Personal Development Plan
Undertaking the multimedia unit of study is giving me a good insight about the development technology in education, and at the same I am enjoying this revolutionary teaching through with technology.
Today’s classrooms enforce teachers to incorporate technology in to planning, organising, delivering and evaluating instructions. Students also expect their teachers to deliver the lesson using technology such as interactive whiteboards or other educational videos, besides written and verbal as it happens in the traditional teaching practice. The implementation of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in the Australian classrooms was funded through Investing in Our School initiative (2005-2007).
After attending an afternoon professional development at the and watching the passions of teachers in their learning journey of technology, I gained my confidence to learn technology to improve my teaching practice when I go back to teaching in class. I also attended a debate topic: “in the digital era, should information be withheld from public”? at the Curtin University (Wednesday, 10/9/2013). It was interesting to see the debate between those who are affirmative that the information should be kept from public especially in the defence point of view. While the other opponents say that the information should not be withheld from the public, simply because the society needs information to keep up to date. However, the negative side suggested that the information should be transparent, accountable and justice.
Sweeney (2008) pointed out that the installation of IWBs was done rapidly followed by the professional developments to provide understanding the use of technology in particular IWBs.
“the insufficient of understanding the technology of IWBs has motivated the majority of school leaders and educators to seek support from academics and professional associations to help them achieve the potential benefits. Indeed, teachers are calling for developmental frameworks to develop their practice.”
It is interesting to look at the brief history of computers, which was originally only used for personal purposes (i.e. personal computer = PC) to become more sophisticated and useful like IWBs. This tool enables teachers to share their teaching material to the students in the classroom.
A brief history of computers
The history of computer development is often referred to in terms of the five generations of computing devices ranging from the early development of vacuum tubes to the more current development of artificial intelligence devices (Campbell-Kelly & Aspray, 1997).
• First.Generation.–.1940-1956: Vacuum tubes
• Second.Generation.–.1956-1963: Transistors
• Third.Generation.–.1964-1971: Integrated circuits
• Fourth.Generation.–.1971-Present: Microprocessors
Fifth.Generation.–.Present and beyond: Artificial intelligence
http://www.igi-global.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/gateway/chapter/full-text-pdf/30164
Even though learning ‘hardware’ in the computer components is confusing, I personally think that it is important to the major components of hardware in the computer system and the function and its interaction between the components.
A common analogy is used to compare the operation a computer to that of a manufacturing factory. One of the component category of the computer hardware is Computer Central processing Unit (CPU). (Campbell-Kelly & Aspray, 1997)
The CPU or the ‘brain’ of the computer is the actual computations and controls all other hardware components. According to Campbell-Kelly & Aspray (1997), CPU runs at a ‘certain clock speed’ in generation to processing power. In regard to processing power, the number of calculations per second is determined to function a CPU able to perform which is expressed in Hertz (denoted as HZ).”
For me, the person who invented the complex mathematics calculation to make this tool is useful for multipurpose from its function as an education to the entertainment tool.
From my reading to complete this assignment I find that to see how a small thing which is a software of computer simulations involving movement and animation, can create a sophisticated roller coaster graphical computer simulation up to 456ft (139) of Kingda Ka roller coaster in the United States that was built in May 2005.
In the technical term of the roller coaster technology, Chan and Black (2006) said:
the roller coaster graphical computer simulation allows students to learn the functional relation between the height of the roller coaster cars in the gravity field and the kinetic and potential energy by having students move the slider at the bottom of the screen to move the roller coaster cars along the peaks and valleys of the track and simultaneously see the resulting changes in kinetic and potential energy shown in the animation of the bar graph changes. Thus one variable (the height in the gravity field) is directly manipulated by movement (of the student’s hand and mouse) and the other two variables (kinetic and potential energy) are shown by animated changes in the bar graph.
http://link.springer.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-5716-0.pdf
