Visual Teaching Alliance

Timothy Gangwer's Blog – January 2010 Archive (17)

Born With Half a Brain, Woman Living Full Life

FALLS CHURCH, Virginia (CNN) -- Michelle Mack has turned medical thinking upside down.

The right side of Michelle Mack's brain rewired itself to take over functions controlled by the left.

Born with only half a brain, Mack can speak normally, graduated from high school and has an uncanny knack for dates.

At 27, doctors determined that the right side of her brain had essentially rewired itself to make up for function… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 29, 2010 at 10:36am — No Comments

Industry Makes Pitch That Smartphones Belong in Classroom

SAN FRANCISCO — The cellphone industry has a suggestion for improving the math skills of American students: spend more time on cellphones in the classroom.

Students at Southwest High School in Jacksonville, N.C., were given cellphones with programs to help with algebra studies.

A teacher at Southwest High School in Jacksonville, N.C., said the special cellphones helped students improve their math skills.

At a… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 29, 2010 at 12:30am — No Comments

Right-Brained Online Learning

>Right-brained learners will generally do better in an online learning environment than those learners who are predominantly left-brain learners. No one is exclusively right- or left-brained, but most everyone has preferential tendencies toward which side of the brain is used more often when learning or interacting with others. Some individuals are what is called whole-brained, using both sides of the brain equally. Schools have traditionally… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 28, 2010 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Visual Literacy & Visual Thinking

Visual Literacy

Visual literacy in education develops a student's visual literacy - their ability to comprehend, make meaning of, and communicate through visual means, usually in the form of images or multimedia.

Images have always been involved in learning with pictures and artwork to help define history or literary works. However, visual literacy in education is becoming a much broader and extensive body of learning and… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 27, 2010 at 10:27am — No Comments

Visualization

What is visualizing, anyway? Well, here's our fancy educators' definition:

Readers create images in their minds that reflect or represent the ideas in the text. These images may include any of the five senses and serve to enhance understanding of the text.

But for your students, try this:

Create a movie in my mind while I'm reading.

So what are we trying to do here? Here's how you'll know when your students get it!

Learning… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 25, 2010 at 10:15am — No Comments

Opening the Door: Teaching Students to Use Visualization to Improve Comprehension

Visualizing text is a proven way to improve reading comprehension. It is a technique that can be taught using this simple, step-by-step strategy from literacy consultant Cathy Puett Miller. Included: Tips and resources for developing students' comprehension skills.

"Proficient readers spontaneously and purposely create mental images while and after they read. The images emerge from all five senses as well as the emotions and are anchored in a reader's prior knowledge."

-- Keene… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 22, 2010 at 10:24am — No Comments

"Awakening Your Visual Vocabulary" — (It's All About The Thinking)

"Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words ... Show me" — So says Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady." From lack of use, we dulled our ability to think in visual terms. We need to awaken a thinking that is natural to all of us from the time we are children. However, words come easier to us as adults. Our focus shifts from the speaker, or the presenter, to the listener, or the receiver. Thinking in "show me" terms requires us to move to the creative, playful part of our brains.

THE… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 21, 2010 at 10:53am — No Comments

Study Skills for Students with ADHD/ADD and Visual Learning Disabilities

Imagine being diagnosed with both ADHD, ADD and a visual learning disability. For ADHD/ADD students with a visual learning disorder, differentiating instruction will require additional study skills and learning techniques to process information.

Study Skills and Techniques

Students with ADHD/ADD deal with behavioral and academic disabilities that can compound their ability to acquire learning through traditional instructional practices. Couple that with a visual… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 20, 2010 at 1:14pm — No Comments

Can We Afford Web Access for All?

When you pay your phone bill each month, a small percentage goes to a federal fund that subsidizes phone service for people in remote areas and for the poor. Now the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering expanding this $7 billion Universal Service Fund to give all Americans access to high-speed Internet.

President Obama recently announced his plan to contribute $2 billion in stimulus funds to the effort, but creating truly universal broadband access could cost as… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 18, 2010 at 11:18am — No Comments

Virtual Reality for ESL Students

ESL students who wear 3D goggles and gloves enter the CAVE (see appendix) room that is a multi-person, room-sized virtual reality system consisting of three walls and a floor. As the language teacher starts the program, all students wear special lightweight glasses that allow them to be in a huge and well-organized Wal-Mart. They can hold any product and put it into their shopping cart by using lightweight gloves. As students shop around, they can talk with other students or ask for some help… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 14, 2010 at 1:22pm — No Comments

Online v. Print Reading: Which One Makes Us Smarter?

It's no mystery that publications have been taking a beating as more and more people read their news on the Net. But there's a catch. The online info may be instant and abundant -- and in many cases free -- but it may come at a cost, says a new study published in the Journal of Research in Reading.

Study author Anne Mangen, an associate prof of literacy studies at Norway's University of Stavanger, says she discovered that reading online may not be as rewarding – or effective – as the… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 12, 2010 at 11:22am — No Comments

How to Use Digital Storytelling in Your Classroom

Storytelling is a vital skill with seemingly unlimited applications. Done well, it can have a magical effect -- moving, enlightening, or entertaining audiences of any size. We tell stories to woo lovers, calm children, or reassure ourselves. Lawyers rely on the power of storytelling to vividly re-create crimes to juries, archaeologists conjure former civilizations, and teachers make abstract concepts real to their students.

In today's digitized world, visual storytelling is a… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 11, 2010 at 12:17am — No Comments

Virtual Classroom: Second Life

Will Second Life be the next big thing in teaching? Tech expert Kathy Schrock discusses how it’s helping teachers improve their game right now.

When Kathy Schrock asked her school district to buy a virtual island, she faced a little skepticism. Eventually, she got her way. Now Schrock is the proprietor of Lighthouse Learning Island, a state-of-the-art center for tech education and professional development for teachers, located… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 8, 2010 at 12:15pm — No Comments

Transforming the Classroom Using Online Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is no longer limited to video games. Now, educators are turning their classrooms into a virtual environment to enhance learning. Research has uncovered that at least 300 universities around the world teach courses or conduct research using virtual technology, and it’s used in more than 80 percent of universities in the U.K. alone for development, teaching and/or learning activities. Virtual world technologies are being embraced by educators worldwide and are changing the way we… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 7, 2010 at 10:52am — No Comments

Smart Desks Make Sci-Fi A Reality In The Classroom

Schools are set for a Star Trek make-over thanks to the development of the world's first interactive classroom by experts at Durham University.

Researchers at the Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Group (TEL) are designing new learning environments using interactive multi-touch desks that look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone.

The team observed how students and teachers interact in classes and how Information Communications technology (ICT) could improve… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 6, 2010 at 10:20am — No Comments

Serious Games: Incorporating Video Games in the Classroom

Games designed using sound pedagogy actively engage the Net Generation in learning

Today’s schoolchildren bear the label Generation N or the Net Generation because they have grown up in a networked world where technology is not a novelty but normal in everyday life. Current research suggests Net Gen students are more likely to engage in online games than to interact with other students or the instructor when in face-to-face learning environments. The K–12 arena in… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 5, 2010 at 10:47am — No Comments

Educational Video Games Effective In Classroom If Certain Criteria Are Met

Playing and studying are not incompatible activities. A team of researchers from Madrid's Complutense University (UCM) looks to integrating virtual graphic adventures into online education platforms and analyzes the educational and technological aspects that they should have to promote expansion.

"Video games in virtual educational environments are a complement to traditional teaching for the student", Pablo Moreno-Ger, lead author of the study and member of the e-UCM educational… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on January 4, 2010 at 10:37am — No Comments