Digital Blog Post #G

Three Concepts to Reflect

Chapter nine, "Expressing Creativity with Multimedia Technologies" explains how useful multimedia can present educational information. Being a new preschool (VPK) teacher, multimedia is a very useful way to teach in my classroom. Multimedia means "the presentation of material using both words and pictures" (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). Examples of multimedia that I use in my classroom is music (to dance and for learning how to follow instruction), visual word wall, circle time reading, and voice-over books. I find multimedia very beneficial, especially working with four year-olds so they have a stimulating classroom experience.

The second term I found interesting, and was not far behind "multimedia", is multimodal learning. Multimodal learning "happens when teachers combine spoken words with visuals or written text with audio or utilize simulations and models" (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). I found this interesting because I think this term targets all learning styles. Whether a child is a visual or audio learner, multimodal learning allows for all kinds of styles. This makes it a better experience for the student. An example of when I use multimodal learning in my classroom is when we do our calendar during circle time. Not only do I have a visual calendar with days of the week and months, but we also repeat our days of the week/months out loud. This way students can see it and hear it.

After looking through the rest of the chapter, the third term I found interesting was information presentation design which is "the arrangement of written and pictorial information so that its intended audiences can easily and clearly understand it" (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). Even though the other two terms were ones I apply in my classroom, this term stood out to me because it is not something I use. Although it may be hard to use PowerPoint in a VPK classroom, I think it is a useful tool for older students. It is visually stimulating for students and helps the teacher stay organized.

Chapter nine has to be one of my favorite chapters to read. Over the course of the school year, I have gone from working with one year olds to working with VPK and I have learned so many teaching strategies. This chapter I easily related to with techniques.

To go along with the chapter, he is a visual to accompany the blog post:
http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/9220367

References
Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.