Blog 5

For the visual critique I chose to use http://www.emory.edu/home/index.html. This website serves as the homepage for the Emory University. Chapter 6 of the book, outlined that a well designed website should be navigated easily, user friendly, and informative. It should stay away from being too complicated. Some pointers discussed were to avoid using bright colors, bold text colors, or using more than one text type. Keeping it simple and straightforward gives the website a clean professional look, and it is appealing to the eye. Emory University’s homepage is very informative, simple, and user friendly. It definitely uses a majority of the rules outlined in chapter 6.

Within the Classroom environment I believe that using presentation software positively adds to the educational enhancement of the given material. I believe that the most effective way for children to learn information is by visual and audio techniques. This allows more opportunities for success for the students, and it also strengthens/develops organizational skills. In my personal experience I’ve discovered that an effective way of learning new material is by teaching it to somebody else. If you can clearly explain a subject to another person it reinforces the material, and it will be easily memorized. Although I believe that there are many advantages to using presentation software within the classroom, there are disadvantages as well. In order for students to use these programs they have to be independent learners. Some students may not have the will power to sit quietly and complete the given task; they may view presentation programs as a tool to get off task. Technology in itself is a major disadvantage, because there is always room for technical difficulties, or errors.

In order to support student learning I would use Microsoft Power Point. This program allows the instructor to use a multitude of resources, in order to educate students. Using the visual components such as clip art, inputting videos, adding audio dialogue are all things that I would incorporate within the lesson plan. For example, if we were learning about past presidents, I would include a visual picture of the president, an audio caption of some of their accomplishments, as well as a video if possible of them while they were president. All of these learning strategies will aid them in grasping the concepts.