Kiosk Reflection

After completing the kiosk project and being able to view the ones that others have put together I have found a new appreciation for the task. It was cool to see the other ideas that were put into place. I liked the really cool pictures that were added as backgrounds to the kiosks because they really enhanced the look and feel of the slides. Also the way that people coordinated their transition buttons with the themes for their kiosks was fun as well. The sounds and videos that were used were also helped to supplement the information that was provided, really pulling the project together. Considering that this project would be used with children it is a good idea to make everything fun and appealing, great job everyone.
As far as I am concerned in completing this project, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. At first it felt as though it was going to be a lot of work to meet all of the requirements. However, once I actually got started it was not that bad. I did have a little trouble getting a table that I found on the internet to go into the power point slides but that was fixed with little effort by the instructor. Also the only other difficulties that I had were just getting everything to flow and have the transition buttons go to the correct slides. Given the fact that I have a fear of computers and tasks that seem high tech I believe that this task turned out to be not a huge headache after all.
My group did our kiosk on Health and I feel that it is very appropriate for a career working with children. As far as other kiosks go it would be great to make other ones like it just on different topics. Kiosks can be a great alternative way to learn information on a specific topic. I would suggest that children complete them for a homework assignment but you can never be sure as to who has at home computer access and who does not. It would be a great supplemental activity to use when students complete their regular in class work. It would be a way to engage these children and keep them from bothering other children who are still working. I feel that the kiosk assignment has a lot of potential in a classroom and it is up to the teacher as to how creative they want to get with it.

Engaging Concept Mapping Activities

There is a software program avaliable to the public that allows for the creation of concept maps or flow charts and it is called Inspiration. This program can help students and teachers to organize their ideas and information so that they are clear to everyone else around them. Also a concept map can be a great way to make the facts visually appealing to thte audience. Students will enjoy being able to produce a concept map on the computer and add interesting pictures to supplement the ideas presented.



Another great way that this program can be used is by having it serve as an assessment tool for a certain unit. If you are doing a unit on the scientific process you may ask your students to create a concept map based on the scientific process to check for understanding of the process. Once the students are familiar with the way in which Inspiration works they can hopefully be comfortable enough to show you their understanding of the concept and not of the program itself. One cool way to use this program with the entire class is to work together as a class to create a concept map on the board or a large piece of paper. Then the teacher can go back and put it on the computer so that the entire class can have a copy of their creation or you can produce a larger class size version to display in the room. Another option is to have the students offer suggestions as to other ways to use this program. This is a great way to get the students involved in their own learning.