Learning With Technology: A Constructivist Perspective
Chapter 2
Learning By Exploring With Technology
The text explains that the Internet is a world wide tangle of cables, modems, computers,
and other hardware. (page 23) It has the ability to access electronic mail, interactive
conferences, information resources, electronic conversations in the borm of bulletin
bouards and network news, and the ability to transfer files from computer to computer
and person to person.
The terms cyberspace refers to places where information is stored and virtual refers to
objects in this artifical world.
As one reads on in the text a variety of learning activities are provided. Some support
scientific experimentation projects for open-ended student directed research. Students
learnng processes are deemed among the most complete intellectual activities that
learners can pursue. Student roles include researchers, investigators, collaborators,
communicators, and develop as higher order thinkers. While this process is working
teachers attain the role of facilitators or coaches prompting students to conside alternative
ideas or views of looking at the world. Assessment questions are also provided in the
text as useful tools for the teacher to again touch the higher order metacognitive skills of
the students.
The pages of the text teaching about home pages on the web was very enlightening to me
for resources to view, such as the virtual schoolhouse at http://www.rocket.org/. Students
are encouraged to create web pages of their own. The text does give a warning. Student
safety was discussed because of the predatory nature of some individuals roaming the
world. Some of those safety tips are: students do not display their pictures and full
identity, they keep their personal e-mail addresses personal by using only the teacher’s
e-mail address, and have students and parents report unusual contacts to their teachers.
Creating web pages can be a tremendous learning experience that is part of the
constructionist approach to learning. Teacher assessment is done by evaluating the work
analytically or holistically. Projects can range from arithmetic to zoology when comes to
the number of topics that can be learned.
Basic skills can also be enriched as well. Reading, spelling, grammar, and writing are
all needed when communicating on the Internet. The computer lab is a high tech
location for learning.
Classrrom Instruciton That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
Chapter 3
Summarizing and Note Taking
Return To My Home Page
This chapter begins with information about the Internet. It explains that each computer
has a name which can be thought of as an address. The terms that are introduced are
Universal Resource Locator (URL), browser software (Netscape or Internet Explorer),
link, hypertext transfer protocol (http), www to indicate that they serve information to the
World Wide Web (www), and Hyper Text Markup Language (html).
An example of an address was given has http://www.fortbend.k12.tx.us/schools/art.html.
The address then descirbes the type of data, server name, domain code, state code,
country code, and pathway to file.
This reflection will be rather short because it is a brief summary of the chapter. The
notes that I have taken are lengthy but will not be presented in that form.
There has been extensive research and therory on summarizing. Different strategies have
been developed to maximize the effeciency of the process. The author points out three
generalizations of this research. The three activities are (1) deleting things, (2)
substituting things, and )30 keeping things. The text presents five summary frames as a
teaching and learning tool. Those summary frames are: (1) Th Narrative Frame with 7
elements, (2) The Topic=Restriction-Illustrated Frame, (3) The Definintion Frame with 4
elements, (4) The Argumentation Frame with 4 elements, (5) The {Problem/Solution
Frame, (6) The Conversation Frame with 4 components.
Reciprocal Teaching is one of the best research strategies. It involves Summarizing,
Questioning, Clarifying and Predicting. Bloom’s Taxonomy not mentioned in this text
puts these strategies to work in numerous parts.
Research and theory on note taking have been given some bold references. Verbatim note
taking is, perhaps the least effective way to take notes. Notes should be considered a
work in progress. Notes should be used as study guides for tests. To finish with the pros
and cons of the research, the more notes that are taken, the better.
Summarizing and note taking are two powerful study skills to allow identifying and
understanding of the most important aspects of what they are learning.