What have you been doing?
I got the question from home...so, what exactly does training mean? What have you been LEARNING? I thought I would take a journal and dedicate it soley to training related learning. When you read my journals, you are experiencing the application of what I have learned. PolarTREC is a program that connects teachers and researchers. It provides the opportunity for teachers to experience "authentic field work". Teachers go through a very rigid selection process. This year, there were 250 teachers that applied to participate in the program. 12 teachers were placed in the field. Our applications were reviewed by a selection committee and the top applicants were selected. Researchers also have to apply to the program. Not every research project is suited to have a teacher on the team. Researchers apply to the program to bring an additional facet to their research. A teacher can bring a K-12 and community outreach perspective to the project; to translate authentic science into meaningful experiences and educate the generalpublic about their research. Once the top applications are selected, they are provided to researchers. The reseachers read the teacher applications and choose the applicants they would like to interview over the telephone. Mutliple teachers are interviewed for each spot and the researcher makes the final decision about which teacher to extend an invitation to the research expedition.
THIS IS NO PICNIC! Training was hard work...8:00- 5:00 every day with homework assignments every night! We did get out on a few "field excursions" to learn some of the polar science and Alaska background that will be helpful for those of us with research in the Arctic. The field excursions provided the content for our "practice journals". It was essential to have some learning experiences to translate back into the classroom. For example, when I posted the journal "Calla Lilies and Skunk Cabbage" that was a comparative journal between a boreal forest that I visited while in Alaska and a bog/wetland back home in Champaign County. My students were able to get content for an Ohio Graduation Test Benchmark and Indicator on biomes and biological adaptations. The content was presented in a different way than from a book...a more engaging "real" way.
My cute pink "cutie computer" has been transformed into a working machine! Ronnie, PolarTREC tech guy extrodinaire loaded multiple programs and software onto my computer. I received not only training in each of these programs, but I had to PRACTICE...most times with homework so that Ronnie could verify that I DID KNOW how to do certain technological tasks. I made mistakes...and when I did, Ronnie was right there re-instructing, helping me to figure out what I did incorrectly. When I go into the field, I have to KNOW how to use the technology inside and out by myself!!
Here is the list of software that I learned to use during this training. Software that has been loaded onto my computer and that I will be able integrate into my classroom in numerous ways.
1. Filezilla - a program that creates pdf files. I will be able to create and load pdf files for ease of data transfer for any documents I create before, after and while I am in the field. This will be extremely helpful for everyday classroom use.
2. Google Earth- an amazing program that shows map locations and data for all over the world. I will be on a moving ice breaking research vessel. This will provide me with images of locations we will be sampling to allow the students to visualize this part of the world that is thousands of miles from their home! I am anxious to integrate Google Earth imaging software into Science in Ohio classes when we study local flora and fauna, state parks, topography, geography, etc.
3. Mozilla Firefox - the preferred internet browser for PolarTREC teachers to use in data uploading. One of my first mistakes...Ronnie says, "Chantelle, your journal entries are doing something weird...can we take a look at them". I start walking him through how I uploaded them and I was WRONG from step 1!! I am used to Internet Explorer...NOT so friendly to the software used to upload PolarTREC files. It will be a change of habit to use Firefox...but I will get there.
4. Picasa 3 - a photo software that is used to edit images. Every image you have seen in my journal is taken with my Sony A300 camera at 10 megapixels. The image has to be uploaded into Picase, resized so that you are not waiting HOURS for it to download, then exported to a file. In addition to that, I have to keep high resolution and web ready folders of EVERY PICTURE that is posted in my journals and photo gallery CATALOGED by date! Besides the high res and web ready folders, I need to create a spreadsheet of every picture that is posted...filename, short title, description,date, place and person taking the picture. This file management work flow took a bulk of the training time. This is going to require lots more practice until it gets EASY! It is not easy yet!
5. Pidgin - the instant message program PolarTREC teachers and staff used to communicate while on-line. I learned how to access Pidgin from meebo and by just clicking the link on the desktop!
6. Mozilla Thunderbird - the email client used by PolarTREC teachers....so ANOTHER email account with a NEW password! I need a file management for my email accounts...personal email, school email, PolarTREC email!!
When you read a journal entry, you are looking at the finished product of about 2 hours of work. Capturing the "words" or the story is the easy part. It is the uploading and preparation of images, uploading of the files into the PolarTREC website, editing, proof-reading and final posting that is time consuming! I would say this will get faster with practice, but the veteran teachers who have already completed their PolarTREC missions say to expect about 2 hours per day while on expedition working on journal entries!
This is just the basics. I will be taking a PolarTREC high definition video camera/camera into the field that I will need to practice with...I will get that at the beginning of the school year next year. I need to learn more about creating and posting audio and video files so that I have a myriad of ways to connect students to the expedition!
To tie it up, the training this week was to learn the software, programs, equipment and protocols that I will use to communicate the science research to my students once I am on expedition. Journals and photos are not just easily written and uploaded. It is a multi-step process that is time consuming...the finished product is totally worth it and I am excited to have this broad base of new technological skills to utilize!
Signing off from Fairbanks...