Sue Waters

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Interested In Fish For Your Classroom?

Okay I’ve got an idea but I need your help to move it from the idea into making it work :). The Idea Let me explain. My real job is training people how to farm fish. I’ve had this idea ever since I read Kevin Jarrett’s Struggling with integrating technology into your curriculum? How about…

Sue Waters
3 minutes

Okay I’ve got an idea but I need your help to move it from the idea into making it work :).

The Idea

Let me explain. My real job is training people how to farm fish.

I’ve had this idea ever since I read Kevin Jarrett’s Struggling with integrating technology into your curriculum? How about integrating … FISH?!?! which highlights the opportunities for educators to connect with an aquaponics facility through Ocean of Know.

Kevin explains:

Ocean of Know uses videoconferencing and Internet-based monitoring/control systems to connect kids from NYC schools to this research facility. Once linked, kids and teachers learn through a series of projects and routine farm maintenance – as if controlling an aquaponics facility via the Internet can be considered routine! You only have to spend a few minutes on this site to see how creative and engaging the lessons are.

My workplace provides training for the maritime industry; encompassing fishing operations, seafood processing, seafarers & engineers on the large ships, marine tourism, marine science and aquaculture.

Putting it simply we employ highly qualified people from a range of maritime industries, with wealth of experience and we have great facilities — plenty of opportunities for educators to connect their students to learn about the maritime industry.

Check out the short video below that I created to give you show you aspects of aquaculture I could share. I’d even be prepared to talk about Goldfish with your students :).

Where I’m At

So as I said I need your help to move it from the idea into making it work :). I’m hoping if I list my thought process you can provide suggestions.

Here’s my thought process so far:

1. Simple Lessons and Provide Information on Aquaculture

I’m thinking we could develop simple lessons, similar the concept they’ve used on Ocean of Know, which educators could use with their students plus provide access to us using Skype, webcams, videos, Ustream etc and obviously site tours for local schools.

Happy to involved international schools as students from throughout the World train at our centre.

Can you tell me whether/how this might fit into your curriculum?

2. Getting Others Involved

Ideally it would be good to get K12 educators involved especially with lessons.

Who should I contact? Science Teachers Association? Curriculum Development at Education Department? Who else?

3. What Type Of Site To Use

I’m thinking of keeping it simple using a wiki because it’s probably better suited and provides an opportunity to showcase various Web 2.0 tools to new educators.

My preference is wikispaces. Your thoughts? Wiki? Wikispaces? Or not a wiki?

4. Forum Facility

Want include the ability for students/educators could post questions –the discussion tab isn’t the best for forums — could embed a forum? Ideas?

5. What haven’t I thought of?

I’m bound to have missed something. But what?

FINAL THOUGHTS

My managers can see merit in my idea — even if they don’t quite understand where I’m going with it. Who can blame them I’m still working it out myself.

I’d really appreciate it if you’d take the time to help me out by leaving a comment with your thoughts and ideas; so that I can start to make it happen 🙂

15 responses to “Interested In Fish For Your Classroom?”

  1. Glen Avatar
    Glen

    Your project reminded me of one of my favorite all time books by Amy Tan called “Saving Fish from Drowning”.
    The idea is that Buddhists are not supposed to kill stuff but they still need to make a living so they say that they are saving the fish from drowning. Just so happens it doesn’t work and the fish all die anyway so they have to make the best of it and sell the fish.
    I’m pretty sure this is no help to you.

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  2. Dave Bircher Avatar
    Dave Bircher

    Sounds like a neat idea. I can see if any of our teachers are doing anything with fish or sea life. Maybe they can be involved in some way.

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  3. Brent Schlenker Avatar
    Brent Schlenker

    Great idea! You are on the cutting edge of 21st century education. Today’s technologies make it all possible. The future of education will be more tightly integrated with the corporate through these technologies but it will take time before the schools see the value and understand the technology enough to open up the firewalls and not be afraid of the openness.
    The other sad thing is that schools have to “wait” until the curriculum can “include” these new activities before giving them a try. (like the earlier commenter mentioned “doing anything with fish or sea life”.
    What if a few kids just wanted some more information about the topic…found your web site experiment…connected with you…learned some cool stuff…shared with the rest of the class? Let the kids figure out how it “fits into their curriculum”.
    Go for it Sue! You are light years ahead of our education system but we REALLY need pioneers paving the way.
    Cheers!

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  4. Lee Allan Sanders Avatar
    Lee Allan Sanders

    Thank you for bringing this to us *:-) First step if I were in your shoes would be to schedule an appointment with a local high school Vice Principal of Curriculum for a meeting held simultaneously with a teacher from the same high school from the Sciences curriculum. Ask them what they need to help get their learners ready for college, and then build your course to fulfill part of that need. That would give you solid real-time information to feedback to your managers to ensure support, and could become a blog or media piece. Regards, Lee Allan

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  5. Kerrie Avatar
    Kerrie

    My 2nd grade class says, “Why can’t we help her? We use wikis all the time.” They have also video conferenced using Skype in the classroom and they enjoy learning about the world using a variety of Web 2.0 tools. They consider themselves to be quite the experts.

