Saturday, April 24, 2010

Wizard of Apps?




Wizard of Apps.

My first impression was; boy, was this a long video. I appreciate the desire to make this information entertaining but quite frankly, the material Dr. Valenza was wanting people to see was so blurry, I couldn't see it. I can understand the need to understand the tools available but I think it would have been more effective had I been able to see what she was actually trying to show. I am sure that it was more visible on a big screen, but I just couldn't see what she was doing. I also do own an iphone or a mac computer, so some of it I found a bit bewildering.
Overall this is a worthwhile effort that might be best viewed in short segments rather than as a continual piece.
This piece discusses using different websites to track a digital footprint, one of the sites is 12people, another site discussed is pipl, also discussed was using mind map on Wikipedia. All of these tools can be helpful considering that children are often in many different places on the web without realizing they are leaving footprints. This particular video would, I believe, be more effective if it were broken up into segments that can be viewed separately to allow students the opportunity to master each tool before moving on. Introducing this many tools at once can be quite off putting for students. Allowing students to master then move on rather than overwhelming is a recognized best practice in curriculum. While there are incidences that students are prepared for the introduction of many new tools, there are also students who would prefer to take it slower. Each student has their preference and it is up to the educator to develop a plan for each student to use their preferred learning style. As educators it is up to us to teach how the student learns, not for the student to learn how the instructor teaches.

1 comment:

  1. Did you watch the entire video? You can click the full screen button to make the screen larger if you are having trouble seeing it. There is audio as well as and the video, the names of numerous websites for student reserach were mentioned specifically, and there are links to these provided on the post as well.

    You need to follow the video reflection rubric. Highlight some specific tools and techniques which were mentioned and discuss their potential applicability to your classroom and teaching.

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