This last week, after the anchored instruction symposium, I opened to other perspectives on teaching and that made me review my own ways.  The Jasper series offer a great set of tool to teach mathematical concepts.  It does ask the learner to be more involved in it’s own learning and go through a series of challenges to demonstrate it’s learning.  Is it appropriate for every learners?  Following some of the discussions in our group, I noticed some really good aspects discussed by colleagues.

There is been some discussions around the Jasper series being video textbooks but also great learning tools when well used.  I think that using that kind of technology is a great opportunity for our learners but we need to be careful on using it.  The tools can’t replace the teacher and they won’t teach by themselves.  These kind of technology “afford students opportunities to create problem structure as they solve the problem, potentially leading to more opportunities for group interactions that support generative learning.” (Shyu, 2000)  Teacher has to build on these discoveries and quest to explore more concepts and extrapolate to greater understandings.  Real life situations offer multiple learning affordances that teachers can apply in classroom to better solidify the learners foundation.

Reference

• Shyu, H. Y. C. (2000). Using video‐based anchored instruction to enhance learning: Taiwan’s           experience. British Journal of Educational Technology, 31(1), 57-69.                                             http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8535.00135