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.