Activity 1: Communication

We use a similar video to this blue-footed booby courting dance when we discuss natural selection and sexual selection during our evolution unit.  This would be useful to use a blog to post other interesting and quirky animal behavior videos relating to sexual selection.  This is often an area where students have a lot of interest and it would be fun to center an assignment or classroom/online discussion around them watching a series of these types of short videos.

A blog could be a useful place to post assignments, have students comment on videos, link quizzes/videos/pictures.  I also think a blog is a great place to host supplementary videos or homework help.  Since it is updated with blog posts often students will find it easy to navigate to the most recent information.  Then students can use the comment capabilities to ask questions of each other or the instructor.  I also think a blog could be useful for sharing examples of proficient student work that students can use as a target for their own work.

Some students might also find it valuable to watch small instructional videos that tie in with the curriculum.  Some ideas of small videos that students may use in a biology class would be creating a graph, writing a hypothesis, writing a data/observation driven conclusion, and creation of flowcharts connecting some of the big ideas within each of our units.