Blog Post 8

When we visited the A.T. lab before the break, I discovered that the amount assistive technology that could be used for education is much broader than I initially thought. One piece of tech that I think can be utilized in the classroom is the zoom-in tool. I think this tool can be useful for the students with poor eyesight because it can enlarge their desktop and help them better navigate their desktop. Another tool I saw as very useful was the type and speak tool. I feel this tool can be very useful because I feel it gives a equal learning opportunity to both visual and auditory learners. The last tool I feel will could be useful is the smart pen and book. I think the smart pen and book is most useful because of it's many uses. It can record the teacher lecture which can help students who want remember specific detail about the lecture, It has a camera that can help with students who forget lose track in class. The most useful part of the tool, in my eyes, is the fact the all the info saved to it can be stored to the cloud which can be really effective for students when it comes to assignment storage and note taking.

PowerPoint as a tool can be very beneficial and can strongly support student learning at each level of Bloom;s Taxonomy. Through PowerPoint, students can create by customizing the own slides with different patterns, fonts, and images. Like if a student was doing a PowerPoint about birds, they could insert images of birds to indicate a theme. From there they can evaluate by using tools to help understand there argument. Students can evaluate by using bulletin points on a slide to figure what supports their idea. Next, students can analyze by using tools that help them list and compare stats. For example, they can uses the tables feature to categorize their info that help support their argument. Students can also apply by using tools in PowerPoint to help find out if there argument is valid. An example of this is if a student had an idea for a solution to a math question. If they wanted to check, there is a equation tool that list the equation, so they can apply their thinking to the equation. Student can then understand by reviewing their material, and looking at both sides of their argument through their slides. PowerPoint gives students a easy, fast, and entertaining way to discuss these ideas by providing them with tools like tables, charts, and shapes, all in an effort to make sure they can make their material understandable. Students will find PowerPoint to be most helpful when they need to remember. PowerPoint is most useful for this because of the many methods that can be used for remembering, such as making a game of jeopardy out of notes.

In effort to keep up with technological advances, I feel the most helpful website for this would be the tech page on mashable.com. Mashable is a website that focus mostly on technology while also focus world news that can correlate with tech. I feel this site is great for keeping up with technological advances because it's always on top for the latest updates in tech and provides all the most important info. The tech page is helpful because with the news on the latest update in tech, it will help not only in educational tech but tech in general. This means that through this website, a teacher will be able to understand and interact with students through the tech they use most and a teacher will be able to utilize this in educational ways. http://mashable.com/tech/?utm_cid=mash-prod-nav-ch