March 19th 2008
Chapter 9 Visualizing with Technologies

This chapter deals with technology and the way it helps students visualize concepts that are usually very abstract. According to Jonassen et al. “humans need visual prostheses for helping them to visualize ideas and to share those images with others” (p.192).
Such concepts in school come from subjects in math, science, and geography. In chemistry, a program such as McSpartan helps students “generate mental images of chemicals that aided their understanding (p.193). In math, technology isn’t just computer generated but simple things such a graphic calculator can help students see things that are usually very abstract concepts in this subject.

Textbook Questions

In this chapter, we have described how various technologies can function as visual prostheses. Can you think of other ways that technologies can help us “see things: in a new way? Are there scientific concepts that you had a hard time imagining at school?

Other technologies that help us see things in a new way are microscopes and telescopes. We can’t usually see small molecules with our eyes alone. Thanks to the microscope we can see such things. Also, because stars and planets are so far away we can’t see them in detail, once again thanks to technology we can see things in a new way. The scientific concepts I had a hard time with are chemistry and physics. I was always hard to imagine them because it was so abstract in my head. Also I had a very difficult time with geography and history!

Google Earth goes a long way toward mapping the world. How will that affect our perception of the world?’

I think that Google Earth is a great tool for mapping the world and it will affect
our perception of the world in a positive way. It let us see things that we would normally not see. They are usually abstract in out heads; thanks to Google Earth we can see clear images of different places in the world.

What kinds of reasoning/thinking are students performing when they think mathematically?

Math is an abstract field of study! The concepts are vey abstract in ones head. Therefore not all people are good in math because not all people can think in that way! However thanks to the visualizing technology, students who need imaging are able to show their abilities in mathematics; something they couldn’t do without the technology; I’m one of those people!


Journal Entry

When people used to ask me if I knew how to use Power Point very well I used to answer yes! But I guess I was wrong because I learnt many things that I didn’t know before. I learnt how to put icons that let me go from one page to another and I learnt how to link to the net. I think that power point is a great tool to use in the classroom because it helps students as well as teachers lecture in a less stressful manner. However, the slide shouldn’t be too detailed and people shouldn’t read exactly what’s on the power point because it will be too boring to watch.

The film we watched in class was great. It made me look at education from a different perspective. The lecturer expressed concern about the lack of creativity there is in our schools. I especially liked when he said that we are born creative and then lose creativity as we go by life. In other words we lose our creativity! Also, not all kids are the same; every child learns in a different way. He spoke about students with ADHD and explained that they need to move around and a “normal” classroom that doesn’t offer creative movement isn’t always the right place for students that need to move.