Topic 12 - Technology Across the Senses

I am always fascinated by the different intelligences. It always makes me understand my own learning as well as the learning of my students. I think it is important to consider the various learning styles when you are planning your lessons. I found a great website about the multiple intelligences and if you have time, you should check it out http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm. It is consistent with the Mapping Technologies to Intelligence article. There are some awesome links to sites with activities you can do with your students. I think it is interesting that researchers are continually learning more and more about the brain. In Howard Gardner's 1983 book, there were 7 intelligences and current researchers have identified 9 different intelligences. According to Gardner, we all have all of the intelligences, but no two people are alike.

I am definitely a visual/spatial learner. I like to see things and a picture always helps me retain. I love it when teachers add graphics to lessons or tie in a picture book or some type of visual. Somehow, my brain can connect to that. I am also a logical/mathematical person. I have this weird thing with numbers and I somehow always remember them well. Math is my favorite subject to teach and I'm always fascinated by what numbers can do. I would also consider myself a kinesthetic learner. I like to manipulate things with my hands and I love to create. I love movement in the form of drawing, dancing, and exercising.

I would be lying if I said that I thought about all of the different intelligences all of the time. On a day to day bases, I definitely use visual, verbal, and logical/mathematical learning styles. I do like to have my kids move around, so often times I will have some kinesthetic activities. Every so often, I will play music when they write. I have some students who love this and some find it very distracting. From looking at the table in the Mapping Technologies to Intelligences article, I do think I cover many of the activities for different intelligences. I like for my kids to work with their hands, I like for them to make connections with pictures, I like for them to create and collaborate.

My lesson plan covers a variety of these intelligences. The purpose of this assignment is to help my students develop their ideas in writing by using details. My students will find an interesting landscape picture that they would like to write about on google images. This will be great for my visual learners. Students will then post their pictures on our class page using moodle. Students will write a description of their landscape on moodle and students will try and guess who's picture belongs to who's description. Writing on moodle will appeal to my verbal/linguistic learners. We are just now learning to use moodle, so this should be an interesting experiences. Pictures and descriptions will later be compiled in a class movie by using movie maker/audacity. When making the movie, we will use classical music in the background. This will certainly appeal to musical learners. Objectives:

• Develop details in writing
• Use moodle to collaborate with peers
• Create a movie to show descriptive writing.

Below are some technologies that could be used to teach various intelligences.

Intelligence	Technology
Verbal/Linguistic	word process, e-mail, speech recognition
Logical/Mathematical	spreadsheets, search engines, webquests
Visual/Spatial	television, video, digital camera, digital animation/movies
Bodily/Kinesthetic	simulations, assistive technologies, joystick, mouse
Musical/Rhythmic	digital sounds, online pattern games, multimedia presentations
Intrapersonal	online surveys, digital portfolios with self-assessments
Interpersonal	instant messenger, message boards, blogging
Naturalist	mapping tools, database
Existentialist	virtual field trips, simulations, virtual reality, virtual communities, MUDs

In my lesson plan using moodle to write will appeal to my verbal/linguistic learners. Find the images on google earth will appeal to my visual learners. Creating a movie on Movie Maker will also appeal to visual learners. The collaboration of the whole project will appeal to my Interpersonal learners.