Wow! My very first blog post, ever…I’m so excited I think I will play with the formatting tools… 😉
Ok now that I have that out of my system, I had better find something worth reflecting on. Luckily there was planety of good insight in this week’s readings. In particular I quite liked the ideas laid out by Bates and Poole in Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. I decided to see how two of the technologies that I am looking to implement in my teaching this year stack up to the questions raised by the SECTIONS criteria.
The tools that I am considering using as part of my teaching are www.masteringphyics.com and www.physics-online.com.
I was very pleased that I was able to answer in favour of these technologies with respect to nearly all of the criteria. They both seem particularily well suited for the Students and teaching and Learning criteria. They are very appropriate both in content and delivery as well as fitting in to my own current teaching practices.
It is perhaps a sign of the times that nearly all of my concerns were centered on costs. While I have been able to secure funding for this year for both resources, there are simply no guarantees going forward that the money will always be there. I was impressed that the costs sections takes into account teacher time as a cost – thank you! So it should be. It would be devatating to invest a great deal of time and effort to implement these technologies only to have them snatched away by budgetary shortfalls.
The only trouble is I will likely not no the true cost of implementation until firmly ensconced in it…let’s hope they live up to expectations!
One reply on “SECTIONS Reflections…”
I’m thrilled you’re already finding applicability of these readings! I find I go back to them again and again.
The playing with formatting? Not so much (ow my eyes!).
🙂