Digital Blog Post #H- Chapter 9

The first topic in this chapter to catch my attention was about using PowerPoint and other presentation tools in the classroom to express creativity. PowerPoint is a multimedia presentation software package that is a standard feature on many of today's computers. It is commonly used among teachers who must continually present students with information. It is vital to these teachers that they know the pros and cons of using this technology in the classroom. PowerPoint revolutionizes the older technology of using transparencies on an overhead projector. The software is much more effective than a projector because of its ease of use, time saving qualities, and ability to use more multimedia, such as pictures, voice recordings, and videos. PowerPoint and similar technologies can be very useful when used productively. Growing up in the emerging digital age, I was able to witness the transition between using chalkboards, to using projectors, and then PowerPoint. Almost all of my teachers have utilized PowerPoint in their classrooms, yet only some of them have been effective. I find that more often than not, PowerPoint is used solely for delivering notes, meaning that slides usually only display bullet points of information and other methods of multimedia are not used. This can easily lead to the majority of students tuning out during a presentation. Some other disadvantages are that PowerPoints cannot take the place of in-depth discussion and analysis and that slides may contain so much information that students become distracted from the main ideas.

The second topic that really interested me was the use of video in the classroom. Videos are often used for classroom instruction because they offer ways to present information while redirecting the method of instruction from teacher to screen for part of the class time. Most teachers will use video segments lasting from around 5 to 10 minutes rather than entire programs or films. Videos are great for student learning because they spark student interest, there is a great abundance of resources, and it can offer very unique learning experiences. But none of these reasons are the reason that I love the idea of using videos for instructional reasons. I am a firm believer in Multiple Intelligences and diverse learning styles. The three learning styles we all know about are kinesthetic, auditory, and visual. Though I am not a visual learner, I know someone who is basically the poster child for visual learning. He uses video resources, such as Khan Academy, to assist him in learning difficult subject matter. It's extremely exciting for me to think that students whose learning style is different from their peers can now be more easily catered to, giving every student the same opportunity to learn.

The last topic I chose to write about ties directly into the previous one. This topic focuses on another learning style, auditory learning. Auditory learners can use a relatively new technology called Podcasts. Podcast, a term that comes from the words iPod and broadcast, is an audio recording distributed online and accessed on computers or portable media player using free software such as iTunes. There are tons of educational podcasts on the Web available for download. Teachers and students can also record their own podcasts and listen to them on their iPods or share them. Students can listen to a teacher and other students discuss important academic material as a way to review and remember what has been presented in class, teachers can listen to themselves as a way to reflect on and improve how information and discussions are presented orally in class, and students and teachers can also develop exciting learning projects together, such as assembling oral history interviews into a podcast-based report or reading the texts of books aloud to produce a collection of audiobooks. The future is bright for students of all learning styles with the help of these advanced technologies that we must utilize in our future classrooms.