Hypermedia Quiz

Creating a hypermedia quiz will help students develop several life and career skills. The quiz provides them with clear goals. By telling the students weather the answers are correct or incorrect, it gives them feedback and lets then know where they need improvement.

Bookmarks

Using bookmarks allows students to develop several information and media literacy skills. Bookmark enable students to quickly access important sites. This will improve organization and efficiency. Having the sites readily available will make it easier to compare sites with different information, enabling the students to better check a site's credibility. Bookmarks allow students to manage information from a number of sources. Without them trying to keep track of resources could become tedious.

WebQuest on WebQuests

In groups, we examined a Webquest which asked up to analyze other WebQuests. We each took on a role (Efficiency Expert, Affiliator, Altitudinist, or Technofile) and judge the WebQuests based on what our roles were looking for. Our group selected Grow School Greens. The WebQuest meets NETS standard 1 by having the students construct knowledge. It presents them with a task and asks them to gather important information and use that knowledge to make a decision.

WebQuest Assignment

For the WebQuest assignment, we each found a WebQuest in the field we will be teaching which was not well constructed and could be improved. We then constructed our own WebQuests using the old ones as a model.

I chose a WebQuest about gravity. In this WebQuest gravity will be treated as an enemy which must be overcome. I order to defeat this adversary the students must gain an understanding of the gravitational force.

Original Gravity WebQuest

This activity will not only meet several CSOs, it will provide students with resources to investigate ideas on their own. The Wequest specifically meets seventh grade natural science CSO SC.O.7.2.25 which states that students will learn to explain the effect of gravity on falling objects.

Wordle and Media Literacy

Earlier this semester we participated in a group activity, in which we constructed a Wordle. We each thought of words that come to mind when we thought about "Web 2.0". We came up with related words such as connection, technology, collaboration, innovation. A Wordle is a good tool which could be very valuable in the classroom. Wordles collect information and then display the data in a visually appealing way. They can he used to show related ideas or group opinions. Wordles and other types of "word clouds" can help students better interpret information.

Deconstructing Arnold

In class, the professor showed us two magazine covers, both with pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two pictures were both taken in the same year, but appeared very different. One image showed Schwarzenegger as the tough-guy and the captions were about the new Terminator movie. The other image showed him clean-cut and in a suit and was about his bid for California governor. The two covers conveyed very different ideas. The class discussed what effects were used to create this different contexts: clothing, lighting, colors, camera angle. This activity could teach students a good deal about modern media. By examining these images students will learn to critically evaluate information and determine the mediums purpose and potential biases.

Are SmartBoards worth it?

SmartBoard Research

This site provides evidence that SmartBoards can influence student learning. It must be taken into account that the research was done by the company that produces the SmartBoards, and therefore may be biases. The site does make several interesting points regarding the advantages of SmartBoards in the classroom. I personally believe that Smartboards can make a difference and are well worth the expense as long as several criteria are met. Obviously the teacher who will be using the board must understand how to operate it. The school should also be certain that the SmartBoard will be utilized, so that the investment is not wasted.