Cultural Differences Explored

This is a sample of how students could begin topic discussion points.  Within the blog, they could ask questions and wait for their pen pal (e-pal) to comment back on those specific topics.  In addition to just the written word, photos and video clips can be added within the blog.   Due to all these things, a blog space is one of the best options for the communication, not to mention there is no need to worry about the time zone issue because students could respond anytime of the day.

So, what kind of transportation to the British use on a daily basis?   

Is it true that the British have "tea time"?

Week 14

Chapter 31 Reflection "Woo-Hoo!"

Well, as I went through chapter 31, I kept asking myself (being devil's advocate) if these things would really be possible to do and still maintain educational standards, human differences, and ethical standards.  Then I got to the part about Cybernetics and Nanotechnology where Kevin Warwick had a capsule implanted in his arm that was programmed to do things for him.  This was the part in the chapter that I thought... that's pretty cool, but is this something we really want?  So, I suppose I want to strike up some thinking in others about this too.  I think that just about everything mentioned in this chapter is really cool and would love to see most of it in action.  From the advanced performance tracking (don't see much harm here) to the cognitive science and "brain mapping", there are a lot of things that I kept thinking... "this is awesome, but would this really be a good thing?"  Here's why... each person is different.  Those differences make each of us who we are, provide us with different strengths, weaknesses, strategies for getting through life, and different stories to tell.  Basically it gives everyone their own perspective of things.  So, I started thinking, if we can implant a chip into us that we can program to do certain things (maybe that we can't already do) then we may be able to do a task as well as someone that already has the "natural" ability.  Could I take their job?  Could anyone with an implanted chip then do my job?  Do we need educators to the extent we have them now?   All sorts of things began to run wild in my mind.

Okay, so now that I've already gotten too deep in the devil's advocate side of things, I really enjoyed this chapter and could see a lot of these things coming about soon.  I think a lot of this is great stuff, and obviously powerful.  If used in the right way, it could improve many people's quality of life, abilities to learn, and make for a more productive world.  Or would it?  If we don't have to put in all the time and effort like we do now, aren't we being lazy?   Hmmm... there I go again.  :)   This stuff is just all so cool to think about that is starts to spark these types of questions in an analytical mind like mine.  Maybe some of these forms of technology could help me calm my analytical nature.  

Alright, onto my favorite activity of the semester.    Well, for this I had to think pretty hard.  There were a few things I REALLY liked, so trying to pick a favorite was tough.  When it all came down to it, I think I really like the screen casting.   This activity allowed us to use our teaching abilities in a different way.  It actually got me thinking more in depth about how I would describe what I was doing, where to click, how to use the tools, and what would happen as I went through the lesson.  In addition to all this, it gave me a sense of ownership to the lesson since it was my voice, my cursor moving on the screen, and it was posted to the web with my name attached.  In the past I have down some basic video editing, and this seemed very similar in technique to a lot of the video editing I have done, so that made it interesting as well.  Finally, it was my favorite because it produced a tool that I felt I could best use in my own classroom.  There are a lot of cool things we covered, and definitely a lot of useful tools for education, but screen casting seemed to fit best with what I do.  So, for all the above reasons, this was my favorite.  

It's been a great semester!  Thanks to everyone in the class and Dr. Horvitz for making this a successful semester even through times of technological difficulty and headaches.  :)  It's been fun!

Chapter 30 (Week 12) Reflection

I’d like to begin with a statement that was made and I found really intriguing as well as thought provoking.  On page 312 it says, “Rich media will only benefit learners to the extent that its capabilities are harnessed in ways that support human cognitive learning processes.”   This really got me thinking on how to improve the rich media forms that I use to better meet the cognitive abilities of my students, and here’s what I came up with:

First, the PowerPoint presentations that I use need to be cleaned up.  I can see some areas that need improvement, including removing some of the “seductive details”.  There are some slides and components that have some decorative, unrelated, pictures and items that make the slides look nice, but probably take away from the lesson being taught.  There is one slide in particular that I can think of that has a girl that blinks, and the kids are so caught up with her blinking action on screen that they may be missing the real reason for the slide (about why we set goals).  This is just one that comes to mind, but I am sure there are many more. 

Second, I think that I need to switch to some other forms of rich media to provide some variety, and because things like a screen casting would be more beneficial than a PowerPoint.   In particular, I believe that showing a screen casting to introduce a computer aided drafting (CAD) lesson would be much more effective as far as showing what the tools do than the PowerPoint that describes the tool functions with words.  A screen casting, or other method, would allow for a visual of the components coming together, what the tool actually does to each component, and would also allow for audio to be coinciding with the introduction as it happened.

Third, simply adding some new diagrams with text boxes would benefit some of the presentation tools that I currently use.  There are a couple in particular (dealing with the Space Shuttle) that I think could have a better diagram with some parts labeled that would help the students understand how the whole system comes together and works. 

Lastly, I liked the section about employing design principles for inexperienced learners and how the integration of text, diagrams, and audio really help fill in the missing pieces of a lesson.  Since I am teaching students about technology, and many of them have rarely (if ever) used a computer or other piece of advanced technology, I think most of them need the additional structure and visuals.  I am certain that almost all of my presentation tools could be modified and improved to fill these gaps for my students. 

(I know this was a little more than was asked for, but I found this chapter very interesting!  I hope you all did as well.)