The first thing I found interesting was from chapter nine. It is called media synergy. Media synergy is video, digital, and print materials combined with face-to-face instruction to build powerful learning environments for students. Multimedia is a vital part to media synergy, but they are not the same thing. With multimedia, it is presenting a lecture with words and pictures. Some examples of media synergy are YouTube videos, power points, and other related things. This caught my attention because I had never heard this term before. I think media synergy is definitely something I will use as a future teacher to help further my students knowledge on whatever topic I am teaching, even though I plan to teach kindergarten! There are still a plethora of websites and tools and media synergy to be used even when teaching younger students! I made a ToonDoo of something I would love to do with my kindergartners when I become a teacher. (As long as there is a supervisor in the classroom of course!)
The second thing I found interesting from chapter nine is called next-generation web 2.0 presentation tools. These tools use multimedia to expand the ways that information is shared in classrooms. some examples of these tools are Prezi, Animoto, and Glogster. I have heard of Prezi before, but I have never heard of Animoto or Glogster. Animoto enables teachers to use video clips, pictures, sound, and text to broaden how students can learn. Glogster allows teachers and students to create digital posters called glogs that use photos, sound, and text with graphics. They can be shared on a website, blog, or can be shared through email. I think these tools will especially be useful in middle school and high school because students these days are so accustomed to having technology at their fingertips that these tools would be perfect for them. I think that students will be able to share more information and learn with each other without even being in the classroom. This
article has an informational video along with an article on why Prezi is helpful and very useful for learning and in general.
The last thing I found interesting was in chapter eleven. It is called a digital teaching portfolio. This caught my attention because I know that we get to make one for this class! What it is is a collection of educational and professional materials stored in an electronic format. It is the same as an artists portfolio, engineer, etc. Only you are collecting things that have to do with your educational materials. I personally think this is really awesome because after so many years of teaching it will be fun to look back and see how far you have come as a teacher and you can add new things to it so you can show how your teaching style has or has not changed. Here is a
link to a video on how student teachers can construct their own digital portfolio.
Resources:
Maloy,
Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly
Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies.
2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Pinder,
S (2016, March 30). Teaching with Technology. Created with ToonDoo http://toondoo.com/createToon.do
Top 5 reasons to Prezi. (2012). Retrieved March
30, 2016, from
https://blogs.library.ucsf.edu/betterpresenter/2012/12/14/top-5-reasons-to-prezi/
T. (2013). Teaching Portfolio Video Tutorial (for student teachers at
USU - TEAL). Retrieved March 30, 2016, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbbEMtGKabE
