Post #7

PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a useful tool for student's learning at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy. The first two stages, Knowledge and Comprehension, can be taught through the teacher's presentation of important key concepts and terms. Teachers can also incorporate discussion questions into their slides, which can help teach students Application if the questions connect the subject matter to other real-life scenarios. Discussion questions could also ask students to break down main ideas into parts or compare and contrast two concepts, which are parts of the Analysis level. A good project to teach the Synthesis level would be to ask students to make their own PowerPoint presentation about the topic since making a presentation requires creativity and incorporating many elements into a cohesive project. Teachers could also ask students to grade their presentations based on a set of criteria to teach them Evaluation.  

Adaptive Technologies

Adaptive technology is any device that assists people with physical or learning disabilities to use technology. The podcast talks about alternative input devices for people with physical disabilities, such as a joystick instead of a mouse. There are also many adaptive technologies for students with learning disabilities, such as text-to-speech software for people with dyslexia and productivity software to help students with learning disabilities organize tasks. I do not personally know anyone who uses these technologies because of a disability. However, it is good to know that this technology is out there in case I have a student in the future that will need them. 

Web Page Design

I really enjoyed using Weebly for the web page design project. I thought that the site was pretty easy to use, and the templates that it gave me helped a lot with creating a web page fast. I also appreciate the fact that when inserting photos Weebly lets you search for images under the Creative Commons license, and it even cites the photos for you on your webpage. That feature saved me so much time on this project. My one struggle with this project was figuring out what to write for the articles, but I'm sure that part will become much easier once my class is not fictional. I will definitely consider using Weebly in the future when I need to make a real class website. Even if I don't use that site, this project taught me valuable lessons about how to set up my own web page, such as Robin William's principle of C.R.A.P. (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity).