Chapter 8

Three new things that I learned from reading Chapter 8 in our text were:
1. I was not aware of the existence of VRML, but now I understand that it is used to develop and display 3-D objects on web pages, which gives the object the illusion of being more "real."

2. I also had no idea that there were so many different ways to store images, to many different image formats to choose from.  Included in the text were: BMP, EPS, PDF, PICT, TIF, GIF, and JPEG.  I also did not know that any of those suffixes stood for.

3. In order for students to successfully develop their own webpages (if that is a project if I am interested in having my future students do), there is a step-by-step process that students must go through.  They need to plan and storyboard, develop pages with text, insert images with media, insert links and frames, insert interactive elements, test in a browser, publish the site, and gather evaluation comments and maintain the site.

Two ways that I can integrate this chapter into my teaching are:
1. I loved the idea in the book of having my students do some kind of social action project while integrating technology into the lesson at the same time.  It would get them to become aware of events that are occurring globally and they will have the ability to voice their concerns and viewpoints.

2. I also liked the idea of having the students go on a virtual field trip to a place that they might not get a chance to visit normally.  An example of this would be to have the students use the tool Picasa on through Google, which lets them visit seventeen different art museums around the world.  They would get to see the museum and the artwork up close and would get the chance to study it virtually.

One question I had from this chapter was: How can teachers effectively control the dangers of Internet use in the classroom? Just close monitoring of the students while on the internet?