Author: matthewlee

Visuals that accompany information are always a great tool and have been proven to improve information recall rates in both children and adults. This week in class, we learned how to incorporate this in a classroom through the use of sketchnoting and Canva.

Sketchnoting is a note-taking strategy that includes information and visuals to help learners retain information better. They can often be seen as flowcharts, mind-maps, picture drawings, or other visual elements. Here is an example of a sketchnote I did.

In the elementary classroom setting, I think that sketchnoting is such a great skill for students to learn. For this, I want to focus on how it will benefit students at a higher grade level. For one, it makes the note taking process multitudes more fun as students can add all sorts of creative flair to their notes. And according to what we learned in class, the use of visuals vastly increased the retention rate of information among students. This would be exceptionally useful if students are taking a test or other form of assessment and need to quickly recall information. They could do so simply by remembering a picture or visual that they drew and what information was associated with that image. Sketchnoting would have definitely helped me throughout my schooling years, so I hope to pass that tool on to my future students.

The second form of visually appealing sources of information that we discussed was Canva. Canva is a free online program that allows you to make infographics using a multitude of templates. I had never used Canva before our class, but it is a tool that I see myself frequenting in the future. It’s got a wide variety of possibilities from information sheets to worksheets, and they are all entirely customizable. To the right is just an example of what a Canva infographic could look like. As you can see, notes are condensed and easy to read, and visuals can be added to give your infographic a nice finish. The interface is also very user friendly, however some features are only accessible to premium users who must pay a monthly subscription fee. Regardless, you can still get much use out of the free version and I definitely recommend using Canva to teachers, whether it be for presentations, handouts or assessment tools.

The last point I want to briefly talk about today is the SAMR (substitution, augmentation, modification, redefinition) model. This model is used to evaluate technology within classrooms by determining how exactly that technology impacts learning. I think that consulting this when implementing new technology in the classroom is a must. By understanding the model, teachers can determine at what level the technology they want to implement falls on. From there, they can decide whether it is appropriate to do so or if the investment will be purposeful.

That’s everything for this week and I look forward to what technologies we will be exploring next!

Web accessibility is something that is often times overlooked when working with digital media, so today we had the opportunity to incorporate some accessibility elements into our own Word Press websites. We first went over what accessibility means, and it can vary among different types of people. But in general, making things more accessible is adding or adjusting elements so that people with disabilities (hearing, sight, movement, learning, etc.) can still use and enjoy them.

When specifically talking about web accessibility, one of the disabilities that comes to mind is visual impairments. We learned that people who are visually impaired can still access websites through web-readers, which are text-to-speech software that narrate the words from the screen to the user. Web-readers can also describe pictures, but only if alt-text is available for said pictures. I learned that it is important to have concise and descriptive alt-text, otherwise it adds no context to the image. See the picture I have below.

In this image, I have given the alt-text of “My small, black & white dog, Obi, standing on a rock surrounded by greenery.” But what if “dog” was the only descriptor in the alt-text? Doing something like that does not help someone using assistive technology as it provides no context to what the image on screen is. Adding alt-text is simple enough that I think it should be done to every image to help with accessibility.

Another element of web accessibility that helps people who are hearing impaired is closed captions or subtitles for videos. I’ve included the screen cast video that I posted last week below, but this time it has closed captions to make it more accessible.

The closed captions in the above video were auto-generated on YouTube, however they were not 100% accurate in its initial generation, so I had to make some manual edits. Regardless, I think that having A.I. generate closed captions for videos immensely helps with accessibility and is something that I often see is overlooked. I am a person who prefers to have subtitles when watching videos, so I notice whether they are there or not. I have often times found myself watching a video either in class or on my own and there will be no option to even have closed captions. This case is becoming increasingly rare as many YouTube videos have the auto generated captions, but is still something that can be improved upon, especially in the department of foreign languages. Schools are becoming increasingly diverse and language barriers do exist. I’ve often seen students who do not speak English struggle, not because they are not intelligent, but because they cannot communicate and receive ideas as well as other students who are native English speakers. I think that including closed captions of multiple languages can benefit those students and help them to take in learning content better.

