from <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_39/b3952408.htm">BusinessWeek</a> describing how one music company is using tags for market research. That leads me into the social networking sites, like <a href="http://www.myspace.com/">MySpace</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Face Book</a>. Most of my students already are using these sites, but I’m not sure anyone has fugured out how they relate to teaching. I have seen some interesting approaches, such as having each accepted student join FaceBook before they come to campus in order to begin their orientation to campus life. Fraternities and sororities are also using FaceBook for rushing. I was just reading that the most popular classical composer among those 18 thru 25 is someone I never heard of, but who has used MySpace to reach out to a large “circle of friends” who are listening to and buying his music. Similarly, it is not fair to ignore <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>, which allows users to upload pictures and tag them. I realize that seeing another picture of a cat named Fluffy seems unnecessary, but some educators have found very innovative uses for this type of site. For example, I have read of one campus that asks their students who study overseas to load their snapshots on Flickr. This allows prospective students in the program to get at least some feel for what the different countries might be like.This leads to the question of self publication. Sites like <a href="http://www.lulu.com/">lulu</a>, <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/">cdbaby</a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">youtube</a> allow individuals to post their personal intellectual products, including books), CDs), and short videos) and to directly access an audience. In some cases these products enjoy significant success. Perhaps the “Death of the Gatekeepers” idea is overblown, but these new distribution methods are certainly pushing back against the traditional distribution channels. Potentially one of the more interesting of these sites for teachers is <a href="http://www.safariu.com/">Safari U</a>, which allows teachers to share lesson plans and class materials on the web. So far, most of the material is focused on computers and technology, but it seems inevitable that there will be more lesson plan exchanges available in the future.This post is already much too long, but I did want to clarify the direction I had in mind for this blog. I realize that I am only scratching the surface, but it is a start. I would invite anyone who has strong opinions (or even weak ones) to comment on the catalogue of resources I have mentioned. If you wish to add special skills essential to your own discipline, then feel free to do so, but please label them as specialized skills. I am hoping that this type of discussion will give me a better understanding of where I need to go, and perhaps also be useful to others. In conclusion I think that the most important idea for our students to understand is that the rules are changing and the first person to understand the new rules wins (even though he/she only wins until the rules change again - - -in a very short time). Of course, that also goes for us. ; -) General 2006-04-12T15:21:50Z pencehe