CEDO 525 Week 2 Strategies

Cues, Questions, & Advanced Organizers
After reading this chapter in the text, I realized that I employ many of the strategies suggested. I usually start out a new chapter/concept with a KWL. I found it to be extremely easy to set up in a Google Doc, make it a public document, post it to my wiki, and direct my students to fill in the K & W section prior to starting the unit. At the end of the unit, the students can then go back into the KWL Google Doc and fill in the L (What I Learned) section. It is a nice summary of the knowledge gained over the course of the unit and also a great way to clarify or clear up any misconceptions that might show up in the "Learned" section. In addition, I provide the students with a skeleton outline that they fill in while we are talking about a particular topic. The skeleton outline includes the key terms and the basics of the main points, and students are then able to fill in the missing information or add details where needed. Many of my students have opted to fill in this information right on the computer rather than have a "hard copy" of their notes. This electronic form of notes is nice because they can add links or pictures to their notes for more explanation; they can also upload their notes to Google Docs or email them to themselves to have at home or school. Another tool I use on a regular basis is graphic organizers like Webspiration or Mindmeister. I really like the powerful additions that Mindmeister has - adding links, pictures, videos, etc. The students are able to summarize or brainstorm using this tool. They are also able to answer the essential questions that are pulled from the unit. The students know that if they can answer those essential questions that the concepts have been mastered. As described in the text, I think using multimedia is also a great way "activate prior knowledge and develop a mental model to understand new information (Pitler, 82). In my Web Tools class when I'm introducing a new web application, also head out to YouTube to find a short explanatory video. I really enjoy the "In Plain English" videos by CommonCraft. They do a great job of explaining a concept/application in such simple terms and allow the students to make those connections or predictions.

Nonlinguistic Representation
The first question that pops into my mind after reading the first two pages of this chapter is, "Hmmm, how can I convince my principal to let me buy a Wii for my B&IT department?" I can tell him that it is to improve my nonlinguistic learning activities. Now...if only there were games that relate to my content area?!? Maybe there are...I guess I've never looked! :) The section that sticks with me most in this chapter is the "Multimeda" section. While reflecting on my class, both past and present, most of my students respond the most to multimedia. One tool that I've been playing with and allowing my students to play with is Prezi. It is a powerful tool that allows the use of multimedia - pictures, text, videos, links, etc, and the author organizes all of the information on a canvas rather than individual slides. This allows the author and viewers to zoom in and zoom out on the details of the concept being presented and get a great sense of relationship with all of the information in the presentation.

Summarizing & Notetaking
"Remember that one of the generalizations from McREL's research on note taking is that the more notes taken, the better, and one of the recommendations for classroom practice is that students should be taught a variety of note-taking formats." This point resonates with me; thinking back to my years in primary, secondary, and post-secondary school, I don't remember a teacher ever teaching me how to take effective notes; nor have I, now as the teacher, ever taken time to teach this important skill. I provide tools and different applications for the students to take notes but I haven't ever taught the students how to filter through the information to decide what to write down in order to create "good notes" to study from at a later time. Hmmmm, interesting & something to think about. Another point from Chapter 6 that jumps out at me (regarding "Multimedia") is this: "When students experience multimedia, they sometimes get caught up in the entertainment factor and neglect the critical analysis of the content necessary to create useful notes they can use for further study. When teachers introduce multimedia into their classrooms, they must ensure that students stay focused on distinguishing trivial content from essential content, coalescing minor points into major themes, and personalizing their notes based on their learning styles." Having students use multimedia for summarizing and notetaking, many times, like the text mentions, the students get caught up in the fun-ness of the application/process and need to be reminded or redirected back to the task at hand. I usually let the students take the few minutes to be caught up in the "entertainment factor" so they can get it out of their system; if I allow them a few minutes to enjoy the tool and explore, they are more likely to stay on task once I gather them back and redirect their attention back to the summary/notes/project/etc.