I really like the movie and have learned a lot. I mean during the procedure of making the video I learned a lot already, and tonight through others' work, I feel I could take advantage from that. I knew others' ideas about their video and I found some of them did good edition, some of them made good designing, and some of them showed really great creativity. Actually, I have to say I love my video best. :)

Chapter 8 & 9

Chapter 8       

Chapter 8 concentrates on the various ways that teachers and students can use computers and other technologies to share ideas and information in classroom and online learning environments. In fact, we are using communication technologies so frequently, for example, email is most common way for students and teachers to communicate out of class. In the class EDU 7266, we have used online discussion and built our own blogs. Through using communication technologies, we can get informed of different ideas from our classmates immediately, instead of waiting to next class. In addition, some of our works are published publicly, such as WebQuest and the group video project. Our works can be seen by more people than just teachers and classmates. It encourages us to create and make our works better.

To use communication technologies out of class helps students to do better preparation before class. We write blogs almost every week to make reflections of each chapter. We can also read the reflections from our classmates and make comments. It helps the following in-class study more effective. It is even somewhat better than face to face communication, since it allows us to have enough time to think.

Questions:

1) How can teachers help those students who do not know how to use communication technologies?

2) How can teachers balance out-class online study time and traditional study time for students?

3) How can teachers make sure that students have really done online assignments and communication since it is lack of monitor.

Chapter 9

            Chapter 9 focuses on creating and sharing information with multimedia technologies, such as Power Point presentation software, videos and DVDs, digital cameras, movie-making software, and podcasts/vodcasts. The tools mentioned in this chapter are used in almost everyone’s daily life. However, they are not used so frequently in education. What we use most in education is Power Point presentation. It is really useful and can help the teaching content more organized. Besides that, other tools are also very helpful. Like Video, in my special education class this semester, the professor show video to us almost every video. Through videos, different kind of mental disabilities and behaviors disorders can be presented directly. It is more effective for students to learn than simple teaching with textbook.

            In fact, through this class, we have already used movie maker and we are going to make videos. I find it is not so difficult as I thought before. After simple self-training (you can find a lot of introductory information online), teachers can use them very well. It is also a good teaching strategy to ask students to use such tools. Teachers can make group activities for students and help them to learn themselves. As I experienced, it is really a great chance for learning.

            Questions:

1)      How to combine the education content and technology learning?

2)      How to find the appropriate video resources for teaching?

3)      How to evaluate students performance if considering different levels of familiarity of technologies.