Digital Blog Post #H - Chapter 9

Concept 1: Multimedia means combining multiple media-text, data, voice, picture, and video-in a single application or technology.  This means using computer presentations that combine words, pictures, sounds and etc. Multimedia use is extremely engaging! If you're a student like me, you NEED to see pictures and videos and all sorts of different tools for me to fully understand what is being taught and to actually be engaged in it. "Students engaged in learning that incorporates multimodal designs, on average, outperform students who learn using traditional approaches with single modes" (Metiri Group, 2008, p.13). This proves that teachers absolutely need their classrooms to become technology-infused in order for their students to be actively engaged and to be successful.

Concept 2: Photo taking and movie making with students is also another great alternative to keep students engaged. Students are immersed in media from the videos and pictures they take themselves to the movies they watch on television, in the movie theater, and on the internet. Photos or videos provide a vital way for students to remember classroom learning activities. Students can film using cameras to create still or moving pictures, act by being filmed as part of learning activities, edit the crafting that has been filmed into interesting visual presentations and viewing what has been produced. Since our students are 21st century learners I believe this is an awesome way to keep your class engaged and to have them do different things and keep the class fun! In my English class in high school, we were split up into groups and had to read a book with each other and when we finished the book, we were asked to recreate a big scene that happened in the story using our phones or cameras and cool effects. It was tons of fun! I absolutely loved it and so did everyone else in my group.

Concept 3: Podcast is an audio recording distributed online and accessed on computers or portable media players using free softwares. Vodcasts have also become popular. "Students are asked to watch lectures or information presentation portion of a lesson on videos outside of school and spend in-class time doing experiments and discussing academic content (Richardson, 2012). I think Podcasts are completely amazing and necessary in classrooms. To be able to save time by recording a lecture and having students watch it at home and then have more class time to do the lecture or experiments is a really smart thing to do! Podcasts also work great when you are absent and are still able to get the lesson that was done in school that day just by going online and listening to the podcast that the teacher has made specifically for those who were absent. This saves the teacher time from re-teaching a lesson to the student and it works extremely well for the student as well because he gets a chance to learn at his own pace and re-listen to these podcasts in order to understand the concept.

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

 "Word Search Maker." Word Search Maker. Web. 21 Oct. 2015. 

Digital Blog Post #G - Chapter 10

Kahoot! | Play this quiz now! Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Blog Post #F - Chapter 8

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Blog Post #E - Chapter 7

Kahoot! | Play this quiz now! Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. Kahoot! | Play this quiz now! (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2015.

Digital Blog Post #D - Chapter 5

Kahoot! | Play this quiz now!

Digital Blog Post #C - Chapter 3

Digital Blog Post #B - Chapter 2

First, while reading the statistics under Developing Lessons and Engaging Students about student boredom and alienation I was not shocked at all. It says that two-thirds of high school students report feeling bored in their classes every day. Also, that when teachers only do lectures in the classroom that is when the students are least engaged. To be honest, in high school I just got by. I didn't really care about any of my classes. I was part of that "let-me-get-this-done-as-quick-as-I-can" group. I did really well in all of my classes but I was never engaged in what I was doing. I completely agree with the textbook saying that some teachers fail in connecting academic material from the textbook to real-world situations that can happen to us as students. A lot of confusions in lessons can be eliminated just by connecting situations to the real world! That's how my father had always taught me when he would help me with homework. I think using technology WILL keep students engaged in classrooms and just actually want to be there. I really like the idea of getting into small groups and each group having a different activity. One hands on, one with the computer, and one using technology with the teacher!

Second, after reading Your Teaching Philosophy I would like to think that I want to be in a in between teacher-centered classroom and student-centered classroom. In a teacher-centered classroom I feel that it is more lecture type. Those types of teachers use student test scores to see who has learned and who hasn't. In a student-centered classroom it is completely different. In my eyes it is way more engaging for the students. Although, I would like for my classroom to be more towards a student-centered classroom I find it would be best to be in between these two philosophies because I different subjects have different ways to be taught. I love the idea of students being able to come up to the board and showing their classmates how to do a problem and just asking questions digging a little deeper into their minds about certain topics. 

Third, while reading Using Technology to Enhance Teaching I thought about one specific teacher I had in high school. She was an amazing history teacher! She used one of the two central aspects of the work of teachers: Instructional practices. In instructional practices you use methods of teaching using technology. You look up stuff on the web during class discussions, use power-points, all of that good stuff. In her class we had class discussions every day. She always sat at her desk or on the high chair in front of the class and always had stories that related to each topic. She would show us personal pictures from historical sites she's been to whenever we would reach that subject in the book. She would show us videos from youtube. It was just a very engaging class and I learned so much! 

In conclusion, this chapter really helped me see where I stand and what I want to do in my own classroom. I am now starting to understand how technology is so important to be implemented into the classroom! It helps teachers in many ways, just by being able to do lesson plans and having everything saved online. Having access to so many sources to use in your lesson plan is awesome! There is seriously so much out there. It helps students be engaged in the classroom and see everything that there is out there and put it all to use!



Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Blended Learning: Making it Work in Your Classroom. (2014, September 11). Retrieved September 10, 2015.