Blog Post #H

In chapter 9, the author mentions PowerPoint presentations and that is something many millennials are very familiar with. Time and time again, instructors have used this program to portray their lessons with short bullet points and graphics or videos. This draws students in and is also effective for note taking. In a college setting, and probably high school and/or middle school, teachers will upload these PowerPoints to an accessible place where it becomes a great study tool for reviewing. I love PowerPoint, it has come a long way and there are so many templates, animations, graphics, charts, and more. It has been an essential tool for me and I always enjoy making them my own!

Youtube is another technology noted in the textbook, and I have a different opinion than most I'm sure. When I think about youtube videos in my own classes growing up, I remember my teachers using very old videos with poor sound and video quality about sciences or history-- I hated them! It seemed as though the teacher never even watched the video themselves. Other videos were voice overs to meaningless graphics, and all in all seemed to take my attention elsewhere. I loved NatGeo videos and other quality films and videos. Anyone can access youtube, and the quality isn't always there for me.

Here's a cute powtoon video from youtube!

The strategies for utilizing videos was important, though. I did find myself paying more attention when the teacher would pause the video and reflect on what we had just watched. I would pay attention better after that while I waited for the next pause-in-play. Also, having a worksheet to follow along with helped, too.

References:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Novak, Brittney. Adam Lindstrom. (2015, May 19). Educational Technology in the Classroom. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9kdIBlM424.

Digital Blog #G

Chapter 10 had a lot of useful and new information for me including different assistive technologies, and traditional helpful technological tools. A word cloud was something I had recognized from this class, but I did not know that it was used as an analysis tool. I had always assumed it was used for attention grabbing purposes. The book says that word clouds take counts of words used most frequently in a text without using words such as and, it and has. Because of this, the word cloud is able to grab main points and ideas from documents. Word clouds are great for students that prefer a visual representation. It would be neat to show a word cloud before assigning text to infer and predict what the reading will be about.

Speech recognition softwares had always seemed like a good idea to me, but the book illustrates a problem I had not considered. A typical first grader does not have the formal speaking skills that a book or document would possess. So, when a child is speaking to the software, it will pick up words like "uh" or "yeah". Editing these would take up a lot of time, and that would essentially change everything about what the student was trying to get across.

Interactive storybooks were always my favorite as a child. The narrator would have many different accents and personalities for the characters, and it would really engage me. I was able to feel like I was in the story! Also, children are almost forced to pay attention to the books because they need to click next, or click a certain object when prompted. I would encourage all students to use an interactive story book, with or without a disability.

References

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Novak, B (2016, Oct 16) Tech created with Piktochart https://magic.piktochart.com/

 What is AT? - Assistive Technology Industry Association. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2016, from https://www.atia.org/at-resources/what-is-at/ 

Blog #E

For chapter 7, I decided to skim the text first to see if something jumped out at me...and something did! Bloom's Taxonomy is something I have heard about in many different classes; from psychology to human growth and development. Bloom's Taxonomy is scale of types of thinking, it includes the following forms: Remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. This scale was designed to determine higher-order and lower-order thinking. The book uses the example of memorizing a sentence as opposed to writing a poem. This example illustrates the understanding level versus the creating level. This can be helpful for many teachers to categorize their students, are they all on the same page? Probably not! There are many challenging games for students that may be falling down the comprehensive ladder.

Link to a Voki!
(I was unable to hyperlink unless I was a paid subscriber!)

The next topic that caught my eye was the debate about games and gaming. Personally, I'm still a little skeptical about video gaming in education. They are a flashy tool and do catch a child's attention, but I feel that they miss the main idea of the learning games sometimes. In the text, it says that violent games at home desensitizes children from horrible violence. I had never thought about that before. If your child is playing a game where the idea is to blow someone up, they won't think a shooting is that catastrophic. The first violent game I played was Grand Theft Auto when I was in the stage of copying my older brother. But I was also exposed to inappropriate content from a non violent game when I learned how to play The Sims. I side with the people against video games until the child is 10 or so. I played Jumpstart and other games like it as a child and remember those being awesome. The games kids use for learning through iPads are from apps created by God knows who!

Relating to my last paragraph, the book illustrates strategies for using games with students. This was something I was just wondering! It instructs teachers to minimize the use of games that teach isolated skills such as a game that isn't actually teaching you a skill, but answering it because it helps you advance in the game. This means the child is mastering the game, not the content behind the skill. Another strategy is to scrutinize games that function solely on points won or lost. The last thing you want is a child to hate a math game because it says he "loses" if he does not answer correctly! I think these are really awesome and important points!

References:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Novak, B (2016, Oct 2) Tech created with Voki http://www.voki.com/hb7ft66