Chapter 11 Response

AUDIO
     One traditional audio technology is the audiocassette. In my future science classroom, I would most likely use the tapes to play old recorded lectures that are very interesting and compare them to the newer audio technologies, such as a CD. Also, I could hook up the audiocassette to a Ruben's tube to illustrate sound waves to physics students.
     From the emerging audio technologies, my favorite is Internet Audio. Simply, I could integrate this in my classroom by assigning students a level of pitch and have them combine parts of older songs only at that pitch to create a new song. This would be a fun activity to show the variety in sound waves and the limit of the human ear. 
VISUAL
     An older form of visual technology in schools is using models. I can easily illustrate many things to my students in science using these models, however the best would be to show how big the planets are by comparing very small things to very large things. Also, I could demonstrate how the earth and moon rotate around the sun to give us phases of the moon and the four seasons in a year.
     On the other hand, a digital projector would also be a very cool method of illustrating size difference between planets and the sun. I could put on one piece of paper the sun and draw Jupiter scaled down to size on the sun. Then, I could draw Saturn and Neptune on Jupiter and repeatedly do this decreasing in size until I get down to the smallest planet. Then, I could start with the sun at zero zoom and zoom in to illustrate how small all bodies of the solar system are compared to each other, so that when I do zoom in, I continually get smaller but also zoom in on another planet. In this way, I could both use a model or a digital projector to teach about astronomy.

Chapter 6 Response

I would prefer to teach in a classroom with more digital technologies available. Although these devices cost more money, it seems well worth it. First, the portability of digital technologies such as wireless internet, E-books, USB drives, and laptops are very helpful when teaching. For example, Wi-Fi helps to "research an interesting insect…while the students are on a field trip rather than wait until the next day when they return to their classrooms (157). As shown, these "wireless devices" will tremendously improve education by allowing students to do more wherever. Another reason I would rather be in a classroom with more digital technologies is the ability to instruct in a more fun and creative way. One example of this is using a whiteboard or a scanner to illustrate one piece of work to every student at one time, such as an article from a newspaper or someone's spectacular work from in the class without the hassle of passing the work around. The scanners can even " turn printed pages into digital documents that can be altered" eliminating the extra work of retyping up the printed page (146).Overall, it seems the cost for digital technologies does not come close to outweighing the advantages for the students' education.