EdTechWalden

This site is extremely user friendly to those timid of technology. The free version has a variety of characters to choose from and scenarios to create a set-up, recap, or even demonstrate of a particular concept.

This site is geared to creating traditional posters in a modern way. I enjoy this site because it takes away the frustration of scissors and glue while adding awesome dimensions of videos and sound effects. From the content differentiation standpoint, Glogster can be used as a unit review, as an interactive timeline, or multimedia notes. Glogster allows the user to embed text, images, voice, sounds, and videos and share the product with an embed code or hyperlink.

From the creator's perspective, this sit handles the creative aspect of a presentation so one can focus more on the content. Animoto brings lessons to life with videos, images, and audio. An educator can create a presentation about historical significant people integrating well-known quotes or as an introduction tool to a new unit with a picture collage and text.

This website was chosen to show how to use technology to do brief classroom presentations. Part of the workshop will include an example of a blabberized topic and then teachers will navigate the site to see how simple it is. Showing an example and then allowing them to navigate the site to get a more personal experience promotes "active learning- because meaningful learning outcomes occur as a result of the learner's activity during learning."(p. 21)

This website was chosen to demonstrate how collaboration among students can be easily facilitated using free online sites. Using a blogging site is as easy as creating one. This site should also be considered learner-centered, blogging can "aid human cognition."(p.15) Blogging can be used to further develop ideas through collaboration. Having teachers create their own blogs during the workshop is another example of a hands-on behavioral activity.

This site, like most reading series, provides support for both teachers and students. However, the most intriguing part of this site is that it develops students' cognitive abilities by building prior knowledge about each author, each story's subject matter, and vocabulary skills. In addition, it supports learning outside of traditional classroom walls by providing access to web-based field trips that correlate with individual story's concepts.

Education City is an interactive website that helps students develop skills within Reading/Language Arts, Math, and Science classrooms. This site provides support for these subject areas by incorporating educational games and interactive lessons for teachers. Teachers can first introduce or review a concept as a whole/small group activity using their interactive whiteboards. Then, students can complete individualized activities on the website, or they can complete worksheets printed off from the site. The website correlates with state standards and is a great tool to use as a Response to Intervention (RTI) programs because it allows the teacher to track individual students' progress in each subject area. Education City is a learner-centered application because it focuses on cognitive growth of individual students by allowing teachers to differentiate instruction and provide support for special needs students.

This is a website that I have used for many years in both my general education first grade and special education classrooms. It provides individual short stories accompanied with songs, focused on basic phonetic and reading skills typically used in primary grades. I think this site to be very learner centered, since basic reading skills are regularly learned and this site can be facilitated as a strategy for building phonemic awareness skills in young children. It also is a wonderful tool for those older ELL students to learn and practice English. As Mayer stated, technology must be used in a way that is consistent with the way in which people learn (2009). Starfall.com provides strategies such as audio, songs and visuals to assist in students becoming better readers.

Starfall is an interactive site that helps students to learn how to read. Its primary goals are to help kindergarteners develop phonemic awareness, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary skills; however, it can also be used to help older students with special needs develop these skills as well. By integrating Starfall's activities, teachers meet the requirement of implementing learner-centered activities and are able to meet students' cognitive needs when learning how to read.

This multimedia artifact is a blogging site that provides a multitude of technology tools, tips, tricks, presentations, and "how-to's" of implementing technology in the classroom. The author of the blog demonstrates many different aspects of technology integration through the use of videos, presentations, words, and pictures. This site is definitely a more learner-centered approach to multimedia design as it contains many different visuals and auditory captions to cognitively challenge the learner. The site does focus on a certain technologies, but it is not about the technology, but how the technology is adapted to the learners. (Mayer, 2010)

This site provides the devices that I have access to that I would use to make a multimedia presentation to instruct how to use Photostory 3. The Interwrite hardware and software allows instructors to create lessons similar to Power Point but with the added ability to use the Interwrite School Pad to advance the presentation from anywhere in the room. The School Pad also allows for the instructor to annotate over the sides to highlight prominent features of Photostory. Interwrite is technology centered because the technology is driving the flow of instruction.

For my professional development multimedia workshop, my goal is to develop a training program about using Google Apps (Google Docs, in particular). The targeted audience is a group of K-12 classroom teachers. The workshop will help to familiarize teachers with how Google Docs is used as well as provide them with an opportunity to begin developing a Google Docs that they can use in the classroom. The Google for Educators site provides a wide range of information, examples of classroom uses of Google applications, and multimedia presentations for guided learning.

For my professional development multimedia workshop, my goal is to develop a training program about using Google Apps (Google Docs, in particular). The targeted audience is a group of K-12 classroom teachers. The workshop will help to familiarize teachers with how Google Docs is used as well as provide them with an opportunity to begin developing a Google Docs that they can use in the classroom. This website is supported by the Juniata College and provides a wide range of multimedia information, tutorials, and guides for using various Google applications.

For my professional development multimedia workshop, my goal is to develop a training program about using Google Apps (Google Docs, in particular). The targeted audience is a group of K-12 classroom teachers. The workshop will help to familiarize teachers with how Google Docs is used as well as provide them with an opportunity to begin developing a Google Docs that they can use in the classroom. This website is supported by the University of Minnesota and provides a wide range of multimedia information, tutorials, and guides for using various Google applications.

This multimedia artifact is a video that demonstrates how to effectively use clickers in the classroom. The video takes educators through a series of steps on using the clickers to promote a higher level of engagement with students. The steps include: how to create a good question, how to foster peer discussions, wrapping up the lesson, and moving forward. I believe this video is a more learner-centered approach to multi-media design as the focus is helping educators reach a deeper level of understanding on how to create a lesson for students that just happens to use clickers as a tool for delivery. A learner-centered approach should expand our cognitive capabilities and the technology is the tool. Mayer (2009)

The digital storyboard will give students an opportunity to tell a story based on the information which they have learned in class. Students will be able to use information from the outside sources and from research completed during internet searches. The focus of lesson planning in the use of this site is learner centered with the student drawing on prior knowledge to create their story utilizing current information studied.

This website is the training search site for eInstruction Interwrite tablet and CPS tools and software. It includes tutorials on various elements involved in using the tools along with video demonstrations, state standards implementation, assessment, and collaboration links to help educators effectively implement the technology in the classroom. Mayer (2009) categorizes multimedia design into two approaches- a technology-centered approach and a learner-centered approach. I believe this artifact could fall under both approaches to some degree. The technology-centered approach of this artifact is the "cutting-edge advances in multimedia technology." (Mayer, 2009 p. 10) The Interwrite tablet (Mobi) and CPS are the cutting-edge technologies that can provide the latest technology for teachers to use in the classroom. However, I feel, the site provides a stronger learner-centered approach with its design as the goal of the site is to aid human cognition and enhance human performance. (Mayer, 2009 p. 13)

This website examines propaganda as used by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945.