Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Chapter 7

Focus Question:

How can teachers evaluate the effectiveness of educational software?

There are millions of resources out there that teachers can use and do use to further engage their students; but it never crossed my mind to ask if those sites/tools would actually improve their learning. Fortunately for us, there are ways to help reassure that our children are actually learning. Time-and-time again teachers try to find high-quality software to grab our students attention, but do these tool become too difficult for our students. Yes, we must provide the best software that allows them to explore, but we must also make sure that the software doesn't become too complex - this can cause boredom, lack of interest, and frustration.

Tech Tools:

This book has impressed me every single time with all of the neat resources that are provided through the "Tech Tool" sections, but this tool, by far, has been the coolest and most interesting one. At first, the illustration provided in the book looked cool but it was kind of a trun off because it reminded me of this awful computer programming class I had to take my freshman year of college. (Talk about judging a book by it's cover.) I gave it a chance anyway and went on the Scratch page. Take this from someone who was not tech savvy before taking this class, but boy this website made it so much fun to figure out how technology works for myself; and the best part of it all, students learn while playing! (At least they think they're playing.)  I'm an adult and I was having fun with this website, imagine how much fin students would have exploring and learning at the same time!? The following is a tutorial on Scratch :)



Summary:

Chapter 7 basically taught me how to find effective software to support lesson plans. The author also made sure to show us how to ensure that the software were benefiting the students instead of hurting them. There are all sorts of educational software that teachers for all grade levels, including great tutoring systems that that teachers can use as options for instruction. This may be a little bias, but I love how there were tools provided to help tutor students in math.




1 comment:

  1. Awesome tool, isn't it! I love the student made tutorials (Carlos posted one, too). There is so much learning at a deep thinking level going on here, but as you mention there is the element of fun! :)

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