Chapter 3 and 5

After reading chapter 3 and 5, I would like to inform you of my thoughts on the materials I have just read. I will inform you on the connection that I have with these two chapters, of the new ideas that I got from reading these chapters and of what I think will be challenging for me to do in the classroom.

First as stated in the chapter (p.59) Active learning is the name given to educational activities in which students are directly involved in the learning process. Active learning is also known as discovery learning, learning by doing, inquiry-based learning, or hands-on-learning. I think this way of learning is so important. People learn in different ways. According to Bepko Learning Center there are three main cognitive learning styles, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. I enjoy the hands on approach (kinesthetic). I remember growing up, my most enjoyable classes were the ones where we were active and engaged. Doing experiments, building something or even cooking were my favorite classes.

Secondly, what new information I gained that I thought was interesting was that political activist Eli Pariser suggests that the process of searching for information online is a much more problematic activity than is commonly assumed. The reason is because Google established a baseline of personal interests and patterns that people search for online and this help build a profile of what you most commonly like. By doing that, the technology predicts what search people will get when they try to search for something. (p.108) I was always under the impression that when we searched for something we all got the same results. It states in the text that these personalized searches mean that different people will get different results even with the same key word.  This is kind of scary to think that every time you use your computer it is gathering information on you. And that the computer search engine will give you different information than others when you are conducting a search.

Finally the challenging thing to me is realizing how many different search engines there are out there. I only use a couple of the same ones over and over. It was mind boggling to me to see just how many are being used daily. The one that stood out the most to me was the digital newspaper and magazine publishing technology called Scoop.it! (p.107). This seems like a very interactive website that would keep the teachers and the students engaged but also challenging to work with in the classroom.

These two chapters were full of information and helpful ideas to use in the classroom. Even though I am not a computer savvy person, every time I read a chapter I continue to find more interesting things that I would like to try out in my classroom one day.

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.