IN an era where, in general ICT, is the norm rather than the exception it can be quite surprising to be in a classroom and note that there is only some writing on the whiteboard and in a workbook, and talking.
I was reminded of this fact after attending John's lecture on August 1 where he spoke about learning styles. He made reference to Riding (with Cheema and Raynor) who identified the wholist, analytic, verbal and imagery thinking styles. A scatter plot showed that verbaliser and imager were on opposite ends meaning that everyone is likely to have a tendency one way or another.
It made consider that I should be working hard to create a classroom where students who are more visual or auditory can all thrive. To me this seems simple enough. Instead of just talking about content make a Powerpoint as well with some notes, so the visual students can read while the auditory students listen. And when presenting information on the whiteboard/handouts/Powerpoint, also make an effort to verbalise some of the content for the auditory students. This should not be a significant impost on the teacher's time, but it could make a crucial difference for some students.
The thing is that today the most popular forms of entertainment such as youtube videos/television and movies already combine the visual with the auditory. Students are already used to watching and engaging with these forms of media. It makes me wonder whether it would be beneficial for me as a teacher to mimic this and create videos of myself teaching content to show on the data projector rather than watching me 'live'. For example I could stand like a weatherman and insert the content as graphics next to me as well as put in pictures and video clips as needed. Would this be more engaging for technologically savvy teenagers than the alternative? As I would be in the room anyway it can always be paused for questions or replayed if students didn't understand what was happening.
Below is a little attempt, with a webcam and Windows Live Movie Maker to show what I'm talking about. Please note this was a pretty rough attempt and I would definitely speak more coherently if I was actually going to show this in a classroom.
