R-Directed Thinkiing

What do you need to change in your thought process or learning style(s)
to begin to adapt to R-Directed Thinking for the purpose of creating 21st Century learning environments for students?

I would like to answer this question not as what I need to change, but what other people need to change in order to adapt R-Directed Thinking in learning environments.
The author of this article makes a great point in the beginning of his article when he says things should be "not just functional but also DESIGN." This is a great statement to make because I believe that so many educators are making multimedia presentations for their students without having any design background what so ever. Because of this, teachers don't know how to make things look visually pleasing, not to add too much (such as sound and motion graphics), and organize information in a user friendly way.
All of these things make it very difficult for the end-user (aka student) to actually learn anything because they are so distracted by how bad it looks. If an image on a screen uses very bright colors, sound files, moving images, and/or flashing links, how is a student suppose to pay attention to what the teacher is trying to teach?
Therefore, I feel that if teachers are going to be creating multimedia presentations for their students then they need to change by taking courses in designing for multimedia. Taking a course will teach them how to layout a page, what colors to use, and keep the viewer interested without overbearing him with sound and motion graphics.

iPod, uPod Response

I really liked my article and my discussion questions so I'm responding to myself...

Despite the fact that anyone and everyone has an iPod, are Podcasts even a good thing- is the fact that anyone can make their own Podcasts adding to the large amount of spam on the Internet?
I feel that Podcasts are contributing to the large amount of spam on the Internet because of that fact that anyone can make their own. Since this is a new technology, there aren't any guidelines to follow to let you know what makes a good Podcast and what doesn't. Also, the fact that people can talk about whatever they want and post it on the Internet makes me feel that there is more of a chance that it would be something unimportant.

What are some useful ways to incorporate Podcasts into the classroom?
Despite my answer to the above question, I think that Podcasts could be a very useful tool for both teacher and students. A teacher could post her Podcast on the web every week (perhaps on Sundays) for her students to listen to. She could go over the previous week's lesson so that when the students came in on Monday they could pick up where they left off.
I also think that having students create their own Podcasts is an interesting idea for project-based multimedia learning. Students have to work with computer equipment to record and edit their audio file as well as the publishing software to put it on the Internet.

Week 6 Thoughts

As a digital media major, I feel that I am struggling with applying educational theory to my projects. I haven't taken any educational classes before and the only teaching experience I had was when I worked in Drew Elementary School last year teaching a Technology class. Therefore, I'm basically taking what I know from that experience and using common sense to apply it to my project ideas. Hopefully, this is okay and my projects are successful.

Web 2.0

This week we looked at two Web 2.0 tools that could be used in the classroom, Gliffy and Wikispaces. I did not like using Gliffy for many reasons. Firstly, I didn't even know what it was used for and when I looked it up on their site (specifically the FAQ), there was no explanation, just that it was a great way for people to add to something that you made. Secondly, I couldn't figure out how to use the program. There were a lot of different drop downs on the side with a lot of icons, but I had no idea what any of them meant. Using the tools themselves was another struggle. I tried messing with changing the font color, etc, but the program behaved very buggy causing me to only become more frustrated with the whole project. Overall, the program may have looked visually pleasing, but the usability was horrible.

I really enjoyed using Wikispaces. The program was very easy to figure out how to use. I was able to add/format texts, hyperlinks, pictures, and video. When I was all done and published it, everything was still aligned correctly resulting in a professional looking page. I think that this tool would be excellent to use in a classroom. You could start something for your students and then they could easily add to it whether it be with texts, pictures, videos, sound clips, etc.