Jim's USF Tech Cert Blog

Hello Class, I have always been not only a visual learner but a live my life through visuals.  Because of this, and the fact that I teach biology which lends well to visual learning, I place a lot of time and effort into graphic design.  I really care about how visually appealing the content I deliver is for the students, especially in today's tech heavy/visual heavy world.  I also critique how visually appealing student's projects are, and often make it a significant aspect of their grade.  Whenever I make a new assignment, I spend a lot of time looking at it from the student perspective.  Not just making sure it has clear and accurate instructions, or that it can be differentiated for different learners, but also to make sure it is visually appealing.  In fact, I will admit that I am a bit of a graphic designer snob!  When I use materials from other educators or sources online, I often need to "enhance" them with graphic design.  This could ...

EEND 677 Module 4 assignment Punnett Square Trailer I was very excited about this week’s assignment as I often use videos made like movie trailers to get students excited about new content.  In fact, students begin to expect these trailers.  Most of the time, I find the videos on Youtube, but I think the students would appreciate it if they started to see some original content from me as well.  I also have an assignment for Mitosis where students make their own movie trailer for the cell cycle using WeVideo.  Because of this assignment, I decided to make my own movie trailer using WeVideo for another topic we cover in class, Punnett Squares.   I started out the movie trailer with the title to get the students excited.  Using music, to keep the students engaged, I go through the basics of why we are going to learn about these tools.  I also ask a question to the kids, probably the most asked question I get in class every year… If my Dad look...

Module 2: Audio Recording for Fluency and Self-Analysis Audio Recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XI4f-aCqBH3XCPjwCRwrsj0TgCcq9nOK/view?usp=sharing Great Barrier Reef Grief For this assignment I decided to read an article from one of my favorite magazines, Coral Magazine.  I often times use the magazine in class for articles about the plight of our coral reefs around the world.  Every Thursday students have an opportunity to earn extra credit by summarizing a current science article in an activity I call “Science in the News”.  I often bring an article as well as I think it is important for students to be exposed to “real” science happening in their world.  Here is my review for my reading of this amazing article. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t excited to critique my own reading as like most I have never liked my voice recording.  Currently on my 4th day of the Flu, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I was surprised to like the tone of my...

Hello class, My name is Jim Nielsen and I teach Biology and Anatomy at Waubonsie Valley High School. Teaching was a 3rd career change for me as I worked previously as a zookeeper at Brookfield Zoo, and did medical research at University of Chicago for 5 years as well.  I am currently in my 12th year of teaching and truly get excited to come to work everyday and spend time talking about the study of Life with young adults.  The two courses I teach are extremely diverse in learning levels as I teach freshman co-taught biology and Senior Anatomy.  It really creates a fun challenge to create material that works for all learning levels.  Because of this challenge, and our districts move to 1:1 instruction next year, I decided to enroll in the Educational Technology courses at St. Francis.  This is my 3rd course at St. Francis, and my favorite aspect so far is that I am actually able to utilize many of the lessons in class. When students leave my classroom...

EEND 676 Artifact #2: BIOLOGY FINAL EXAM PADLET STUDY GROUP https://padlet.com/jim_nielsen/biofinalexam I created the following assignment for this semester's final exam.  I have never used Padlet before, but am excited about the opportunity to try it in the next few weeks!!  I think it will be really beneficial for students to have a way to pick the brains of their peers without having to leave and meet up.  Although, I think study parties and meeting at a coffee house are extremely beneficial, this does solve the issue of getting students together.  Plus, students can come and go as they please at any time, leave comments, answer questions, even study live with another student.  I do expect some issues, mainly how do I convince or promote students to utilize this tool.  They have a lot going on during finals week so how can I make their time with this tool beneficial.  The key to the success of this tool really rides on how many students ac...

Google Communities: Artifact #1 Hello Class, One of the biggest take-aways from this course was my increased familiarity with Google Apps and Tools.  I had worked with Google Communities before, but have really strengthened my familiarity with this amazing tool!  I feel that even some Google Pros don't use or know about Google Communities and rarely hear about it's use in the classroom.  This year alone, I have set up 5 assignments with Google Communities, and am planning a 6th with a google study group. The artifact I submitted for this class was a screencast and Google Community for the amazing film Chasing Coral.  There are so many great eco-documentaries out there today, and I wish I could show them all to my students.  Because of the lack of time, and not wanting to use valuable class time to watch movies, I wanted to find a way to assign a film where students could watch, comment, ask questions, and collaborate with their peers while watching.  ...

Hello class, My name is Jim Nielsen and I teach Biology and Anatomy at Waubonsie Valley High School. Teaching was a 3rd career change for me as I worked previously as a zookeeper at Brookfield Zoo, and did medical research at University of Chicago for 5 years as well.  I am currently in my 12th year of teaching and truly get excited to come to work everyday and spend time talking about the study of Life with young adults.  The two courses I teach are extremely diverse in learning levels as I teach freshman co-taught biology and Senior Anatomy.  It really creates a fun challenge to create material that works for all learning levels.  Because of this challenge, and our districts move to 1:1 instruction next year, I decided to enroll in the Educational Technology courses at St. Francis.  This is my 3rd course at St. Francis, and my favorite aspect so far is that I am actually able to utilize many of the lessons in class. When students leave my classro...