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.