Blog Entry #6

Kathy Johnson viewed PowerPoint solely as a means of instruction. According to her, PowerPoint is used as a monotonous instructive tool that provides slide after slide of data. The only activity involved in PowerPoint consists of a click of the mouse. If PowerPoint is simply used as an instructive tool, like she has done in the past, then I agree, PowerPoint would be crippling our students. However, Kathy Johnson is crippling PowerPoint by not taking advantage of all it has to offer. On the other hand, Vicki Sharp uses PowerPoint as a constructive tool. The students are the ones creating the PowerPoint presentations instead of the teacher. In this way, PowerPoint can bring out the creative side of kids. The opportunities of PowerPoint are so grand that each student can personalize their own way of presenting the information and ultimately, individualize the way they learn the content. If the students are the creators and presenters of the PowerPoint projects, then clearly, they are highly motivated and actively involved in the learning process.

Entry #5

My senior year of high school we used the WWW in order to answer tricky earth science questions such as “Why is the sky blue?” or “Where do rainbows come from?” etc. For this project, we were using the WWW as a cognitive tool. I had a strong measure of motivation because it was intrinsic in nature; I truly wanted to learn the answers to the questions. In addition, I had taken ownership of the activity because I was using the WWW on my own to determine not only the answer to the question but also how factual my given answers would be, based on the resources I used. We had to make sure that the quality of web resources was legitimate and reliable. Lastly, one of the greatest products that resulted from this project were the higher order outcomes. I ended the project with a greater intellectual curiosity and a desire for life-long learning.

Blog Entry #4

I was really impressed by the inspiration program when we used it lased class. I think that it adds such a creative twist to presenting information to a class. I wanted to learn more about the program itself and how functional it is. For that reason, I am glad that we were assigned the article, "Beyond PowerPoint," because it was very informative and provided excellent ideas in which teachers and students could use inspiration to best teach and assess the learning of their audience. The reason I really appreciate inspiration is because it is a creative way to present information and I feel like it can easily capture the attention of the class. I could see myself using inspiration in a number of ways. First off, I think that the "gradual reveal" technique would be such an innovative way to teach the students the process of problem solving in math. I like the gradual reveal because it takes the students through the solving process one step at a time. It simplifies the process of learning instead of confuses the students by presenting all the steps at once. In addition, inspiration is a great tool for forming semantic maps to insure that students understand new mathematical vocabulary. Since inspiration is such a versatile tool, I feel like it would be a great program for students to use for class projects because they could chose how to best present the given content. Also, with that freedom, I think as a teacher, I would have a more fair way of assessing the students’ comprehension of the content because they choose their own mode of presentation. For those who like to verbally explain content, they could use the store front technique, for the visual learners, there are a number of techniques but what makes inspiration so unique is its hyperlink ability, so that students can link their projects directly into their presentation, whether it is a video, excel document, etc. Inspiration is an innovative tool that most effectively reaches a diverse group of learners.

blog enrty #3

The main purpose behind the M&M excel activity was to show how excel can be helpful in computing fast results of calculations (such as the average). Excel also helped significantly with the organization of the calculated information. The technology itself was not the means of retrieving the knowledge. The students themselves had to determine which calculation to use in order to complete the excel chart. Then, with the help of the excel tools, the student was able to make numerous calculations in a short amount of time. In addition, excel provided a new way of organizing data with all sorts of graphing techniques. Therefore, the excel activity was an excellent example of using technology as a cognitive tool rather than technology as a conveyor of knowledge. Overal, the M&M activity was aimed at engaging the learners in creation of knowledge. Thus going righ in line with Jonassen's definition of technolgy as a cognitive tool. He states that the cognitive tool, in this case, the excel program, should "reflect thier [the students] comprehension and conception of the information rather than focus on the presentation of objective knowledge. They are learner controlled, not teacher or technology driven." This activity was entirely learner contolled because the student was responsible for each step on his or her own. This activity also assisted in developing reflective thought by use of the computer. Students were able to expand their mathematical knowledge and apply it to an M&M activity.
One suggestio for improving this activity would be to let the students chose their own type of data they would like to collect. Then the activity could relate to a subject in which they are more interested. This would be helpful because it would lead to a more student/ learner focused activity.