The Nutrition Diva - Do Herbal Supplements Work?

I listened to a podcast on nutrition and whether herbal supplements work.  She discussed how people need to be careful in choosing herbal supplements because sometimes the natural solution is not always the best solution and sometimes medicine or drugs do a better job at curing or helping the problem.  I found it interesting on how she talked about needing to research herbal supplements and make sure that research it supported by reliable studies.  She talked about how some herbal supplements can have side effects and to make sure to be aware of those before taking.  Her overall thoughts were to make sure you explore all your options and make the decision based on sound research and investigation.

http://www.podcast.com/Health/Fitness-and-Nutrition/I-2371.htm
As for using podcasting in the classroom - I think this would be a wonderful that all teachers could use and find interesting and insightful podcasts that would go along with their content areas.  I think it just takes some exploration and time put forth to find the topics that would best fit their needs. Many just need help sometimes finding those resources - sometimes knowing where to begin and finding that support to help you get started is the hardest part.

Reflection

Special effects used on photos

I took a picture of my friend Maureen and I and found this cool special effect and made the picture into a rubic cube - I thought it was awesome all the ways that you can change an image using dumpr and the other sites

YouTube prezi tutorial

When teaching my students how to use prezi in school, several of the tutorials on the website were blocked because they were YouTube videos.  I sent a request to WVDE and had it unblocked so that my students could work together and learn as partners how to use prezi.

Wordle thing 5

Wallwisher.com :: Ways to use TED talks in the classroom thing4

Tech steps Tech steps Tech steps.... post 8

April has been another exciting and challenging month.  A large focus of April for myself and one of my colleagues has been  tech steps.  We have worked together to complete the 7th grade RLA tech steps on creating comments on a document as well as an image project.  I must say that I am still surprised that this project is being completed in 7th grade as I did not obtain these skills til college.  However, having the students working with partners has made the activity easier and they learned from one another.  The 8th graders have been even busier with 2 tech steps projects.  The first one we completed was issue to action.  This project had students research a problem that we are facing currently either globally, nationally or locally and then come up with an action plan on something that they could do to help benefit the cause.  I did feel that the research emphasis in this project was very beneficial to the students as it helped me teach them where to find reliable and accurate sources, however having them actually attempt to complete the project in my mind was unrealistic.  I only have 30 some students and I can't imagine trying to monitor their progress let alone if I had a larger group.  The concept of the project is a fantastic idea but we have all learned just because it looks good on paper doesn't necessarily mean that it will actually work the way you want it to.

Another exciting project that has been in the works and I should be able to share with you soon is my blended delivery project so stay tuned as I will be sharing soon on the overall design and outcome!