The website www.atomiclearning.com was very interesting. First of all, it's really cool that a website even exists like that. That could be really helpful when trying to figure out a specific feature of a program, or even just wanting to explore all the programs' features to their fullest potential. When I am not sure how to work a certain feature, or not sure if there is a way to perform a certain function, the only aid I was aware of before now was the "Help" option, which I usually find to be completely useless. This website is a great resource for learning the ins and outs of programs, whether they are programs you already use but are unaware of some of the capabilities, or learning a program from scratch that you have never seen before.
One of the programs I explored was PhotoShop. I do not own PhotoShop but one of my hobbies is photography, so I am always interested in new ways to tweak photos to improve them or do other artistic things with them. There is currently a free Google program called Picasa that I use for this, but it has very limited abilities. I noticed that it gave you the basic how-to of each individual feature. The objection I had to to it, however, was that it didn't show you how these features would look on an actual photograph. They demonstrated the functions on a small graphic in the center of the screen and the tutorial seemed more like Microsoft Paint than a supposedly advanced system. I think I would have learned more simply playing around with the program hands-on than learning step-by-step how to use each tool. However, I recognize that this is one complaint for a visual program such as Photoshop. When I looked at the features for Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access, it worked much better and the tutorials were much more informative. With processing tools such as these, a step-by-step tutorial is much more helpful.
During class, one of the topics that interested me was when we brought up the science tools that had functions such as taking temperature, that would then load the information onto your computer and form a chart or graph for you immediately. An excellent point was brought up that with tools such as these, kids never learn how to make the charts or graphs themselves! Not only should the kids learn how to do it on Excel or Word, they should learn how to draw them and manually map them out. Even if more efficient ways are available, kids should be learning the basics as well.
2 comments:
I'm glad you liked Atomic Learning. I am sure you will find it valuable in my class, as well as some of your other classes. Feel free to voice your opinion with the President of the company on Wednesday.
Did you get a chance to use United Streaming? I didn't see any comments on that topic. Also, did you get a chance to use the online module that correlates with the textbook? It has some good information.
I am glad you agree with the concept of integrating more technology with the science as opposed to a program that does it automatically.
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