Flash is amazing! I’ve always been fascinated by the simple animations that jumps across the screen or the dog that wags his tail at the bottom of the page or the dancing ladies in a credit report advertisement on the side of a website! After looking at the various sites for this assignment, it is obvious that flash is so much more and can meet so many purposes. First of all, flash can be used to draw out interaction with the viewer, allowing him/her to participate and contribute to the progression of the animation.
In the case of Carnegie Hall’s music adventure, the user is asked to drag scrambled icons into correct positions and learn the creation of symphonies. Along the way, users can access information about instruments and other musical terminology. Similarly, the dress up game allows users to be creative and take ownership of design. In a classroom, teachers can motivate students with games that allow students to personalize projects and thus feel more vested in their own learning. Speaking of motivation, the mystery hunt for George Washington’s painting activity is another perfect example of taking something as mundane as a portrait and turning it into a scavenger hunt and students are required to read the information in order to finish the mystery case. Consider the various alternatives, which is to ask students to look at a static painting and read a paragraph of information next to it. Last but not least, I was impressed with the interactive storytelling timeline of PBS: Not For Ourselves Alone site. Although the information was available in static text, the voice of primary documents and narrated history of the Women’s Suffrage Movement was a powerful learning tool. The activity allowed students to the control the speed of the story and users were free to jump ahead of review previous portions of the story.
All of these forms of flash animation let the teachers in this new era of computers to interact with students and facilitate learning in a new way. Now the question remains, how will individual classroom teachers acquire the skill and afford the time to create such brilliant flash activities that will result in authentic and valuable learning experiences?
It's been a while. This blog has been quiet for the past few months but we're back... refreshed and ready for more technology! Lots of awesome things were happening last semester in T.E.A.M. but too many new things were taking up too much time so the blogging was on the back burner. This semester, there is a sense that the focus is back on technology so hopefully there will be more reflections of my learning here. Stay tuned...
Once in a while, we allow the kiddies to have a little bit of fun at school - here are some pictures of this year's Hat Day! Sometimes I am so focused on the curriculum and forget that they are only kids... it was good to see them have such a great time just breaking the hat rule for one day!
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I joined a few of my colleagues in the annual New York City Five Borough Bike Tour - it was a blast! Check out the cool music slide show. It's fascinating how technology can turn a simple collection of digital pictures into an awesome production that can be showed off to others - in the wise words of PhotoShop master Jarrod G... "its all smoke & mirrors!"
At a recent conference, Howard Gardner indicated that his theory of multiple intelligences cannot be accomplished in the face of No Child Left Behind and standards-based education. In some of his writing he has also said, "to the surprise of many, including me, the theory of multiple intelligences has become influential in educational circles. It is often assimilated, inappropriately, in my view, into work on cognitive or learning styles. Educators have sought to determine the intellectual strengths (the intelligence profiles) of their students through a variety of informal, jerry-built methods. They have also drawn a multitude of often inconsistent inferences about practice from the theory. These range from teaching seven or eight different subjects, each centering on a particular intelligence; to organizing groups of students based on their favored intelligences; to building curricula that focus on specific intelligences; to teaching subjects in seven or eight different ways." Discuss your reaction to each of the statements.
It is interesting to learn that an educational theorist, like Howard Gardner, was able to recognize the inappropriate application of his theory and although he strongly believes in the presence of multiple intelligences, it cannot be the magic solution to be poured upon the current education system. According to Gardner, everyone possess all nine of the intelligences outlined in his theory and each of the intelligences can be “nurtured and strengthened, or ignored and weakened”. This is the reason why grouping all the musical learners together and have this group write and perform a song about every lesson is not the correct approach to applying the theory of multiple intelligences. Most of our students are still in the process of developing their different intelligences, which makes it difficult to label them right away. Moreover, what is the purpose of labeling each student with one intelligence when Gardner clearly stated that we all possess all the intelligences? So why not grant students the chance to develop all of their intelligences? Students will have the rest of their adult life to pick their learning style preferences – high school electives, college majors and minors, career paths, etc. As a middle school teacher, I believe in affording my students a variety of experiences as part of the development of their personality, preferences and intelligences. Lastly, it would be impossible for educators to create lessons that accommodate the specific needs of all the intelligences listed by Gardner. I think the most important application of this theory is awareness of the various intelligences. It would be a nightmare for educators to design lessons that embrace all the educational theories out there!
Flash is amazing! I’ve always been fascinated by the simple animations that jumps across the screen or the dog that wags his tail at the bottom of the page or the dancing ladies in a credit report advertisement on the side of a website! After looking at the various sites for this assignment, it is obvious that flash is so much more and can meet so many purposes. First of all, flash can be used to draw out interaction with the viewer, allowing him/her to participate and contribute to the progression of the animation.
