Happy Thanksgiving ~ Week 13

     Teachers act as designers from the very beginning of their careers. Developing curriculum and lesson plans each week, and implementing them in the classroom each day. Creating plans which will stimulate students and reach each type of learner requires immense flexibility.

     iStopMotion enables designers as young as elementary students to create their own animated movies and time-lapse recordings. This can be used by students to complete an animation project for social studies or language arts classes.
    
     "Digital Storytelling" by Kate Kemker is a great article offering instructions on utilizing technology to create a story. The process of drawing a story board on paper, filming a video, and finally editing the piece, creates a process for every student to be involved. I would most certainly attempt to use this in an English classroom. The project influences written and artistic creativity, and encourages participation from each student with critiques and movie reviews from fellow students.

     Making math more real for students can be achieved by allowing for the use of graping calculators to build understanding between what is happening numerically, graphically, and symbolically for a mathematical relationship. Also, the visualization software called Tinkerplots for grades 4 to 8 enables students to see different patterns and clusters in statistical data. Additionally, Fathom Dynamic software for high school students which allows access to powerful tools for making sense of large data sets.
    
     I believe to learn something merely from television would simply depend on the person and the type of learner. Considering this, it is possible for someone to take instruction from someone on t.v. and be successful with a project. On the other hand, some individuals may only use television as a tool, but still require hands on experience to achieve their goal.

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful Learning with Technology (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Ch. 3 ~ Gee's Principles of Probing

     I found the three most important principles offered by Gee to be the Probing Principle where learning is a cycle of probing the world; reflecting in and on this action and, forming a hypothesis; reprobing the world to test this hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis. Next, Discovery Principle where overt telling is kept to a well-thought-out minimum, allowing ample opportunity for the learner to experiment and make discoveries. Finally, Practice Principle where learners get lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring. They spend lots of time on task.
     I am not quite sure how to implement this technology in an English classroom. I suppose any interactive game with story telling which allows for correction of grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. would enhance learning. Also, software which allows a student to create/write a story where the student decides the events of the main character(s) based on available choices and would therefore effect the final outcome of the story would stimulate as well.
     I believe the most beneficial teaching for an English Secondary classroom will come from reading of literature, writing, and student-teacher relationship. In my opinion, other than a grammar game, etc., I would have a hard time spending too much time on game technology.
    
 

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful Learning
       with Technology (3rd ed., pp. 54-55). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice
       Hall.