    They would like to follow several different species of fish from birth through what happens to them when they leave the fishery. Along the way, they would like to learn about and record information about their behaviors, needs and how they grow. They also think it might be interesting to compare this information to how these fish would live in their natural habitats. They would love to help you develop the framework and the lessons (at least for some primary folks). They always come up with the best ideas, and definately have a sense for what the primary kids are capable of doing. We hope we can learn with you as you develop this project. We are ready for an adventure!

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  6. Sarah Stewart Avatar
    Sarah Stewart

    Gosh, Sue, I thought I had problems teaching midwifery online!!

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  7. Sue Waters Avatar
    Sue Waters

    @Glen Not sure if it did help 🙂 but I’ve learnt more about Buddhism. Maybe I need to read some more?

    @Dave would love to hear if any of your teachers would be interested.

    @Brent yes it’s a shame that they have to consider whether it fits in with their curriculum before they consider the benefits. Regardless we are planning to do school tours of our site so can use it as an add on for this activity.

    @Lee Allan Good point. I actually oversee my local school’s aquaculture program for my College so already have a relationship. So could work closely with this school to organise the site and what is required.

    @Kerrie I would love to develop some cool stuff for your class and they could guide me on what they like/don’t like and what they want more information on. I think they would be very excite to see the small fish grow.

    @Sarah ROFL I already deliver online aquaculture training; this is different in the sense I would to give the general public a better understanding of what it’s all about. I’m thinking showing footage of fish wouldn’t be as mmmmm as midwifery :). And lets be honest Simon Brown’s work with the Stonemasons totally inspires me.

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  8. fishing tours

    […] this year. The prospect of a season-long ban on …http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7327524.stmInterested In Fish For Your Classroom? Okay I??ve got an idea but I need your help to move it from the idea into making it work :. The […]

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  9. sparkle24 Avatar
    sparkle24

    Next term we are doing marine conservation as part of our schoolwide theme: Making a Difference. In our class we also follow the FISH! Philosophy. I am extremely interested in being part of your idea! Even though we are in New Zealand, I’m sure we can find a way to do this. Please contact Room 24 and let us know how we can help you make this work!

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  10. sparkle24 Avatar
    sparkle24

    My contact details can be found on our blog:
    http://sparkle24.edublogs.org/ or email me at [email protected].

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  11. murcha Avatar
    murcha

    A picture is worth a1000 words, so I would love to know what a video is. Students remember imagery and video far more readily than text. Have you considered using a ning, where forums, discussions, specialized groups, blog posts, videos, images etc can be used with ease? I love skype for videoconferencing. It is cheap and user friendly. We have acutally seen snow falling in Korea when students took the basic, cheap web cam to the window to show us over skype. We showed them a blue tongue lizard and they could even see its tongue fluttering in and out.
    Wikis are a great way to share resources and set up discussions as well.
    Elluminate is another great conferencing tool, whereby desktop and laptop screens can be shared. Chat, voice and interaction can also take place.
    This is a fabulous idea, Sue and I am sure the science teacher at our school will be really interested in this post and follow up on it.

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  12. Jeff Whipple Avatar
    Jeff Whipple

    Sue…

    Saw your comment on Murcha’s blog…and couldn’t resist connecting here…

    My dad is a retired school teacher and now he fills his spare time running around to a number of elementary schools here in New Brunswick (on the east coast of Canada) helping set up aquariums full of Atlantic Salmon eggs, which hatch, grow and are eventually released by the students into the river to begin their migration to the sea.

    Kids love fish. I am sure that some of our teachers/students would love to connect with some Aussie classes to collaborate on some sort of web-based project based on fisheries.

    The real challenge is the +13 hour time difference…

    Cheers,
    Jeff

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  13. murcha Avatar
    murcha

    Sue, do you follow @jeffwhipple He is a real whiz at global connections and has worked with Clay Burrell on the 1001 tales project. Make sure you get his opinions cos I think he has experimented with everything.
    I have copied and pasted part of his comment that placed on my post re the flat classroom. It is of value to your questions. Here is his reply:
    This was so cool. I hope it not only allowed the kids to learn first hand what your part of the world is like, but also begin to imagine just how flat and connected their future is going to be.

    Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I hope our schools can do more of this in the future.

    To Sue…great comment. I would suggest that skype worked so well for this because of the interactivity. UStream would work well but, like traditional TV, the voice/video communication only flows one way.

    Thanks,
    Jeff

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  14. Sue Waters Avatar
    Sue Waters

    @ sparkle24 I would be very pleased to work with your students because they would be extremely helpful in guiding the concept. I’m just about to go on holidays but will contact you to discuss in more details next week.

    @Anne (Murcha) I had consider Ning but what I didn’t like was that you have to join to post in the forum. I’ve seen a comment form on a wiki so am going check that out further to see if it is the way to go. I think it would be mean to poor Jeff to subject him to my constant twittering. However he is welcome to add me to his twitter account if he is brave enough.

    @Jeff That is really cool what your dad does and the students would be learning a lot. The 13 hr time difference is okay with me because I could connect in the nights or early mornings. Yes I agree about the Skype — after testing the Ustream last night I think Skype will be a lot better.

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  15. controlling technology in the classroom

    […] how to farm fish. I??ve had this idea ever since I read Kevin Jarrett??s Struggling with integratinghttp://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org/2008/04/07/interested-in-fish-for-your-classroom/Trustees put cell phone crackdown on hold Stoney Creek NewsA proposed crackdown on the use of cell […]

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