Week 4

This author discussed PowerPoint. Here are three of his main points, and what I think of them:

1) Power point slides contain too many graphics and charts, which often misconstrue or misrepresent information. Moreover, the charts sometimes over-simplify the information, or they simply do not present it in the best way possible. I'm not sure what to think of this claim, not being an expert in graphs. But it seems like a reasonable claim to make. It seems like people would want to simplify graphs for powerpoint, because if you put something up on the screen with eighty different lines going in different directions, it might give people headaches. And you don't want to give your audience a headache, so you might try to simply the chart. I suppose this isn't a bad thing as long as you don't lose information, but the author suggests you do, in which case that seems like a bad idea.

2) Because of the small size and low resolution of PowerPoint slides, People often shorten information in order to fit it on PowerPoint. They mold the information to fit the PowerPoint, instead of the other way around. The author cited the example of a slide from a statistics class, which said simply "Correlation does not equal causation." He said that this was way too simple an explanation, but typical of powerpoint, as it tends to, as he says, shorten everything, "turning everything into a slogan or a sales pitch. I completely agree with this point. I do think that powerpoint oversimplifies everything. In fact, when I first learned about making powerpoint, they told us to simplify everything, because, they said, you don't want to overload people with information. This may be a good intention, but overall it seems like a bad idea. If the purpose of powerpoint is to convey information, and you're not accurately doing that, then powerpoint isn't doing it's job. And I for one have seen many a powerpoint show that has over-simplified or over-shortened a concept or scentence for the sake of not over-loading the slide. The worst is when the powerpoint text is so simple that you can't make out what you're supposed to be learning. For example, I took a class in Anatomy, and the teacher would use slides. She often had slides that said, for example, "Vegas Nerve" and then "Splits into two, enervates the muscle." Okay, I thought when I read that, what am I supposed to take from this?

3) The author also claimed that the bullet style outlining of PowerPoint ruins information and presentations. He says that it can over-complicate text or over-simplify it. He talked a lot about the complicated hierarchical structure of powerpoints, and how this is just too complicated. On this point, I disagree with him. I think that bullets can be really helpful for organizing information, for both the speaker and the audience. It's a really easy way to organize information, and it's a format that is instantly recognized by most people. It helps you see what is most important, and then what is most important after that, or it can help you see the sub-categories within a larger category. It can help you see how different parts fit together.

–What are the main points the author makes about the myth behind “no significance difference.”

–What is meaningful learning from your perspective? Give some examples and non-examples from your overarching statements.

–How do you see the role of technology in your view of meaningful learning?

The author points out that the question about whether technology makes a difference does not specify what it should make a difference in. He then goes on to list several areas where he thinks technology can make a difference, to a small or large degree. For example, he says that technology can make a difference in motivation. He says that students are sometimes motivated by talking with experts and that they can connect with these people using technology. He also says that technology can make learning a more social experience, like through IMs and message boards. He said that students are motivated sometimes by self-expression, and that they can do this through artistic technology programs. He says that technology can help learning be a more active process. For example, students can create their own databases. It can also help learning be a more cooperative process. Finally, it can help students use their knowledge in real-world situations. For example, technology can be used to simulate a real-world situation, like if an engineering class were to use build a virtual bridge on a computer program.

Meaningful learning, from my perspective, is when you remember what you learn, and, not only that, but that what you learn sticks with you throughout your life and actually applies to your life. Meaningful learning is when you learn something that you use all the time, or something that you can see happening in your everyday life. Meaningful learning is learning that changes the way you see the world and other people, or maybe learning that changes your interactions with the world and other people. For example, here is something that I have learned that I see in my everyday life: Erik Erikson's life stages. After I first learned this in my Adolescent Development class, I was amazed to realize that these stages really are acted out in every day life, and that I can see people going through them, sometimes. This new knowledge changed the way I think about people and their lives. A non-example would be when you learn something and you cannot see it happening. And, when you don't see it happening, or when you don't use it, you more than likely forget it, so it also doesn't meet that criteria of meaningful learning. For example, in high school, I took calculus. I never used calculus outside class. I don't see calculus happening all around me. As a result, calculus didn't really change much about my life, and I don't remember much of calculus.

I think technology could definitely help people achieve my idea of meaningful learning. For example, as the article said, technology can be used to simulate real-world scenarios, so this could help students see something that they might not normally see in their everyday life. For example, if a student in an astronomy class is learning about building rocket ships, he might not be able to build a rocket ship in real life. But he could simulate building one, and this would undoubtedly help him remember how they are built and why different pieces are important. I think technology could also help change people's views of the world and how they interact with the world and other people. Students could use technology to interact with people all over the world, and this could open their eyes to how different people live. For example, a class could use Skype to chat with a class in China. This might help these students see how Chinese students are like them, and how they are different.

Week 2

–Why did Clark believe that media had no effect on learning? Evaluate Clark’s stance.
–Why did Clark change his position?
–What is a cognitive product?
–How does Clark’s research affect technology in the classroom?

Clark believed that the type of media did not affect learning. He argued that one type of media did not teach material any better than any other type of media. This is where the name "No Significant Difference" comes from. There was no significant difference in learning, according to Clark, when different medias were used. Clark also believed that media did not influence or motivate learning. He believed that all media produced the same amount of learning. I think a good quote from the article that captures his position is when he is quoted saying that technology does not effect learning "any more than a truck [affects] the quality of the goods it brings to the market."

I do not really agree with Clark's stance. I especially do not agree with him when he says that technology does not motivate learning. I think technology really could motivate kids to learn more, especially since students today are so in touch with technology. It is such a big part of their world, so it might make the material more familiar to them, and thus more interesting to them, and so they would be more motivated to study it. For example, I think students would be much more motivated to play a game that involves multiplication than they would be to memorize multiplication tables.

Clark changed his position after a study that compared learning in different physics classrooms, some with media and one without. Although the students in both classrooms learned the same material, the ones in the technology classrooms learned the same amount in one week that the regular classroom learned in a four weeks. Thus, Clark had to change his position slightly to account for the fact that, even though technology may not change what you learn, it can affect how quickly you learn it.

I think it's definitely important to consider Clark's research and point of view when thinking about technology in the classroom. You should consider, for example, his idea that technology does not really affect what you learn. A teacher should think about this, and then decide if he thinks a technology he is considering is really worth the effort. For example, is it worthwhile for him to spend twenty minutes of class setting up the technology if it won't affect how his students learn the material? However, I think it is also important to consider the other side of the argument, and to consider the fact that Clark might be wrong. For example, if the above teacher things that the technology will engage his students more than a traditional lecture, then perhaps he should go against Clark's ideas and use it anyway. Also, it is important to consider the research that shows that technology can help speed up learning. The teacher in this example might spend twenty minutes on set up, but he might save two hours of class time in the end, which is time that could be spent on other activities or material.