Week+2+McLuhan's+Tetrad

Week 2 McLuhan's Tetrad
Marisa Roberts' posting: The technology that I chose was responders or clickers. These devices have made it easier for teachers to gather data quickly. They provide immediate feedback as to whether or not students need to be re-taught a lesson. Responders could potentially make obsolete some paper and pencil exams. The responders also engage students more in the lesson or content being presented. As for retrieving/rekindling, this made me think of how voting has been done for years. When done by raising of hands, it is only a matter of moments after votes have been counted to know the results. I am not sure about what it reverses yet. Maybe in the near future, students will just have to look at an answer on a screen to select a choice.

In response to Chris' posting about the SMART document camera, it is a wonderful technology tool to use in the classroom. I use this tool in my classroom and I do not know how I could have taught without it. This piece of technology allows students to be able to view an image that is very small, write on it, save it, and look at an image in great detail. I do agree that 3D or holographic technology could potentially replace this technology in the future.

For this week’s application assignment, I chose to use the SMART document cameras that my county recently purchased for each teacher. The document cameras worked very well with the McLuhan’s Tetrad. The SMART document cameras enhance the teacher’s ability to view and edit documents, and to project high resolution pictures to the class. The document cameras basically make the overhead light-projectors obsolete, and to me the cameras retrieve ‘show and tell’ style learning in the classroom since anything placed under the document camera can be viewed, zoomed upon, highlighted, edited, and photographed for later use. I believe that 3D, or holographic technology could possibly replace smart document cameras in the future. The cameras already have a small 3D component, but the technology is still under-developed and needs more time to grow.
 * Chris Stewart's posting**:

The clickers mentioned by Marisa are a great way to get the students involved and engaged. My county just recently purchased the SMART Response Systems for each school, and I am in the process of training my teachers on how to effectively use them. I have already created about 50 or so SMART Response assessments, and have integrated the assessments into SMART Board lessons to encourage the teachers to use the technology. I will also be providing a training session next week on how to set up a classroom set of clickers and how to build a lesson using the SMART Response software.

The technology that I selected for this week is the heart rate monitors. Heart Rate Monitors return an emphasis towards physical activity. Too often, students get consumed with the activity they are participating in and lose sight of the principal goal, which is too lead a healthy lifestyle. The use of HRM puts the emphasis back on staying active, regardless of the activity. In addition, this tool can help indicate a potential heart or cardiovascular problem. This tool gives the students a better all-around physical education in their grasp. Through this technology, we as teachers have a better ability to motivate student learning, place more importance on maintaining a healthy lifestyle and therefore a healthy heart, as well as provide a different learning style from which to learn through.
 * Rich Vleck's Posting:**

In regards to Chris’ post above, it is amazing to marvel at the lifespan of the overhead projector. SMART technologies have made the process of the overhead not only antiquated and obsolete, but are almost laughable in appearance now. Back just a few years ago however, they were a necessity that particular teachers could not live without. I feel that the document camera is so beneficial because of the clarity it can display, all while keeping the tedious process of making transparencies out of the process.

For this week’s assignment in creating a McLuhan’s tetrad, I went with the new technology at my school that is currently emerging called the Lady Bug document camera. According to McLuhan’s tetrad, the document camera enhances a multipurpose use of projection and can save files. This technology obsoletes the overhead where it can just project an image on transparent paper. It rekindles the use of projection by being able to project any object or item. It also reverses the use of projection from transparencies to tangible objects.
 * Malissa Sauciunas Posting:**

I believe this technology can impact teaching and learning in that it is a versatile use of technology. Images can be projected on the board from any text or object. The camera has an extensive zoom that has auto focus lenses to quickly adjust to save on time. This is great for a science class to use as a large microscope so that all of the students can see a large projected image. It can also freeze images and create an animated show. This is great for growth progression of a flower over time and speed the process with still images. It is great for teachers in that anything they display can be saved automatically to a file to post on a website. This is great if students are absent they can pull the notes electronically. My school is presently trying to acquire more of this technology so that more teachers can take advantage of its value.

In regards to Chris's response I also chose a document camera as well called the Lady Bug. This would be very engaging for students in that the projections can go above and beyond a traditional overhead. The 3D component sounds very interesting. I will have to look into that to see if the Lady Bug camera has the same component. This would be great to visualize objects for the visual students. In math, this would be great since students have trouble seeing what they are solving. When I teach the geometry components, this would be great to show the 3D picture for students to gain a better understanding other than posting a 2D picture on the overhead. - Malissa