Everything discussed in this chapter seemed to make a lot of sense to me and made me think a lot about how I instruct and provide information currently and how I need to in the future to better support learning for all of my students.
When the chapter discussed insignificant visuals and audio that did not support learning, I immediately thought of how I have seen Glogster used. Glogster is a web-based electronic poster that allows the user to include video, graphics, pictures, sound, and simple animations. To me it is the rich media of rich media! With all of the easy to use features and options, it is very tempting to overload it with “cute” pieces. I have seen others, as well as myself, in the past use background music and fluttering butterflies and swirling flowers on a glog thinking it would “engage” the user and attract their attention to the purpose of our glog. Now I realize that these items, while they may attract attention and ooh and aah the viewer, they do nothing to support learning and actually hinder learning.
On a more positive note, however, Glogster does have the potential to facilitate learning if used carefully. A Glog that features a collection of related sources for students to use is a good way to organize and direct learning for students. This would go along with the idea of providing scaffolding for the learner instead of just turning them lose to “discover” on their own. Videos can be embedded directly into the glog along with screenshots with narration and/or links that direct the student to locate other significant pieces of knowledge required to complete the learning process. This gives them a the guidance needed to discover in a constructive way.
Another thing that this chapter made me think of is the way I use “study guides” to instruct my students in math. I provide text, step-by-step instructions on how to work certain types of problems, and examples of problems each step of the way. I provide a lot of visual input for the learner, but these guides lack the narration. They hear me in class, but that is a one-time event. If the student was absent, the narration is completely lacking.
If I were to use the same guides except make PowerPoints instead and use jing to add my own narration explaining as I go, this would be a much more powerful teaching tool. The slideshow can be embedded into a class website so that learners can go back to it time and time again.
A third idea that this chapter has given me goes along with previous thoughts regarding my study guides. I could take these a step further and build in some interactive parts to the guide. Students could be given a new problem at some point in the slideshow to work on their own. Once they complete the problem, they could continue on with the presentation and compare their thinking to the execution of the problem in the slideshow. This gives the visual and audio components and then provides a scaffold for learners in a sort of interactive way. This takes away some of the passiveness and causes the student to be more active in the learning process.
ONLINE APPLICATON REVIEWS
GOOGLE DOCS
Google docs is a GREAT online tool for a variety of reasons. First of all, it provides all of the basic word processing tools that are very similar to Microsoft Word. This makes it very user friendly and intuitive. The most powerful aspect of Google Docs is that it can be shared with others that you invite to view your document. This makes it like a one page wiki space. The creator or owner of the document can set it so that others can only view it or edit it.
I recently used Google Docs when creating a grade level budget. It was difficult to get all six of the fifth-grade teachers together at one time to work on the budget, but I got it started and shared it with the others by adding in their email addresses and sending a quick note to their gmail accounts letting them know it was in their documents section of their account to add their thoughts to it. Once our time was up and it needed to be submitted to our principal so he could share it with the superintendent, I changed the edit option to view only so that changes could not be made by any of us once it had been approved. This allowed us to chip away at the task in the little segments of time we had and together created a document that met our principal’s requirements and gave us all an equal chance to have a say in the way funds would be spent for our grade level.
PICNIK
This is another very user friendly tool. The various tools for image editing are easy to access and use with a surprising number of options within each. For example, the crop feature allows you to select a number of different final sizes or enter in your own length and width ratio. There also presets to make your image conform to various social media sites’ requirements, which makes sharing very easy. There is even an exposure feature, that with the advanced option, you are even given a histogram to assist you in perfecting the shadows and highlights of your shot. You can also get rid of red eye and change the color saturation in the edit mode. Each option allows you to save your changes, reset to the original image and begin again, or simple cancel and return you to the edit menu. Full screen viewing is also available with each edit option.
Under the Create tab, you can add text to your pics, apply various effects (some of which are only available if you purchase the premium edition), stickers, and frames. Again, some of these treatments require subscription.
In the Library portion of Picnik, you can create collages, print on mugs, make greeting cards, print posters, print on canvas, make slide shows of your pictures, or even a book.
In each tab and option, instructions are provided that make this a very easy to use and powerful image editor. It provides a lot of flexibility and allows for a ton of creativity.
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