Fakebook!
Check it out! http://www.classtools.net/FB/home-page
Fakebook is a site that is customized to look like Facebook. The idea is to engage students into creating a Facebook profile for a fictional/historical character and therefore has great usage in history or English classes. As a project, a student can create a profile and fill it with the appropriate information about a character. The site allows a student to be able to customize the about me, friends list, profile picture, and wall posts. Imagine Harry Potter using Facebook with multiple posts from Ron and Hermione while being harassed by Draco.
Although, it was designed specifically for characters or intelligent beings (fiction or nonfiction), it is possible to use it for inanimate objects as well. This leads us into the ability to use it for Science and Mathematics. Take a look at the humorous Fakebook I created with a few others.
http://www.classtools.net/FB/1007-MEimAF
We made a page for the element Strontium. We had it's birthday set after the Big Bang, it's family (Alkali earth metals) and that it struggles with multiple personality disorder for its different isotopes. We also made some chemistry/romance jokes on the wall. My favorite: Flame posted "You and me have wonderful chemistry. You make me Red Hot!" Get it? Because when burned Strontium emits heavily in the red spectrum.
Although it has its uses, I don't believe I would use it for anything else but an element project but I am unsure if knowing one element in depth is all that useful. Maybe my vision of its use is too limited. In class, the presenters tried to pitch that it was usable for a debate. Debating using scientific evidence is something I would use rather often in my class but never would I use Fakebook as the medium for a debate. It happens to be only editable by one person at a time which makes it tough to debate online. And in class it works too slow when you must create a new post for every new person who talks. It is just not plausible.
Overall, I do not believe I would use Fakebook in my classroom given my limited knowledge and view of its uses. If someone can pitch me an idea that would prove truly useful, my ears are open.
Vi I love your Fakebook! I also wrote my blog post about TTIU about Fakebook. It is really easy for me to think of ways to use it in foreign language but my limited knowledge of science makes it harder for me to relate it to chemistry. Maybe, however, students could make a Fakebook for the Table of Elements as a whole. That way it could talk about the different relations between the different columns and rows and say like how their personalities are different (gas vs solids vs idk what). Does that make sense? Maybe not. I'm a little rusty on the chem! If you could figure out how to do that, it would be really interesting! Also maybe on the history of chemistry and talking about the important contributors so to actually use it as a persons account? Like on marie curie or someone else for example? On another note, my favorite assignment I ever did for Chemistry was at U of M for honors chem. I've sent you a link to it and I think if you did some type of music video assignment, students would really get into it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRnT-DnNCh0
PS - in case you're wondering - we won the competition and it played in the UGLI and Union and League for 2 weeks straight.
That is a great idea Leah! It would probably we worth while to have them produce a Fakebook for a group of elements rather than a single element. I am talking about bonding soon so it could be interesting to see what kind of relationships they pull from different periodic table trends as well as the likely bonding that will occur between elements.
DeleteI was entranced by your video! Of course it won the competition. It had you as the star performer! (I think you carried the presentation there. Of course, someone had to edit too. That had to be tough.) I might actually use this in my classroom on Tuesday. We just talked about filling electrons and will link it with periodic trends so your video will fit right in! What do you think?
Vi I like your idea of trying to incorporate Fakebook into your science classroom. I am not super creative so I have had a hard time coming up with ways to incorporate it into bio or anat. Any ideas? I laughed at your Fakebook you set up, very clever! I think Leah has a good idea when she mentions dividing the Periodic Table up and having students pretend to be different sections. Have you thought of any other ways to incorporate Fakebook into your curriculum? Did you end up doing this with your students? How did it go?
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time coming up with uses. For anatomy, it may be useful to make characters out of a system or organs and mention how it relates and supports to other organs and systems. In the same way the periodic table was split up into sections, you can separate the body. As a funny example, I imagine an online battle of "Who is the Boss" between the heart and brain. I have not thought about any other ways to incorporate Fakebook into the curriculum. I stick by my original statement that I think I will only use it as a one time project. I have not yet used it with my students. We have already moved past the elements and are working on compounds. That could be another use but I am unsure if Fakebook fits with our objectives in that case.
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