Thursday, January 30, 2014

Hypermedia Tools for the 21st Century Teacher

Speech with Milo: Interactive Storybook
Hypermedia has become a fast growing part of technology in the 21st century. One of the many different types of commercial hypermedia out there is interactive storybooks. These storybooks allow children to be fully engaged with the story rather than just listening. Children can interact with the characters, make choices about what will happen next in the story, and even explore the setting of the story. Most recently interactive storybooks have appeared in app stores. Speech with Milo: Interactive Storybook is a great app that allows children and teachers to become fully engaged in the story (if you click on the app name, it will take you to the app store to preview the app!). I would love to have this app for my classroom. It is a great resource to have for times students are in between work and activities, or event as a supplement for reading centers.


The Virtual Environment
Virtual environment hypermedia is slowly starting to gain popularity in educational settings. It was originally used primarily for gaming, but it is evolving into something that educators are introducing in their classrooms. Teachers have not fully unlocked the capabilities of  advantages that virtual environments will offer their students. Students could open up a world of learning that has not been accessed yet. I would use virtual environment in my classroom as an aid on homework and lessons in the classroom. I found a great video on youtube of a teacher who created virtual environment homework that was used with an iPad (or an iPhone/iPod) that allowed his students to have homework help and instructions from him.


This is a great example of the future technology that will be appearing in classrooms. All in all, virtual environment will lead to great things for students and teachers alike.

3 comments:

  1. This is great blog. I agree that interactive storybook is useful in the classroom. It would help the students increase their skills in technology. I would use this in my own too. The video is great example.

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  2. I found your blog to be informative and entertaining. I very much liked the storybook with Milo. I think that is an educational and fun interactive way to engage the students. As well as a great example of hypermedia. I also see a great use for virtual environment homework especially in a middle or high school classroom.

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  3. I love your example of a virtual environment! I have seen environments like these used before, but only for much older classes or (like you said) in the gaming world. I think this would be a great tool to open up communication outside of the classroom. I could see this not only promoting that communication among teachers to the students, but for students to communicate to one another as well for help.

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