Digital Blog Post # H - Chapter 9

Photo credit to Denise Krebs on Flickr

Expressing Creativity with Multimedia Technologies

This chapter will talk about sharing information through the use of digital technologies. Teachers in the past have always had at least one project that has a student present to the classroom. In these lesson plans students go to the front of the class and speak about the topic that they have researched. This is a necessary step in building up confidence and speaking skills for students but what if there was a way to make the audience bigger, much bigger. By using multimedia technology a student can share their work with the world and not just through one way. There are Podcasts, PowerPoint's and even things that are generally overlooked as entertainment like YouTube. Learning should not be restricted to just what a teacher creates either, for so long teachers have had their thumb on how their students should learn but the world is diverse just like a classroom. Students should be aloud to also create because their imaginations are most likely greater than their own teachers and not only does it allow students more freedom with learning but it also grants them the feeling of confidence. Building something from nothing is satisfying especially when not only the classroom will see the effort and work put into the project.

Topics of interest in this chapter:

1. Next-Generation Web 2.0 Presentation Tools
2. Video in the Classroom

1.) Some very useful websites to incorporate into lesson plans:

1. Prezi - a website that allows users to create their very own presentations that allow many different modifications like zooming in and out of slides and creating personalized paths for views to take.
2. Animoto - allows the ability to create videos using pictures and sound clips. 
3. Glogster - a multimedia technology that allows the creation of blogs that can be customized in-depth. 

With good instruction these three websites can be used to move learning to a higher level much faster. Educator must be equipped with the right tools for their job just like any other profession.

2.) Using video in classrooms opens up a new way of learning because it is multimodal keeping the level of interest high for students of all ages. What's interesting about integrating video into classrooms especially in the 21 century is that children feel at home with technology and will be more open to using it for learning. The majority of the iGeneration spends much of their time on a computer rather than in front of a TV so it would make sense for teachers to follow suit.

Our sight is our most important sense, people depend highly on its ability to understand the world. To explain something without seeing it can be a timely task but through the use of technology students that suffer in school because their lack of visual aides have a better chance. Although, this does assist visual learners, they are not the only students that will benefit from video lessons.



Reference:

Maloy, R. (2011). Expressing Creativity with Multimedia Technologies. In Transforming learning with new technologies. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.