Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Transforming Learning with Unique, Powerful, Technology.

 

How do students use technology for learning visually?

Visual literacy is important because it allows students to get a better understanding of what they are trying to learn. With technology, students can explore every angle of an idea, and become exposed to many different vantage points which can help them better understand a subject. Our textbook provides a great example of this, through a website created by the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, which provides an interactive visual experience of a Pre-Revolutionary War. With this website students can become involved in the situation and watch it in “real time” thus allowing them to understand the events that occurred rather than having to imagine what it was like. For example, when you read a story you take what the author has provided you with and create your vision of the characters, scenery, and events. Even though the same story is being read, the vision changes with every person that reads the story. If that book is made into a movie the characters, scenery and events come to life and they are not always exactly what you may have envisioned in your mind. This is similar to when a teacher tries to teach a class about a certain subject, the teacher can try and describe what a particular event was like but the students will get a better understanding of the event if the teacher can provide a visual aid along with their lesson.  

I chose to explore “The E-Skeleton Project”, http://www.eskeletons.org/index.html which allows the user to examine the skeletal anatomy of both human and non human primates. I found this website to be very useful and quite interesting. This website would be ideal for students studying anatomy and medicine. The website breaks down every bone of whichever skeleton you are viewing and provides multiple views of each bone, along with a size description and a color coded breakdown of each area of the bone. I strongly believe that tools such as this would benefit students in understanding the anatomy of humans and animals, and may even help students begin to learn about anatomy at a much younger age because everything is broken down in a simple and easy to understand way. I do believe that the website should offer some descriptions about the bones rather than just the names.

This chapter provided a lot of interesting ideas about using technology in the classroom. Much like the parent at the beginning of the chapter, I have been very reluctant and somewhat against allowing my son to use technology on a daily basis, but this chapter has shown that interactive learning can be very beneficial to a student’s academic progress. I believe that as a teacher I would like to practice a student centered approach and allow students to use technology as a hands on learning experience. There were two major points brought up in this chapter that I found very interesting; the first was information literacy and internet literacy. Often we overlook the fact that the internet is a tool that can be accessed and also modified by anyone, and not all of the information found on the internet is trustworthy. This chapter made me realize the importance of teaching students to learn how to find what information is accurate and what information can be misleading so that technology does not have a negative effect on their academic progress. The other interesting topic brought up in this chapter was feedback using technology. Students that are in the learning process are motivated by instant gratification, and realistically it is difficult for one teacher to provide instant feedback for a classroom of 25-30 students. With technology students can take participate in a variety of different programs that allow students to learn and “play” while receiving instant results. When I was in school I was part of a reading program that would give me a test on the books I would read, at the end of the test I would receive points based on how many books I had read and how many questions I answered correctly, at the end of each grading period the students could turn in their points for prizes. This program motivated me to read more books because I wanted to earn more points. The instant gratification of receiving my points immediately after taking a test was very motivational and allowed me to improve my reading skills. Now that technology has evolved, students can use programs that allow them to explore and understand different subjects while also helping teachers understand what students need more help on. I believe that this chapter is accurately described by Seymour Papert’s quote: “As technology propels active engagement and creative thinking, it creates continuous opportunities for teachers to make children’s thinking integral to the learning process.”