June 25, 2009 Class
I presented one of the three digital domain reviews today. It was on the career simulation found at http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitdna/index.jsp. This is discussed further in a previous post. The other presentations included a typing game that would help grade school children learn to be faster typists and a game that helps test knowledge of the skeletal system and muscles in the body. The typing game works to encourage not just speed but also accuracy. It is designed for a grade school age group and includes cartoon animation to make the task a little more interesting. It is more and more important for people to be efficient at typing, chiefly for the purpose of being professional. I fear it is a skill that is not transferable to a non-computer trade. I think one could reasonably question whether a farmer who can type twenty words a minute, but can grow all the food his family needs for the winter, is better suited for survival than someone who can type one hundred fifty words a minute. In the society we have created typing is necessary for most people to earn money to support their families. I am not sure that it is a skill that increases very basic survival, and perhaps happiness. It becomes more important that teachers encourage typing as only a means to make material more presentable. Activities like this help the student develop the skill of typing, but in assignments the actual act of typing should have minimal importance. The muscle and skeletal system game seemed interesting. The ability to name certain structures is very much about memorization. This is a task that many students dread. It can be very boring and simply requires committing time to a task that may never be used again. I think these games would be helpful to students’ memorization. The timing aspect encourages students to better themselves, instead of comparing themselves to others. The games also tell the students what the correct answer is to incorrect responses. This helps students to adjust their misconceptions without having to look up answers in the book. It is an instant correction for students to use which makes students more apt to learn from their mistakes instead of ignoring them and using trial and error to make corrections. I think both of these sites would be very valuable in health and physical education classes for memorizing certain material. Such sites might be useful for certain studies in biology. In a high school class a similar site could be used to memorize organs and other structures before dissections.
The second half of the class enabled us to review positive and negative aspects of websites. My partner and I decided that well designed websites are easy to follow. They have material well organized so that navigating through the site is easy. Sites must be updated regularly; otherwise there is little sense in visiting the site regularly. Pictures should be used if they support the theme of the webpage and should not take a long time to load. With all of the criteria we specified, there were no perfect teacher websites that we were able to find. Interestingly, we did find one school, Peru Central, which had a weather center page. This page had barometric pressure, temperature, wind direction, dew point, and many other weather components. This is an interesting addition to a website and could be well used by an earth science class. Such use exemplifies the role of technology in education. Technology should support student learning and enhance the opportunities for all learners to manipulate and integrate information. I think this page would do this well for some students. There was also a faculty webpage found at Northeastern Clinton Central School that had lesson plans for each class for each week. This would be useful for students who might want to know what is planned for a future week or it would benefit a student who missed a day of class to catch up on work while at home. The page also had any handouts or transparencies used for that day which would allow students to print extra copies for themselves if they misplaced theirs.
Also in class we experimented with altering media. We looked at the websites www.archive.org and www.creativecommons.org. Both of these sites allow people to download text, pictures, sound, and video. One can then alter it to create original works. We were encouraged to alter different media using a paint or image program or using the Audacity program, which allows users to alter video and sound clips. These programs show how easy it is to manipulate digital information. Similar to typing, altering media to create new works will probably not address many standards in most curriculums. Instead these might be used for unique ways of showcasing one’s knowledge. Therefore teachers must be sure that the majority of credit is given for the content not the novelty of the work. We must also be careful that the time students put into creating media presentations is proportional to what is expected for students to learn. Students should not spend hours composing a showcase for their knowledge and less than an hour learning what needed to be included.
