Chapter 5: Modeling with Technologies

Learning by Building Models
I have learned over time that I learn better by using “models”. These models can include databases, concepts, maps, spreadsheets, microworlds, expert systems, and other tools. In my future classroom I hope to teach and model these models to help students learn and remember information. This will not only help students with their own knowledge but also with conceptual understanding. This chapter does an excellent job in defining different methods and models that students can use in organizing and understanding information. Much of this chapter was new to me. I enjoyed learning about the models and ways to incorporate them into the classroom.

Modeling Knowledge with Concept Maps
Modeling knowledge with concepts maps is one way that I have learned to understand and organize information. I have had success in using this model and think that my students will also. An important aspect of concept maps that many people don’t realize is that concepts maps should represent information that is interrelated. So often teachers assign students to make concept maps and many of them have one major concept with information extended from it. It is important to realize that students should try and relate all the important information together for a better understanding. It is also important to describe the links between major thoughts. When I was taught how to complete a concept map I was never taught to do this. I learned how to do this in college and it has helped with linking the information and remembering why I put the information into the concept map. A program that does an excellent job in doing these things is CMap. This program allows students to make concept maps with linking words as well as relating all the information together. I have been using this program to make my concept maps and will have my students use them in the future.
Question: When should teachers use concept maps in the classroom?

Modeling Systems with Systems Dynamics Tools
This section in the book was harder to understand for me because I was unfamiliar with this type of model. From the reading I understood this tool as being a particular system being modeled by the use computer based systems that construct simulations of some sort. Students can use these to better understand how something works. They can also use this to observe and create different graphs, tables, and other animations. This tool can be used to help students truly understand how certain things work or the dynamics of the “system”. In my classroom I will use this tool to help better understand concepts that would normally be hard to understand if not seem through a model or system. Concepts like the way the body works, the way an engine works, and other things like that would be great concepts for teachers to use this tool with. This model reminded me a lot of simulations and letting students “simulate” through a certain system.

Modeling Problems with Spreadsheets
After reading this section I realized how helpful this tool with be for me as a teacher. This will be useful for keeping and organizing information for me and students. Generally I am an organized person and I have used spreadsheets multiple times to keep my information organized and easy to find. In the classroom I will use spreadsheets to help students see the difference between information whether it be through graphs or in a diagram format. The program that comes to mind when doing spreadsheets is Microsoft Excel. Although this program takes some getting used to, it is an excellent one to use when imputing information into an organized way. A website that can be useful in making spreadsheets is Google Spreadsheets. This can be used by students to create and maintain certain spreadsheets in the classroom.
Modeling Thinking with Expert Systems
This tool can be used by students who are looking for decisions or predictions based on several different factors. This tool will help students to organize those different factors and allow for the computer program to help them decide what the outcome should be. My first impression of this tool was that this would be hard to use in the classroom, but the more I read into it the more I understood what it is all about. This can be used as a project for students. They can first gather the different factors and enter them into a program, then they can make a problem and use the information that they found to help solve it.

Modeling Experiences with Databases
After reading this section I realized that databases will also be used by me as a teacher in the classroom. Learning about databases was beneficial to me because schools use these to keep all the information about their students. I need to be familiar with this so that I can easily use this in the future. Databases that students can use are things such as place where articles and information can be found. Students will use these sorts of databases when completing projects and finding important information. Databases can also be used in the classroom for understanding different points of view and different peoples’ experiences.
Question: What are ways teachers can use databases in the classroom?