Learning With Animals

Previously I have discussed the classroom pet and the advantages/disadvantages but I feel that it is important to mention how interactions with animals are very important for education. Students need to become familiar with seeing and interacting with animal under controlled situations. This way students can lose fears about animals and come to understand that animals live for their own reasons not just to entertain people. Very often students can become upset when hamsters sleep during the day and do not play with the students. Learning that these animals live their way, nocturnally, and do not bend to people's wills is a good thing. All students should interact with animals to realize that animals are their own beings that exist for their own reasons.

Books and Pets Our Friends for Life

I found an interesting document from Arizona titled Books and Pets Our Friends for Life Arizona Reading Program Manual which is a reading program in collaboration with the Arizona humane society. The program is a collaboration also with the humanities council and libraries. The manual gives information on the running of the reading program in communities across Arizona. The set up of the manual is very useful in creating your own program with evaluation material, bibliographies of humane education books, and games for kids. It also give set up instructions including incentives and prizes for students. There are also areas to help plan for the success of your own individual program.

I personally think that it is great for educators and students to work together with reading and collaborating with the community. Bringing books to students and teaching about humane education is great. This gives me a great idea for using technology with this same format. Why not have a humane education ebook library so that this program really could be put in place for every child. This way if the children live in rural areas they can read the same books as their peers and work toward these educational goals together. Also having this program available with ebooks t can work in the classroom too. Finally as long as you are near a computer you can read the book. This way no one ever has to wait for a book to be returned especially if all the children are reading the same books.

In the News

In October 2006 a K-12 principal in Minnesota resigned after some parents were upset that he used a firearm to shoot orphaned kittens on school property. He killed the kittens because their mother had been caught in a trap on school grounds set by the principal. He did not want the kittens to suffer so he shot the animals after school when there would be no risk to students. Several students and parents were at the school and heard the shot. The principal may be charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of a firearm, a misdemeanor. The principal has since resigned his position.

This is a very interesting news item. With the killing of kittens and their mother, on school property, by the principal, and while students and parents were near enough to hear the shot. So which issue stands out most? The animals deaths? This Principals choices?

Article from USA Today

Movie Maker Sounds Easy Enough

I am working on a project involving Windows Movie Maker. I am currently working out the idea and the script but I wanted to share my excitement for the possibilities this software has. You can easily add pictures, animation, and sound to create digital movies mainly by dragging and dropping. This way any educator can work with this software and create a quality movie about any subject. History, math, science, and any other subject could be used with movie maker. It could also be used as a reward system if the class would like to make there own movies about the class after a year well done.

I plan on making a movie about choices. I think it would be good to show students how choices they make affect the entire world. I will show how their choices affect animals, people, the economy, and environment then I will empower them with new more sustainably choices at the end. My project this time will be for higher grade levels than my last. I am planning on making this film for middle school.

New Tech and New Styles of Teaching

Blpainte left a comment on the Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! post on Humane Education about technologies in the classroom. She was glad that other educators like these new technologies. Many educators have gotten into ruts where they use the same technologies and never change. Also many educators learn to fear these new technologies because they feel that either the technologies are to difficult for them to master or that the old way they have done things has always worked so why change? Personally I feel that multimedia is important for learning and it will help educators enjoy their job more by being able to play with these new technologies to help their students. These new technologies are helpful to animals by helping lesson animal uses in education with dissection alternatives, models of animal, and computer programs. With educators becoming more open to technology they will soon become more open to humane education as well.

Animals are Everywhere!

Currently I am in the process of making my own humane education eBook titled Animals are Everywhere! I got the idea for this eBook after reading Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! I personally feel that eBooks are great tools for the classroom and want to make an eBook that I can use in the classroom. The eBook has many levels of development. First I created a storyboard including pictures and text for each slide. Then I edited the content and started creating the pictures for the eBook. Once the pictures were completed and scanned I started working with Power Point. I put each picture with its corresponding slide. The I added text to each slide. The next step was to clean up each slide by cropping pictures, editing text, and placing all the items on the slides. All that is left is to create the audio of the text, add it to the slide, and time the slide to transition after the audio finishes.

The challenges of the project are often having the equipment to make the eBook and the proper organizational tools to get everything done. A storyboard is necessary to organize the construction of the eBook. Without a storyboard the book would have needed more revisions then necessary. This will definitely help educators in many areas organization is necessary to work with these technologies and with other aspects of school.

The eBook is working out wonderfully and is about animal habitats. The eBook I have created asks students to look at different animals, identify them, and in an interactive quiz show they learned what habitat the animals are from.

Oh the Audacity!!!

While making my own eBook with humane education themes I have been using many different tools and one of them is Audacity. Audacity is a free software that you can download and record audio files. It is really easy to use and edit with because of its cut and paste features. Really all you need is a computer, the free download, and a microphone (I got one for $8.00 and it works fine).

So I came up with a way to use Audacity in the classroom and involve animals in the lesson. This lesson would be for elementary students possible K-3. Each student would be assigned an animal. Any animal you see fit from the farm to the jungle or north pole. The child will do an art project of the animal coloring, painting, mosaic, etc. and that will be scanned into the computer and placed in a PowerPoint document as a slide. Then the child will be able to record what sound he/she thinks the animal makes using audacity. The the sound will be placed with the picture and the project will be viewed by the students. This is a fun activity that also has a great end product that other students, teachers, and parents will want to see.