Edheads

Edheads


Edheads provides different applications with mini quizzes and lightly interactive steps for a student. This is potentially no different than many other websites and applications found on a computer. However, each application does include a teacher resource. A good teacher would need to look over a potential application and the resource first and, most likely, tweak the activity. Here is a screenshot of a cell phone activity along with a link and short snippet of the Cell Phone Design Activity.

[[image:creativitytools2convenient/CellPhone0.png width="486" height="355"]]
The Teacher's Guide has questions for students like the example below:

"Did you have to make choices or trade-offs to design a phone that fit the price and battery life parameters? Could you make all the best choices you wanted to make and fit them into these parameters?


 * Answer**: No. For every engineering design decision, there is some sort of trade-off. You can have a much bigger, brighter screen, but this reduces the battery life and increases the size and weight of the phone. Senior citizens may not care that..."

I am also including a screenshot of a design page of the cell phone activity.

This particular Edheads activity has students looking at research, seeing what six different people in an interview sample said and testing their design in a focus group. The inquiry piece was somewhat limited. However, I could see a teacher using a worksheet, groups or an actual Web 2.0 site to accompany and extend the task. The site does try to get to the aesthetic of design and get students to think about how you need to design for a group different than yourself. Any sort of communication and expression is missing with the original assignment. I could see a teacher having students design a phone in groups after doing the Edheads activity.

Strengths:

The activities are well thought out and do their best to keep students involved. Animations and actual pictures are used in the surgery application. Pictures and animations of simple tools are used to illustrate how other objects include the tool. Information is not changed for the sake of a game and it looks like Edheads has partnered with highly reputable institutions, such as Ohio State, in developing the applications.

Weaknesses:

Simply put, this is **not a Web 2.0 site.** Well it can be used by a thoughtful teacher, it is not a substitution for thoughtful instruction.

How can this tool be used in the classroom? Start by having a science classroom. Inquiry: There is a very modest amount of inquiry with some of the activities. Within the TPACK framework, these lessons might be in the middle of an inquiry unit helping students make connections with inquiry thinking that they have already done in the classroom.

Construction: There is a very modest amount on construction with some of the activities. For example, students "construct" a cell phone from a limited number of options. Other activities are strictly linear in nature. However, students could be asked to create simple machines or a compound machine after working through the simple machine lesson.

Communication: All communication would have to be done outside of Edheads. Students could write or blog about their experience or do a group activity. However, Edheads has no support or though about communication.

Expression: Again, student expression would need to be a separate piece added onto a Edheads lesson.

===With caveats. This resource is mostly aimed science, although it hits many age ranges. The site has good material and background information but would take teacher intervention for the site to be considered "creative." As always, the instructor needs to thoughtfully consider pedagogy and content when deciding if and how the website will be used.===

One of the links on Cool Tools for Schools was Edheads. The description discussed activities ranging from surgery to studying simple machines. I have always been a sucker for simple machines, who doesn't love a lever or an inclined plane, so I decided to check it out. While looking at Edheads and thinking about Scratch, Eyeballing, Blender, and Golems I have come to the conclusion that Edheads has a very lax definition of Web 2.0. While Scratch, Blender and Golems all look like interesting tools that students can use to create on a computer. However, all of the programs need to be downloaded and installed on a local computer. Hence, they do not exactly qualify for Web 1.0 let alone Web 2.0. Eyeballing is an application that runs on the internet; however, only comparing your score to other people can be considered collaborative at all. More importantly, Eyeballing lacks content, does nothing to help creativity and I strongly believe any more than 10 minutes of use would be misguided in any classroom (**Eyeballing - Two Thumbs Down**). To finish making a short story long, **Edheads is NOT a Web 2.0 site.** I believe it can be useful with a thoughtful teacher; however, it is certainly not a cloud website and lacks any pretense of collaboration.