Blog Assignment #8

This Is How We Dream by Richard Miller

This video series was very inspiring on how to use technology to get your thoughts out to other people. In Part 1, I consider his "incremental" changes to be very simplistic. It gave you very easy ideas on how to form videos and documents that you can share. Part 2 goes over very in-depth ideas that will be seen in the future. I had never heard of or seen anything like what he was showing.

Although the ideas in Part 1 were very simple, I did not find them any less important than those in Part 2. I feel that students, particularly younger students, would be more capable of learning from the ideas in Part 1. It gave great ideas on how to compile information and organize it so that it is neat and to the point.  In the beginning of the video Mr. Miller talks about how writing use to be a very solitary activity.  I feel that these ideas can make it fun for students to compile their thoughts on what they know or think about a topic. I believe that this is the same idea as writing an essay, it is just done in a more interactive method.

The ideas expressed in Part 2 were a bit more complex but generally had the same points.  Part 2 talked a little bit more about how to actually get your thoughts heard on the Internet, and essentially all across the world.  He mentioned that if you are going to take the time to compile your thoughts then you should also take the effort to make it presentable with facts and pictures. People will be more likely to want to read it if you at least look like you know what you're talking about.

So in conclusion, I find that students could, in fact, be capable of  writing with multi-media. However, like any discipline I think that somethings will need to be taken on step-by-step basis. Especially since much of this technology is so new, children will need to have time to grow and learn with it.



Chipper Series and EDM 310 For Dummies

I thought that the both of these movies were not only very entertaining but also, very purpose driven. They both demonstrated ways to be successful in EDM 310. The Chipper Series demonstrated the importance of not procrastinating while EDM 310 for Dummies showed why it is best to ask questions when your confused. My idea for an additional video would involve something that shows the basic importance of this class and how it can affect a students academic and professional future. This could be very basic, as in, an interview of multiple students are even as complex as doing a commercial similar to EDM 310 for Dummies. The commercial could then be an advertisement on why people should take this class in order to learn about new technologies.



Critiques of Smartboards

Michael Staton, Why Smartboards are a Dumb Initiative
In this blog, Mr. Staton makes a couple of valid points that I can agree with. His main point is that it doesn't change the way that children are learning. It is essentially the same thing that they are doing now, just with more expensive tools. The children will begin to want to participate in class, but only  to be able to "play" with the board. He validates this point by stating that with the purchase of 30 Smartboards, test scores went up on 1%.

Bill Ferriter, Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards
Mr. Ferriter is also making the same arguement, Smartborads are a waste of money. In the mainpoint, he states that while they are a neat tool, they are practically useless. For the most part, they didn't make teaching the cirriculum any better or make it any easier for the children to learn it. My own conclusions about Smartboards are that since they are not accomplishing anything more than what students are already doing, why waste the money? Some may say that they get children more involved with the learning process, but children were already involved; just in different ways.

Sylvia Tolisano, Math Lessons? Empower Learners?
http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/04/19/math-lesson-empower-learners/
In this blog, Sylvia Tolisano is giving an example of how a Smartboard was used in her classroom in conjunction with a math lesson.  She split the class into groups and had each group look through Smartboard lessons to find a slide that they could explain. Once they found the slide, they had to narrate outloud to the rest of the class on what to do. I thought that this was interesting for a couple of reasons. One, the children are taking on a "teacher" role in that they are taking something that they learned and explaining it to the rest of the class. Two, they are able to learn from each other. As one group is figuring our their own math problem, the rest of the children are listening and learing as well. This seemed to be a successful way to use the Smartboard in the classroom setting.