Sunday, February 24, 2008

Multimedia in Education

I found my article on visionlearning.com and it is titled "Teaching Effectively with Multimedia" by Jessica E. Zimmer. The article brings up the issue that all students learn differently and respond differently to information presented. That is why teachers will normally combine lecturing, text and the hands-on approach. Now that we have the Internet there are more ways to present information. The web allows the incorporation of animation, moving pictures and sound into lessons.
Videos and CDs are always a good purchase to present lessons with but may be limited with school budgets. Another disadvantage of using these tools is since teachers are so busy with their schedules that it can be hard to review the multimedia materials and to incorporate them into lesson plans. The author says that teachers need a system that blends text, images, simulations, video, audio and other materials in a single coherent environment that would be available from school or home.
This type of technology greatly relates to teaching and learning because students are being able to learn from videos and CDs and this gives them more options of learning. Students can use this type of technology for projects and the opportunities are endless. I think multimedia in education has brought a lot more knowledge to students, with all the videos and other things out there there is so much to see. Further research would be helpful with this form of techology because it is always changing and everyday there is more added.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Digital Imagery

The article I found is titled "Increasing Visual Literacy Skills With Digital Imagery" by Dr. Lance Wilhelm and I found this article on the journal.com. The article talks about how the use of images is becoming more popular in schools and they are being adapted to teacher's lesson plans. In order for students to become more versitile in today's society they must have visual literacy skills. A good example for teachers to increase visual literacy is digital cameras. Digital cameras are becoming cheaper and easier for younger children to understand. The article brings up the point that in most colleges now, students in the college of education are reqiured to take courses that deal with technology and they deal a lot with digital camers due to their growth. With the use of digital cameras, teachers can transfer photos onto powerpoint or Word.
Teachers can also take digital photos of notes and if a student misses classes they will have the notes in a picture and teachers won't have to make copies and copies of papers. Another good way classrooms will be able to use digital imagery is when students have projects they can bring back photos of science experiements and field trips and transfer them to a poster board or however they want to display it.
Digital camera technology changes all the time and I think further research on this type of technology would be very useful.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Storyboarding

I found my article on e-articles.info and the article is called "How to storyboard your web site" by Dr. Walter Smith. Storyboarding is when planning to make a website you intergrate your objectives, target your market information, and your findings and your own ideas. A website storyboard can be seen as a blueprint or a first draft. A storyboard consists of main page or home page at the top, then central navigation bar and subsections and so on.
Storyboards can be created with a software program, sheets of paper or any other mechanism. Once the first draft is done, you should go back and review the website from the competitive analysis viewpoint. Make sure you have included all must-haves and leave an opportunity for the elements that fit into the "would-be-nice category". Remember to keep the layout simple and logical, don't move on wit the web development process until the layout of the storyboard is finalized.
I think this type of technology is a great tool for students and teachers because students can create their own websites and post their own thoughts. Students can participate with storyboarding at any age with assistance by their teacher.
After reading this article I understand all the hard work and preparation that goes into making a website.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Week 3 Discussion

I found my article at howstuffworks.com and it is entitled “How Wikis Work”. The most famous wiki is called Wikipedia; it has become so large that you will come across many times in Google. People seem to find wikis easy to use and navigate through, like e-mail and blogs, wikis also perform a very useful service in a simple way. A group of people can log on to a wiki site and are able to edit bits of text. These bits of text can be viewed and edited by anyone visiting the site. Some people think the idea of being able to “edit” information means the sites are unreliable, but wiki supporters claim this is an incorrect assumption. A wiki is nothing but a collection of web pages connected with each other through internal links. The wikis website pays someone to write the articles linked to the site. I think knowing all about wiki sites is vital because some people believe these sites aren’t accurate so teachers can decide whether or not they will allow the use of these sites. Most of my college professors urge my classes not to use these sites. I think that these sites can be accurate but you have to be careful what information you use from these sites and double check the information. I think further research is necessary with sites like these.