This week in Technology class we learned how to screencast and add interactive popups to videos. I had an extremely fun time during our in-class activities as I already had a little bit of experience in screen recording using Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio. I spent the time exploring different tools and editing software to learn new skills and refine my media abilities. Below is just a quick sample video, showcasing this very website, that I screencasted, voiced-over, and added interactions (which will be addressed later).

The H5P interactivity portion of the video was a little bit complicated at first glance as there were lots of tools and buttons that made it a little bit overwhelming. But after Rich’s tutorial and some playing around, it became pretty straightforward to use.

As seen in the above video, I was able to insert a few interactive popups. I think that this can be a great tool in the classroom and help greatly with students’ understanding. For one, good interactive videos that follow the multimedia approach to learning promotes the retention of information within students. This is done by having visuals and audio that work together to compliment each other rather than against each other. I believe that adding the interactive portion goes one step further to help reinforce students’ learning. Not only will they have the audio and visual support, but they would also be able to check their own understanding themselves, be it multiple choice questions or thought prompts. It would also make studying much more enjoyable as students could use the interactive questions almost as a game-like practice quiz. And one of the best parts is that students have the ability to replay videos as many times over as they like to fully understand the concepts.

There are so many benefits to using multimedia videos as a teaching aid. It helps touch on more senses of students, making learning more accessible, and is a fun and engaging teaching method, if done correctly. Multimedia is going to be the future of learning and something that I believe can enhance any classroom.

This week, we had the opportunity to view a documentary film titled “Most Likely to Succeed” which was about a non-traditional school called High-Tech High. In this school, students are not assessed with tests or quizzes, and teachers do not have to follow a set curriculum, but rather choose to teach what they believe will best benefit their students. From viewing the film, one can ponder the question: Do we need to re-imagine education? I feel like the current education system could definitely use some adjustments. The film is on the right track with allowing students to facilitate their own learning, however, I still do believe that structure needs to be in place. Especially in the public school system, the chances of every student being so keen as to engage in learning and exploration on their own is slim. But what we teach should not be limited to just the content; it should encourage more problem solving and critical and reflective thinking. So in that sense, I can agree with the structures of High-Tech High and want to use a similar approach in my own future classroom that creates active thinkers and problem-solvers, and not just vessels to deposit information into.

The second aspect of this class that completely intrigued me was the discussion about artificial intelligence (AI) and its capabilities. The documentary touched a little bit about AI and how it has the capacity to replicate human thinking, providing examples of a computer beating a chess world champion and winning a game of Jeopardy. Today I discovered the chatbot AI called ChatGPT from OpenAI. I was blown away. With programming that can create a comprehensible piece of text of about almost anything using only simple prompts, the possibilities are just about endless. Now, what does this look like from an educational standpoint? ChatGPT can be a great tool for generating information, starting ideas or planning lessons. But it carries some risks as well. Students who know of it should be taught to use the site responsibly and only after they have already built up their proficiency and fluency in writing. Since the program is free and accessible, nothing is stopping students from having an AI write their assignments for them other than their sense of honesty. For example, I prompted the AI to write a summary of chapter one of Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” and it gave me a thorough comprehensible piece of writing. However, there are some limitations with the program as it does not give citations. There are also ways to prevent students from using ChatGPT by making certain assignment requirements that ask for more personal touches, as that is something the AI still lacks.

Another concern of mine is how this AI is just the beginning. Throughout the past century, machines have slowly been replacing humans in the work force. Will ChatGPT do the same? Perhaps, yes, but I still think it is a long way until the AI fully emulates human thinking. The one advantage we have over it is the fact that we are human. We can be irrational and personal, and I think that is something that we will always have over the machines.