Welcome to 7th Grade Life Science

1
WELCOME!!

• Welcome to 7th Grade Life Science!
• I am happy to have you in my class and excited
  for our upcoming science adventures this year!
• I am going to do my best to get to know you all
  on a personal basis.
• This presentation is a chance for you to get to
  know me better.

2
Personal Information

• I grew up in Virginia, MN
• Virginia is home to the worlds largest floating
  loon.
• I graduated from Virginia High School
• I played tennis in high school.

Virginia
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Education

• Undergraduate Work
• Montana State University
• Bozeman, Montana
• Degree in Microbiology
• Research at Center for Biofilm Engineering

• Graduate School
• University of Minnesota
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
• M.Ed/Initial Licensure Program in Science
  Education

4
Family
5
Hobbies
Montana
Ireland
Travel
Texas
Minnesota
6
Hobbies
Skiing!
Whitefish, MT
7
Hobbies
Windsurfing
Lake Vermilion
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Hobbies

• Gardening
• And
• Photography

Split Rock Lighthouse
9
Hobbies
Running
10
Hobbies
Cabin Life
Lake Vermilion Tower, MN
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Welcome Again!

• I hope you enjoyed your glimpse into my life
• Much of what I do outside of school influences
  what I do inside of school

• I hope this presentation expresses to you that I
  am anticipating a year in science full of
  adventure, excitement, energy, hard work, and
  fun!

12
Erin Karakas EdHD 5007 Fall 2002 Section 002

• My previous experience with Power Point
  consisted of two presentations created for
  meetings and conferences regarding my
  undergraduate research work. This is the only
  capacity I had ever really experienced Power
  Point in. Now, I am really excited for the
  potential projects and activities I can use in my
  classroom using power point. First, this is a
  great tool for preparing lectures. The images and
  words are large and clear, the presentation would
  be easy to update and modify, and the graphics
  and motions can help to spice up or clarify dull
  or abstract topics (i.e. mitosis, atomic
  structure/motion, etc.). I also like the creative
  side to power point. I can use this to create
  class projects with pictures from activities,
  class pictures, etc., and add music chosen by the
  students. I think this would be a great team
  building activity if I created a
  year/week/lesson/lab-in-review for each class
  that they could share with parents at conferences
  or through the class web site. What a great tool
  for me and the students to have when people ask,
  What are you doing in science? We can pull up
  our power point presentation and show them!
  Finally, each slide can look sharp with only a
  certain amount of information on it. Therefore,
  this technology would challenge me to organize my
  presentations by identifying and focusing on the
  most important points in each lesson.
• I think that power point would be a great
  addendum to the graduation standards. My 7th
  Grade Life Science class at Anthony is going to
  design and conduct controlled experiments on
  living organisms. This technology would be a
  great tool for presenting their entire project.
  The student can incorporate text, tables, graphs,
  pictures, motions, and sounds. This would be much
  more interesting, fun, and educational for the
  students compared to the usual word processed
  final product they are used to submitting. The
  students would benefit from having to construct
  tables, organize their information, and design
  their content. It is no easy task to take an
  experiment and turn it into a clear, concise, and
  meaningful presentation. Through this process,
  the students would be forced to think critically
  and to be the designer of knowledge, both of
  which are key to acquiring understanding and
  moving towards content mastery (Jonassen, et.al,
  24). I also think that the students could
  benefit from this technology because it is a
  great tool for public speaking. Not only would
  each student learn from their own project, but
  also learn from others through sharing projects
  in class. Plus, in a time when many name public
  speaking as their 1 fear, this is really good
  practice for students to get up in front of a
  crowd and speak.
• Though I think this is a great and wildly useful
  technology, my biggest concern is time! I spent
  hours and hours preparing this presentation. The
  formatting is just so time-consuming. I am
  concerned about the amount of time creating
  presentations would take both for me and the
  students. This should not be a problem if I view
  it as knowledge construction, but the truth is,
  time is scarce and I can see it being a conflict.
  
• Resource Jonassen, D.H., Carr, C., and Yueh, H.
  (1998) Computers as Mindtools for Engaging
  Learners in Critical Thinking. Tech Trends, v 43
  n 2 p. 24-23, March 1998.