Journal 4 -Finding students who Learn with Media-NETS I, III, & V

Bull, G., Alexander, C., & Ferster, B. (2010, February). Learning and leading with technology. Finding Students who Learn with Media, 37(5), Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201002#pg1




The main focus of this article was about how important it is for teachers to provide instruction and assign tasks that would meet all of their students’ individual needs. They have realized that online applications, such as Primary Access, automatically collects information about each students’ performance when they are completing an assignment without the usage of traditional assessment. These results would provide teachers information that would enable them to differentiate instruction earlier and for every student. These tools have now been used in schools since 2005 and since then more than 10,000 students world wide have used these tools and have created more than 20,000 short digital documentaries. These projects assigned align to the curriculum, enhancing both learning and technology skills. A result from students using these tools says that students performed as well on the examinations as those students who wrote traditional essays to complete the same task. Four different levels of learning emerged when assessing students’ engagement with the story boarding activities and with the historical content being taught. The levels were high technology/high content, high technology/low content, low technology/ high content, and low technology/low content. From these four levels teachers are able to analyze each students’ learning style and with those results they can design each lesson based on each students’ individual learning styles.



What do I think about using these online applications as an educator? I think this is a great way to be able to meet each students’ learning styles and this would improve their learning so much. I would be able to identify each of my students’ learning styles, which would facilitate how I give instruction based on each students’ individual learning styles. This would make a huge difference on their learning experience.



Would schools with limited funding sources be able to use these tools as well? I believe these schools would be able to because these online applications for the most art are free of charge so it wouldn’t cost schools any money at all. Now a days most schools have computers and internet installed on them so students and teachers would be able to use these tools to improve their learning experiences. There are a few schools that do have extreme limited resources and I think these schools should find other ways to be able to meet these objectives to learn how their students learn better. Schools should also have fundraisers to be able to buy a few computers and to install internet on them.