Teaching with Technology: Random Notes

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Teaching with Technology Random Notes
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Why Use Technology in Teaching

• Multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Increased interest among students (Dede)
• Online education increases participation by
  certain groups of students
• Online education eliminates most constraints of
  place and time
• Technology as tutor, tool, tutee

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Multiple Intelligences

• Howard Gardner developed notion that there are at
  least 8 or 9 different intelligences and that
  individuals differ in their relative abilities
  among these
• Use of technology in education often results in
  education that is more varied across these
  intelligences material is presented in a variety
  of ways rather than a single way

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Engaging More Students

• Chris Dedes project involving Multi-User Virtual
  Environment Experiential Simulators where
  students engage in guided, colloborative,
  learning-by-doing found an increased interest in
  classroom activity among all students, including
  those who were previously uninterested

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Tutor, Tool, Tutee Model

• Tutor computer application teaches something
• Tool computer applications are often general
  purpose tools that help users function more
  productively
• Tutee User programs (or teaches) the computer

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Ways to Use Computer Tools

• Authoring Presentations, web pages, text
  documents (word processing, email)
• Telecommunications -
• Data organization and manipulation
  spreadsheets, databases

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Authoring Web Sites

• Papers written as class projects are normally
  only read by teacher when students post on web,
  students have the opportunity to be read by
  others and thus can feel they are making a
  contribution

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Word Processing

• Spellcheckers awareness that you often misspell
  a certain word (metacognition)
• Thesaurus (right word, avoid overuse)
• Appearance can influence perceptions of authentic
  authoring (as opposed to being a unimportant
  frill that is a distraction)
• Can facilitate risk-taking and experimentation
  since revisions are so much easier to make

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Spreadsheets

• Spreadsheets were apparently the first killer
  app for personal computers
• A spreadsheet is a rectangular array of cells
  with numbered rows (1, 2, ) and columns denoted
  by letters (A, B, )
• Two types of cells those that have content and
  those where the content is a formula involving
  the content of other cells

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Spreadsheets (cont.)

• When the content of cells referred to in a
  formula change, the result of the formula is
  automatically recalculated
• Spreadsheets thus have the data, the calculations
  to be performed on the data, and the results of
  the calculations all in one file

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Adjustment of Formula References

• Spreadsheets often have the same operation
  performed on multiple sets of cells the formula
  used for one set can be copied for the other set
  and Excel will automatically adjust the
  references
• For example, suppose a formula in A3 adds the
  contents of A1 plus A2 if this formula were
  copied to B3, most likely we would want the
  formula to be B1 plus B2

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Adjustment of Formula References (cont.)

• The use of in cell references makes references
  absolute and thus these references are not
  adjusted when the formula is copied to a new cell