Media and Teaching

I feel that media is really a mixed bag. I find for instance the use of powerpoint in classes can make a lesson more clear, but it can also make it a bit more dull. It creates a very organized environment, but not an engaging one. While Prezi is more flashy than Powerpoint, I don’t think that it is really all that more engaging. The reason for this is that I think how engaging a class may or may not be is dependent on how interactive it is not how flashy it is.

With that said, sometimes you need to cover a certain set of concepts or ideas within a lesson or within a part of a lesson. In those cases, I can see the utility of a powerpoint or a prezi as a unifying force. So as a teacher I would make some use of powerpoint, but would be careful about its overuse.

Other forms of media are useful. I think, in the current online age, it would be silly not to use the occasional video clip to illustrate some point or another. I do think that helps break things up. So I do think I would make use of media in this sense frequently. With regards to this, I do always like when teachers have a moodle page, and I think I would try to create some kind of site for my classes in which I can interact with my students online.

One of the more good uses of technology that I have seen as student came when I was was observing a middle-school class. In this class, while students were reading from a novel, the teacher played appropriate music in the background that I thought made things more engaging. So I could see myself occasionally putting music on in the background.