Thing 7 -- You Get The Picture

This would appear to be one more source of images for classroom use. I have a SmartBoard and the images could enhance lecture or class discussion. I can see sharing experiences (by way of photos) with colleagues but do not readily see a use in the classroom other than what I said above. The biggest problem is the “rights” issue and “fair use” policy. They will limit the utilization of other's work. This is somewhat time consuming for the potential benefit.

Thing 6 -- Picture This!!!

I chose this photo taken by JonU235 at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, because it combines a number of themes that I enjoy. First of all it contains the work of two of my favorite artists, Carl Milles and Dale Chihuly. Our campus has several sculptures by Milles, who taught sculpture here in the early years of Cranbrook. His “Sunglitter” is the sea nymph riding a dolphin of which a copy is here at Cranbrook, and his “Angel Musicians” are on the stone pillars in the background. The two standing figures, mid-range, are two of the figures from the “Orpheus Fountain” installation at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Dale Chihuly is one of the greatest of the modern glass artists and the reflecting pool holds a flotilla of onion-shaped glass balls that move about in the wind.

The geodesic dome in the background is reminiscent of the work of Buckminster Fuller. I grew up near the dome of the American Society of Metals in Newbury, Ohio and I have always been intrigued by the dome structure. In addition, this dome is the Climatron greenhouse of the gardens. This adds my interest in biology to the overall mix along with my former interest in science fiction. (The dome inspired the domes housing the last surviving forests of Earth on the spaceship Valley Forge in the 1972 film Silent Running.)

I originally found an exquisite shot of this scene but it was listed as “copyright, all rights reserved.” I had to look through another 300 or so photos tagged Chihuly, Missouri Botanical Gardens to find one that was licensed under “Creative Commons.”

Thing 5 -- Can You Be Overfed?

RSS appears to be a way to distill the massive amount of info on the web. I will have to use it for a while to determine what aspects are beneficial for me as a teacher, or me as just me. I did not find anything that stood out so above the rest that I would suggest others follow it. I do not make such suggestions lightly.

Of the many sites I visited in this exercise, only one had the "Bloglines" button. I found the "Sub with Bloglines" tool to be the most effective. Now I will have to sit back and wait to see if there is as much overload as there is with the AP Bio Listserve.

Thing 4 --- Feed Me!

Feed me Seymour! (as Audrey 2 said it in "Little Shop of Horrors.") As far as the overload condition, there are only a few possible responses:

1. "Don't even go there!" -- If you do not get involved on the web, you can't get overloaded.

2. "Meltdown!" -- Not really an option in this day and age.

3. "SCRAM!" -- This phrase from the earliest nuclear reactor refered to the dropping of carbon control rods into the atomic pile to absorb neutrons and stop the chain reaction. It's an emergency shutdown to avoid the feared meltdown or uncontrolled chain reaction leading to a possible explosion. (It stands for Safety Control Rod Axe Man. One guy was designated to sever the rope holding the control rods up in case of a runaway reaction. How bizarre!)

4. “Feed me!” – Let the RSS feeds bring the data to you instead of your scanning for new stuff all the time.

Now if only there was a way to have the service find the sites you want to feed from, with the same fine discrimination you would apply manually

Thing 3 --- Slog Through Blogs

For some reason I still find myself in a Seussian mode. Thus the title “Slog Through Blogs” instead of “Hop On Pop.” I think that the word “Slog” has the appropriate tone, phrasing, and connotation for how I feel after plowing my way through the edublogs. It conjures images of people working in mud pits hoping to find the rare diamond hidden in the muck. There are some useful ideas out there in the blogosphere but you have to sort through a lot of detritus to find them.

I will have to activate the equivalent of a nitrous oxide boost to the “creative pathways” in order to find a use for blogs in my courses. One way of utilizing them might be to assign each student a concept or topic from a unit and have them post a review guide for that topic on the blog. In that way students could amass a broader review in less time. This would also allow classmates to critique and add to the original posts to assure accuracy.

My major concern is that much of what I find in blogs is of limited use to me because it is either too personal or too much opinion.

"Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own facts. The data is the data."
Dr. Maria Spriopulu, NY Times,
Sept. 30, '03.