I was inspired recently by the keynote speaker at a Computer Using Educators (CUE) conference that I attended near the end of first semester. The speaker discussed Visual Literacy and how its use can help students become more successful. One example that she demonstrated was a cube with 6 pictures about her niece. The demonstration was to show us how pictures can be powerful tools to help remember information.
After viewing that example and the ability to recall several facts about the speaker’s niece, I decided that I should have my students make cubes to help me learn about them and assist me in learning their names. Second semester I had a new group of students in my Visual Basic class so that would be perfect. I searched for a program that was free that I could have my students use. I found cu3ox which does not make a cube but does have some of the same features of a cube. I asked my students to create their “cube” and I demonstrated one that I had created. I have not had an opportunity to have the students show the class their cubes yet because 5 more students have been added to my class, but I do plan to have them show the class their cubes over the next two weeks. I am looking forward to learning more about my students.
I was also inspired by the presenter to use more visuals. She stated that people process pictures 60,000 times faster than words. She recommended that we Velcro the words around the pictures. My Visual Basic class is very diverse with several English Learners and special education students. I will be preparing a presentation today to use as a review for the first unit that will include many pictures and screen shots spread out on many slides with very few words. I will show the presentation to the students over 2 days and the students will have the presentation available through the LMS to study and use as a reference for their review assignment. This is an experiment to see if they will be successful in learning the new vocabulary for the upcoming test.
Where do you find inspiration? What has inspired you lately? Share your inspiration.
Myra Deister
CSTA Board of Directors
I find inspiration by going out and visiting businesses and seeing what they are doing, we have a web meet where industry leaders in web design and graphic design get together and show what they are currently up to. It provides me some wonderful experiences that I can take back to my students.
I also find inspiration in the things that I do, one of these includes a mobile platform that my students are currently designing for a museum, and one question a passer by said to them was, how I going to access this information easily, to which the student came back to class and asked around. Through this someone said short URL codes, but then someone said qr codes would work better, next thing, the students were researching qr codes and making there own.