week 12 and 13

This weeks reading talks specifically about how to use videos in teaching and learning. It makes the point that making videos can be a very motivating task for students and one of the best ways to encourage group work. This makes sense when we look at the class activity that we did in which we shot videos outside of the education building.

The chapter also gives some tips about how to do video editing. This has already been covered in class. It also shows ways of using concept maps while designing video projects.

Generally it is a helpful chapter when it comes to making a big video project but is not that applicable in our situation (where we will make a 2 minutes video)

The next chapter is about using technology for students with special needs. I personally know of a professor who uses assistive technology like audio books and computer magnification softwares and this helps her a lot. Now there are many disability softwares both in windows and MAC, which be know about and the chapter discusses. It also makes a point that use of a crutch can slow learners down. While I agree to this, I think that these technologies are very helpful to learners. Further funding should be dispersed to make them better.

week 11

The chapter talks about the use of digital portfolios for students. It focuses on what decisions to make in order to use the portfolio for assessing the students. Also it talks about how to share the contents of the portfolio what kind of technologies to use within the portfolio.

It seems as if it is quite an outdated article. Technology has improved quite a bit since this article was written. I have some useful suggestions. I think a good way to share the material of the portfolio with students and parents would be to use secure databases. A good way to publish the contents would be to use websites. (pretty much what webct is doing).

I do agree to the fact that using a portfolio is a very useful way to represent the students' performance. I personally have a digital portfolio

week 10

This weeks reading starts with a very helpful checklist of what to include in a movie. THis might be helpful in the final movie project. The chapter later goes on to give suggestions of how to make encourage women to go more towards technical development. Tips include including graphics. There are ten other tips, but I will comment on this one as it is very interesting. Girls are very good with colors. If you ask a guy to describe a rusty red color, he might say "it's red", however a girl will give you are very detailed response and use vocabulary which is quite different( don't know exactly what, since I am a boy!). So girls should be encouraged with good GUIs towards technical stuff.

week 9

Chapter 9 deals with powerpoint presentations. It gives various uses of powerpoint i.e general use, use in teaching languae, use in teaching math etc. I think that I have personally made good use of powerpoint in university. In my exceptional students class, I studied the slides the teacher posted and got a good grade. In my classroom practices class, I presented using powerpoint.
In class we did non linear presentations. I did not know about this before. I think I learnt a lot. By using non linear technology I can make my presentations more powerful by achieving a greater control on the slide arrangement.

week 8

This weeks reading deals with Micro worlds or simulations. This is related to visualizing with techology as covered in the book. Simulations and visualizations are a very powerful tool in teaching sciences and mathematics. Geometrical shapes can be simulated and played with using Simulation softwares. The chapter focuses on a competition that a teacher held among her students in class. Because of simulation softwares less resources needed to be used.

In class we have developed puzzles and have played with scratch. This is related to the point the chapter makes.

Week 7

Comments on the Alan Kay Article

This was a fresh breeze. I really enjoyed this article. If you look at my teaching philosophy on my website, you will see that it is a direct consequence of this type of thinking. I am happy that someone agrees with me!

According to me some of the highlights of this article were when Mr Kay mentions how the emphasis of technology has been to make it more TV like, so taht people are engrossed in entertainment and they lose touch with the beneficial side of technology. This point is very well made, and is very obvious with the advent of youtube and myspace.

As teachers we do have a responsibility -- one of directing our students towards critical thinking, so that they can chose for themselves what is good and leave what is bad. It is also very important to get enough people involved in idea based learning. This should create a sub culture of like minded people, which can affect a change. An example is a reading group focused on the great books of western civiliztion for example, and then seeking meaningful ways to use technology as a means of learning.

Overall I think this is a very well written article. It is idealistic and should be a little bit more focused on the pragmatism.

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I did the website reviews with travis hall. Please read his blog for this part.
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The course pack reading for week 7 dealt with spreadsheets. I think that the use of spread sheets is of great importance in the practical world. The reading gives practical tips about how to teach this technology. (i.e. by simulating a real world situation).I think that this is in concordance with what we are being taught in this course i.e. linking theory with reality.

week 6

The idea of the chapter in the course pack is to use power tools to facilitate learning. There has been sufficient development now so that people who are not speacialists in computers can use computers to create websites, graphics, puzzles etc to enhance their students' learning.

The puzzles that were developed in the class, were not time consuming, yet they can be very interesting for the students. Similarly, the teacher can have the studetns participate in activities and thus make them part of the process of creating information technology based learning.

One criticism of this approach could be that the teacher and the students might get caught up in the 'how' of figuring out the technology, but as time passes and technology progresses, this criticim should dwindle. Computer Aided Techology design is the answer to this problem.