Topic Seven Blog Post Con't

I do think chat rooms and instant messaging have their place in the classroom such as in a discussion, questions regarding certain material, or student to student interaction over a supervised forum. However, they could get out of hand without proper parameters and instructions for their use. It is also important to keep their focus on educational topics as compared to a social chat.
Benefits to asynchronous communication are that there are no immediate time restraints or necessity of the other students or even the teacher to engage in the topic. Synchronous communication such as chats or teleconferencing can be beneficial to student to student and student to teacher interaction, whether in a virtual classroom, or for students to collaborate. face-to-face is always a good medium for learning, however with the popularity of online classes and email it is not always possible to meet or see your teachers. When face-to-face instruction is removed, it is even more important to provide adequate means of communication.
I am not a fan of the podcast instruction. Either the lesson is in person or text-based, but podcast is a cop out to me. I do believe it is an ill attempt and a passive way to convey information or instruction.
Personally, video games do not help my studying because I am not interested in them, However, I do see how it would help someone who is. Besides the obvious hand-eye coordination, cognitive thinking skills, problem solving, situational routing, and focusing the mental pathways can be skills gained and honed through playing or creating video games. I do agree with the article for the most part. I think advancements in technology and how they can be applied to education are always important to look at. As with anything, it is important not to lose focus but to use these avenues as support to your lesson as compared to the lesson in its entirety (pod casts). I probably would allow my children to play video games every day but make sure that to monitor the time spent on them and balance it with other activities outdoors, studying, family time etc. I think that an outlet from reality whether it be video gaming, watching t.v., reading etc. can be a healthy way to rejuvenate and explore different area of thinking.