Wk 14

The three of Gee's principles that I found most interesting were active, critical learning principle, practice principle, and multimodal principle. The active, critical learning principle caught my attention because of its focus on keeping the attention of the learner. I believe it is very important to keep the learner active and interested to ensure they receive the information. Next, was the practice principle. Again, in this principle, the learner is remaining active with many different types of practice material. There is a lot of truth to the old saying that practice makes perfect. And finally, I found the multimodal principle quite interesting. Students each learn in their own way. Using this multimodal principle helps to ensure that each student is given an opportunity to grasp the material by the way it is presented.

I believe the urban simulator would be the most used in my classroom. This type of simulator will allow the students to create everything involved. They would be given the opportunity to produce an entire city from the ground up and input data to get a simulated outcome of their choices. There doesn't seem to be much of a better way to get your head wrapped around a subject and see its impact. I feel that it would be necessary to know what age the students are when deciding on what variables they would be allowed to manipulate. I plan to teach at a high school level so I believe the students could benefit from manipulation of every available variable.

I believe that Gee has many principles that could benefit us as educators. Gee's principles allow some insight into different variables that we should look at when determining ways to present information to our class. Another great example of various presentation methods is the use of simulators. The different types of simulators discussed in the text allow for different approaches as well. I like the idea of teaching with hands-on technology. This keeps the students actively involved and typically enhances learning.

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.