Chapter 2

Chapter 2 was about planning for technology-enhanced instruction. One of the major factors in this, according to the chapter is the Dynamic Instructional Design (DID) model of design and the concept of feedback. Between formative feedback (feedback during an activity) and Summative feedback (feedback given after a lesson is over), instructors should be able to go back and revise their lessons to continually tweak the lesson to become more effective in the future.

The only part that applied solely to technology in instruction in this chapter came at the end, where the authors talk about planning for technology. The biggest thing to keep in mind in this part of planning lessons is to know what types of technology will be needed to successfully complete the lesson. I was disappointed that the planning section did not also mention that a backup plan should be in place in case the technology fails.

The lab portion of this chapter focused on the use of PowerPoint. I was already familiar with this program before the class, so most of my focus was, again, on finding time to use the Mac version of the program. There were some differences, but nothing so radically different that I could not figure out where different functions were.

PowerPoint can be a useful aid in presenting to the class, but we should keep in mind that sometimes computers can fail, so backup plans need to be in place for what to do with the class time should this happen. Some general rules should be used in presentations as well; not the least of which is to keep information on the slides to a minimum, so the student is not overwhelmed. Also, we should remember to use as much of the multimedia ability as possible in PowerPoint to appeal to all the learning styles we can.