Reflection on Chapter 11

2) Reflect on ways to integrate multimedia tools (slideshows, podcasts, digital stories) into

their classrooms.

There are three different ways to integrate multimedia tools into a classroom. That is to use slideshows, podcasts, and digital stories. Using a slideshow can help to enhance note-taking among the students. A slide show can have many more things on it than a traditional lecture. A slide show can have pictures, videos, diagrams, and many more things to visually represent data that words cannot describe. This is a really good tool for teachers to also stay focused and organized when it comes to notes and scheduling for a lesson.

When it comes to digital stories, this is often a more effective way to tell a story than the traditional storytelling. With traditional storytelling, the listener gets the ideas based on the words being said. With digital stories, pictures are added (along with narration and music) to help the listener get a better understanding and idea of the story. The digital story acts as an automatic slide show with pictures and narration on each picture to tell what’s happening. This is especially a good tool to use with children to keep them interested and entertained all at the same time.

Using podcasts is also a great tool to teach children in a classroom. The podcast allows a teacher (or anyone) to create and distribute multimedia to an audience. The audience can access and listen to the audio files through the internet or a mobile device. This is a good tool to use for children who miss the lesson in class and want to go home to listen to the lesson again. It is also good for children who have attention problems in class and miss a lot of what the teacher is saying because they are distracted.

Reflection on Chapter 7

3) Discuss ethical and legal uses of digital images and files in an electronic environment.

It is very important for teachers and students to know the laws regarding copyrighted use of digital images and files. When illustrations and photographs are concerned, the students and teachers may use a complete photo by a photographer but at the most, five photos by any single photographer. When it is a collection that’s involved, there is a limit up to fifteen photos, or 10% of the photos, whichever one is less.

As far as a resource from the web goes, the major consideration is to keep in mind how the web resource is going to be used. It is usually ok to take from the internet to develop projects. However, re-uploading those photos and other items need to have prior permission first. This is usually a requirement many teachers misunderstand, and in turn, pass that down to the students.

If a song is needed as part of a presentation, it is legal to use 10% of the song, but only up to three minutes. The only other thing to this rule is that the song must stay in its original format and cannot be changed.

When a teacher wants to use videos to show to the class, the teacher can use legitimately acquired videos. These videos have to either be purchased or rented. If a replacement is not offered at a reasonable price, it is ok to make a copy for store away in case it is damaged, lost, or stolen. Videos for integration in projects, however, are only to be used when it is legitimately acquired. It has to be a legal copy and not home recorded.

Reflection on Chapter 4

4) Discuss research related to the effective use of digital portfolios in learning.

There are a couple of reasons why digital portfolios are a disadvantage but overall, a digital portfolio is a perfect way to learn. The disadvantages of digital portfolios are that there is a lot of software and time involved in it. With traditional portfolios, none of that soft ware is necessary to create a portfolio. Multimedia and other processors would be eliminated also if using traditional software.

The advantage of using digital software is that using electronic materials will strengthen the material in the portfolio compared to a traditional portfolio. It is also easy to reproduce because all you have to do is make a copy of it and it can easily be wherever you need it to be. In addition to this, many teachers will become more at ease when it comes to computer applications since they have to use computers to create their own portfolios.

Effectively using the digital portfolios is the tricky part. If you give everyone a portfolio of yours and they don’t understand what’s going on, it will be very hard to have anyone look at your portfolio a second time. Having supporting documentation and artifacts in your portfolio would help you to have the people looking at your portfolios better understand the information. Also, remembering to include an educational philosophy statement is important. This will help the employer get to know you as a person and what your thoughts are on education to pick the right person for the job.

Reflection on Chapter 12

3) Discuss various methods used to create webpages and the pros and cons of each.

There are several different methods of creating a webpage. These types of methods include writing HTML code, using a WYSIWYG editor, and using a web-based content managed tool. In the beginning, web pages were all created using HTML code. HTML stands for hypertext markup language. Using HTML is very time consuming but it is no longer mandatory to create a webpage. Having some background information about it though, would be very useful in troubleshooting. The good aspect of this method is that you can get everything exactly the way you want it so long as you know how to use it.

WSYIWYG is an acronym for “What you see is what you get”. This program lets you put pictures and text where you want to have it and the code is being written in the background for you. The good thing about this program is that it easy to use. They are also focused on design rather than code and provide quick options for inserting page elements. The negative aspect of it, though, is that when the HTML is being written, it is sometimes atypical and causes problems later on for the user.

The last tool would be to use the web-based content managed tool. There are many different websites that offer this tool such as Google, Weebly and Word Press. This method is very structured and the user is using a template type form to fill in their information and create their web pages. Different websites will have a more specific goal for the user such as ClassNotesOnline.com. This is for teachers to make their classroom possible through the internet and the webpage. This is an easy to use template and requires minimum to no experience using HTML.