Group 4 Technologies Reflection

Museumbox

SWOT Analysis

Strengths ·         Easy to learn and navigate ·         Bright and colourful ·         Allows you to add links, images, video’s and text ·         Searchable database of images and sounds	Weaknesses   ·         Found that pictures, video’s and file must be uploaded, they can’t simply be linked. ·         It would not let me access the program without paying a subscription fee
Opportunities   ·         Would be a great tool if it was free ·         Can be used for research and it would be great for your visual and auditory learners. When a student submits a box, a teacher can look over it, make edits, and return it to the student for further editing.	Threats   Time consuming

Google Earth

SWOT Analysis

Strengths ·         Google Earth is completely free to download and use. ·         Google Earth allows a user to zoom and see images of the planet in great detail. ·         Numerous layers of data are available to enhance the Google Earth experience. ·         Google Earth is updated on an ongoing basis over the Internet, so it is generally up to date information ·         The Google Earth community is constantly adding fascinating new and free content to Google Earth.

Weaknesses   ·         Google Earth has so much data, you need a high speed Internet connection to use it effectively. ·         If you view many layers at once on Google Earth, your view as you zoom may be jumbled. ·         The side bar has many choices and can be somewhat cumbersome to use.

Opportunities   ·         One of the main features I liked from Google earth was its ability to bring places and things in text books alive, and make them real to my students. ·         The program is capable of covering a fast array of topics for your students and many great lesson plans can be found online. ·         Helps to create global citizenship amongst your learners

Threats   ·         Some of the user-added Google Earth points of interest are useless or incorrect. ·         Some areas of the planet are not available on Google Earth in high resolution or high detail. ·         If appropriate scaffolding is not used, I feel that students may get lost and too time consumed with other great features of this program.

Online Concept Mapping

Concept maps can also be used to make student thinking visible. When students construct and submit their understanding of key concepts and their linkages through a concept map, it becomes clear whether in fact the students understand the conceptual framework around a topic of study.
SWOT Analysis

Strengths     Concept maps help students focus on the "big picture", enabling them to devote more of their time to conceptual understanding rather than rote learning   Concept maps encourage students to make valid connections among concepts   They enable students to represent graphically their knowledge, and to share it with the teacher and other students   They shift the emphasis from isolated facts to theoretical frameworks of related concepts

Weaknesses     Comparisons among students are more difficult because concept maps tend to reveal the idiosyncratic way that students view a scientific explanation, as a result...   Evaluation can become more time-consuming for the instructor, especially in large classes, unless some variation (such as Select & Fill-in) is adopted   If you score maps, you must use a consistent (and tested) scheme

Opportunities   In addition to their role as assessment tools, concept maps offer a useful way to help students "learn how to learn"; they also serve as useful vehicles for course development and as graphic organisers.

Threats   Students who have developed a strong facility for rote learning of verbal knowledge sometimes find concept maps intimidating   Constructing concept maps is a demanding cognitive task that requires training

This is my unfinished (purposely unfinished for my students to expand on) Bubbl.us concept map.