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.

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

One amazing web resource for educators is TumbleBooks which features many different eBooks with life learning lessons, great stories, and many books for many different age groups. One book I really enjoyed was Bugs, Bugs, Bugs written and illustrated by Bob Barner. The book is for pre-k through 1st grade students. There are two great things about this eBook with the first being the media used to present the material and the second being the material. The eBook has so many options to be used for beginning readers as a reward or to help them learn new words. It also has a great humane education message about bugs being fun and a part of nature that all people are included in instead of being scary or weird. I think this eBook is not only a beautiful and entertaining book but also a good tool to learn and become familiar with bugs at an early age.

Real World Experience

In the past I had the pleasure of going back to my second grade teacher and using her class for one of my humane education projects. I did an art lesson where the students made mosaic pictures by gluing colored paper squares to a white sheet of paper. The theme for the pictures was "What lives in a garden?" Before we got started I had the students tell me about the things that live in gardens. Some students said bugs, others talked about the plants like flowers or even corn, and others thought about animals like their dog or rabbits. The approach helped each student share ideas and make their own unique picture. Most of the pictures were very abstract which was nice but as they worked I went around the room assisting with glue spills, finding more colored paper, and hearing about what it is like to live in a garden. The students were able to show that they understood some of the everyday situations plants and animals go through and how they could help the plants and animals. Overall this lesson was one of the first ones I ever did that was more focused toward humane education and I feel it was very successful.

Animals in the Classroom

While searching the ERIC database I came across a wonderful article titled Animals in the Classroom: A Guide for Elementary and Secondary Educators by Elaine Birkholz and Peter Theran which discussed the different ways to integrate animals into eh curriculum that would foster learning, compassion, and be safe for animals. The article discusses which animals would be most useful in the classroom, how to care for them, and how to integrate them into the curriculum. The article goes over pets such as rabbits being difficult in the classroom to hamsters that are nocturnal to gold fish being sturdy adapters to the classroom environment. Another important fact for educators to become aware of is that there are laws in place in certain states regulating classroom pets including Florida. The article also touches on dissection and its alternatives and respect for life which is one of the underlying lessons when having a classroom pet.

I personally feel that if the right animal is in the classroom and it is integrated into the curriculum it will be beneficial to the students. I also think that this article is very useful to any educator who has considered having a classroom pet.

What do you think?

After posting about dissection technology I thought I would post some information about the Lynchburg College 2006 Governor's School for Math, Science, and Technology to get opinions about the use of technology at this school. The school is for gifted high school juniors and seniors in Virgina who stay the summer and take advanced courses in math, science, and technology. One of the science classes offered is called "Blood and Guts" which many students take because they are thinking about medicine as a career. To showcase the work of students the college put up a website showing gifted students with mutilated animals and with students pretending to eat animal intestines. Many different groups were appalled at this display including the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The following links are from the college's press release about the school, the blood and guts web page, PCRM's response to the web site, and the book The Use of Animals in Higher Education by Jonathan Balcombe.

Now it is time to read through the information and comment on what you think about the issues at Lynchburg College. I'll comment with my thoughts in a later post.

Lynchburg College 2006 Governor's School for Math, Science, and Technology.
Blood and Guts Web Page
PCRM Article 1
PCRM Article 2
The Use of Animals in Higher Education by Jonathan Balcombe

Diary of a Worm

Books are important instructional tools and media. Books also have many different messages that are sent to children through word choice, pictures, and the roles people and animals take within books. Because of this, humane education can be brought across to children through the books used in the classroom. I recently found a wonderful book titled Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin. The book follows a young worms life at school, the dance, with his friend spider, and his interactions with humans. The important issues in the book are how the children can relate to the worm. The little worm wants to live his life, go to school, and have fun with friends and family. The lesson on the book can involve comprehension with printed materials but adding a discussion about what it is like to be a worm helps with empathy building.

One way to find books yourself that have humane education themes is to read the book and ask, "How are animals portrayed?" "After reading do you understand how another person feels?" "Is the environment valued in the book?" "Are the lessons taught about being kind to others, empathy, and about having a strong moral character?"

These are some of my favorite books with humane education themes:

Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin

Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

The Peace Book by Todd Parr

It's Okay to be Different by Todd Parr