questions

1)      How could blogging be used during summer to help students learn about subject matter when they are on such a long break?

2)      What are your opinions of using a blog over summer to help students become more engaged over their break?

week 7

The article titled Theories and Practices of Multimodal Education: The Instructional Dynamics of Picture Books and Primary Classrooms By Dawnene D. Hassett, and Jen Scott Curwood was an awesome article and made me think about the children’s book that I am starting to create with several 6^th grade teachers. The short story children’s are based on a super hero named Fruit dude and his girlfriend veggie girl. Fruit Dude lives a normal everyday life as a teacher, but then at night becomes fruit Dude and defends children against harmful candy bars. The milkshake assignment was the section that made me think of the connection between the short stories and the importance of students being exposed to picture books in a comic book manner. I think that these sorts of books bring out creativity in all students and focuses on modern language that they are more exposed to. As new generations are learning outside of school through experience they have to read less material and can express more through facial expression. Picture books are awesome ways of expressing personal opinions about what characters or figures represent. Creating picture books is an awesome task to expose students to and can be used for any grade level and any classroom.

The second article titled Using the ADDIE Model to Design Second Life Activities for Online Learners By Shiang-Kwei Wang and (I believe this is our professor) Hui-Yin Hsu is another great read. Many students are already involved in many video games which have or are considered a second life. Many students are already interested in second life activities so why not use them for educational purpose if this is where their motivation is. It’s an awesome way to extend class time and a great way to help students especially those who are shy gain a unique social experience. Although nothing is better than being exposed to real life experiences. I know this could never replace teaching two of my classes’ production metals and material processing. These two classes are all about hands on experience which is something you cannot do with a computer. You cannot physically earn how to weld, use an acetylene torch, lather, or milling machine (to name some of the equipment in my classroom) without actually using them. Students would never learn the skills they would need to survive in the world; however ADDIE could be used in my digital electronics class. The digital electronic class is already computer base because of the circuit design software we use. For many courses such as English and history an Avatar like program is an awesome way to extend class time or even replace it. So much can be accomplished from home saving fuel costs and many other expenses that exist in schools. Students would miss many social experiences so I hope school never come to this conclusion as a replacement to how we teach our children, but is a great way of either extending class time or replacing part of the school day.

Second life is one of the coolest tasks that we have had to do in this class. I was a bit skeptical of the program at first but after seeing the awesome characters that you could choose from I was instantly in. Of course I choose the most ridiculous character possible… The rabbit! The game is very cool and could be useful in class for tasks such as treasure hunts and problem solving activities.