Demi Fox, Julia Goss, Liza Hoos and I are proud to announce that our Lesson Plan called “A Sea of Sound” has been published in the new ALA Editions e-book, “Tablet Computers in School Libraries and Classrooms.” According to an American Library Association press release, the book “speaks directly to librarians and educators working with…
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On, April 17th, 164 Morehead City Middle School 6th grade students and their teachers and chaperones descended on the Duke Marine Lab for a day of learning about Sound in the Sea. The motivation behind Sound in the Sea Day was to give students outside the classroom experiences that connect to inside the classroom concepts,…
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On March 6, 2014, I was extremely honored to be called one of “3 Women Changing the World through Technology” by Skype in association with International Women’s Day. Tim Lucas wrote in a news release for Duke University Nicholas School News , “Marine Lab PhD student Heather Heenehan has been honored as one of three…
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Duke recently announced the next set of online courses that it will offer to the world through the Coursera system, and I’m excited and honored to be one of the next faculty to offer a course through this mechanism. In the spring the of 2014, I will be teaching Marine Megafauna: An introduction to marine…
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I am always amazed at how dedicated and thoughtful my students are. This year in my Marine Conservation Service Learning class (Co-taught with Tom Schultz, the Director of our Marine Conservation Molecular Facility), we tasked our students with developing a digital textbook for the middle-school kids they were teaching about both local and global marine…
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About a month ago I got an email from my sister Kaitlin about a call for lesson plan and chapter proposals for an ALA Editions book called Tablet Computers in School Libraries and Classrooms. She is studying Higher Education Administration at Virginia Tech and one of the editors of the book, Heather Moorefield-Lang, a librarian…
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We recently released a novel website focused on the evolution of science and management of spinner dolphins in Hawaii – the Norris to Now Timeline. The website takes the form of an interactive chronicle of some (clearly not all!) of the scientific, managerial and cultural events that have shaped our understanding of spinner dolphins in…
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[photo size=’small’ align=’right’]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/07/cachaloticon.jpg[/photo]There is a great news story on Nature.com today, in their Careers section, that helps describe the evolving landscape of digital textbooks. Nature is in the game big-time, after having released their Principles of Biology textbook, an online and interactive offering that is accessed via a subscription. The author of the article, Roberta…
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[photo size=’small’ align=’right’ link=’http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/04/DEimage_preview.jpg’ icon=’zoom’ lightbox=’image’ ]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/04/DEimage_preview.jpg[/photo]The Spring 2012 issue of Duke Environment Magazine is out, and there are two articles that cover work done in the Johnston Lab. The first is the lead story in the research section portion of the magazine (called the Log), and is a recap of the work we published…
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Here’s an update on the Scientists with Stories Project, (SwS) -a collaboration to create intensive training workshops and professional exhibition opportunities for PhD students affiliated with the Duke University Marine Laboratory (DUML) and the UNCʼs Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS). Applications are now available for the SwS digital media workshop and for small grants for media projects available…
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[photo size=’medium’ title=’This is Ben!’ align=”right” icon=”zoom” link=’http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/04/benSoltoff.jpg’]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/04/benSoltoff.jpg[/photo] My marine megafauna class is again coming to a close. This class is a joy to teach, as we introduce students to many aspects of marine science and conservation through compelling examples of big ocean creatures. Part of the joy of this class comes from the field…
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Traveling often means that you miss out on things at home. I really miss my wife and kids while out on research trips, and besides missing my family while on this last set of travels I also missed out on an opportunity to meet with the Duke Board of Trustees to brief them on Cachalot.…
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[photo size=’small’ align=’right’]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2011/10/cachalotfeature.png[/photo]I’m just back from the Science Online 2012 conference held at NC State during last Thursday through Saturday and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m worn out. The pace of the conference surpasses any concept of frenetic behavior, and I was amazed at how most of the seasoned ‘Scio’ people could…
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Are you interested in using the internet to communicate about your science, or science in general? If so, you should be thinking about getting involved with Science Online conference. While registration is closed now, there is an open wait list. This will be my first Science Online conference, but I’ve spoken with several people about…
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There is much to be said about initiative, and the Scientists with Stories Project (SwS) is an excellent example of the best kind of initiative in academia – a bottom-up process driven entirely by students, for students. The Scientists with Stories project is the creation of an enterprising group of graduate students at Duke and…
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This morning I did an interview with Brittany Edney from Time Warner Cable’s News 14 – a 24 hour cable news channel that services all of North Carolina. Brittany was really interested in the motivation behind developing the Cachalot digital textbook app and how we managed to deliver it at it’s extremely compelling price-point (free!).…
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It was a rainy day in Beaufort today, and what better way to pass the time than doing an interview on our Cachalot app for the local CBS station – Channel 9 WNCT, Eyewitness News. I got to spend an hour or so with Sasha Horne, one of their traveling news reporters, and give her…
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This weekend was homecoming at Duke, and the place was crawling with alums, young and old. Some were back for football, others to see old friends, and a special group of alumni were back to catch up on what is new and exciting at Duke – so that they can spread details back within their…
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Spring break at Duke is pretty much over, and it has been a busy time. Without classes to teach and with most of our research group at the Bio-logging conference in Hobart, Tasmania, it has been a great time to get some writing done. This week we polished off two papers on sea ice and…
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For the past year or so we have been slowly redeveloping the content of our Marine Megafauna course for mobile devices. More and more, we see students using their phones and tablets to access information in and out of class, and my colleagues and I at DUML are working towards the creation of a application…
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