CFAJ-1

My question was: Are scientists going to put CFAJ-1 into a new domain as they did for Archaea? I did not get an answer from the website but I did look it up. It does not look like there will be a new domain. Actually some scientists are questioning the results of the testing. There are some questions as to if this actually is a new species and if this bacteria does take arsenic up as part of its DNA structure. It sounds like the closest relative is in the family Halomonadaceae- the ‘salt-loving” bacteria. So the answer is- no genus or specie name yet!

Evaluating Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

     I have well over a hundred PowerPoint presentations that I have done for just about every section of every chapter in our current textbook. It has taken me about five years to get this many. Every year I add video clips as new ones become available on United Streaming and I modify the slides to make them more appealing. Even though I love PowerPoint, I have been getting a little bored with it. Next year we are getting a new textbook so all of my work will be obsolete. After viewing Prezi, I think I have found the new medium for my future presentations for the new textbook. Students will love how you can zoom in and out of videos and target points that you want to get across. I think that the general outlay of your presentation is so much more interesting that students will be even more engaged. It’s so different from PowerPoint. I love how easy the “zebra” is to operate. When I was first learning how to do PowerPoint, it took me so long to get a firm grasp on how to do a PowerPoint. I feel much more confident that this will be much easier especially with a tutorial that I can watch over and over. I am not sure if I am able to use this in the classroom as I have not heard of any other teacher using Prezi but I don’t see why not. As far as I can tell, Prezi is free for teachers- big bonus.

     The other medium that I explored was Viddex. I loved how you could mix a video on one half of the screen with a script on the other half of the screen. To help get certain points across to the students or to emphasize certain points, I think that this would be extremely beneficial to any type of students. Any medium that keeps the students engaged and helps them to learn more effectively has my vote. I know that they can become really distracted when watching video clips. I think that by having multiple types of ways to display media can make the learning experience more fun for me as well as the students.