The Power of Words
What are words? They can make the difference between confusion and understanding, sadness and happiness, or even expression and reason. What is it that causes mere words to move a reader or a listener? Is it mastery of words or laboring over words that makes a writer or speaker. Many people labor over words and never quite reach what they wish to proclaim.
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I sometimes feel like this guy
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I have to use words everyday to help others understand technology. It is a difficult thing to do. This is because the context changes with each individual. Everyone understands the world differently. While some people may understand how a computer works, another might get lost at the word “desktop” or “virtual.” I find that most of the time words fail us where it is so much easier to just show.
If one thing is true, it is this: you can never find enough ways of expression. Technology gives us so many more ways of explaining anything to anyone. They say that a picture is worth more than a thousand words. Well, what will a video say, or a diagram, or a slideshow, or a presentation. There are so many ways to do it, and with apps there are now so many ways to do even one of those tasks.
Learning the language of technology is as complex as learning a new language. That is because the language is different depending on the technology. You have a different set of vocabulary words when talking about a Window’s machine than when talking about a Macintosh machine. Each “platform” that exists has its own set of rules and “lingo.” The introduction of mobile devices has complicated it even more. We have “start menus” and “multi-tasking gestures” and so much more. The web has introduced even more words into our language. Fifteen years ago the word “Google” wasn’t even known. Now we say, “Google it,” and most people know what that means.
It is remarkable what you can find when you browse the web. You could spend hours looking on YouTube and find video after video that expresses some facet of life. From education, to news, to comedy we can see that there are so many creative people out there that regularly express their views of the world.
The following are apps and services that I have found can help us express ourselves. There is no particular order to them:
Puppet Apps
Apps such as PuppetPals and Toontastic are great tools to be creative. To use puppets to create a story, a skit, or role play can make a boring subject interesting without requiring a lot of effort.
Whiteboard Apps
Show Me, Explain Everything, Educreations , and Doceri are all great examples of apps that can capture a presentation to show to students later. When prepared well these lectures can often be more effective than those given in a formal class.
Word Processing Apps
Pages, Google Drive, and CloudOn are mobile apps that are almost as powerful as their computer counterparts.
Presentation Apps
Apps and web services such as Keynote, Haiku Deck, Story Creator, and Prezi make it possible to make presentations engaging, interesting, and diverse.
Video Apps
iMovie, Animoto, and Splice are just 3 examples of Apps that can make fun, and professional quality videos.
These apps are just tools. Each user has to find his or her style, or voice in their own way. These tools are only as effective as the one using them. No baby learned to talk without talking. The same applies to technology. I would be more afraid of not using technology for fear of falling behind. We must find something that suits us and make something with it that inspires, educates, or lifts the audience it is intended for. This is the heart of Educational Technology: using these great tools to reach others in new ways.
If one thing is true, it is this: you can never find enough ways of expression. Technology gives us so many more ways of explaining anything to anyone. They say that a picture is worth more than a thousand words. Well, what will a video say, or a diagram, or a slideshow, or a presentation. There are so many ways to do it, and with apps there are now so many ways to do even one of those tasks.
Learning the language of technology is as complex as learning a new language. That is because the language is different depending on the technology. You have a different set of vocabulary words when talking about a Window’s machine than when talking about a Macintosh machine. Each “platform” that exists has its own set of rules and “lingo.” The introduction of mobile devices has complicated it even more. We have “start menus” and “multi-tasking gestures” and so much more. The web has introduced even more words into our language. Fifteen years ago the word “Google” wasn’t even known. Now we say, “Google it,” and most people know what that means.
It is remarkable what you can find when you browse the web. You could spend hours looking on YouTube and find video after video that expresses some facet of life. From education, to news, to comedy we can see that there are so many creative people out there that regularly express their views of the world.
The following are apps and services that I have found can help us express ourselves. There is no particular order to them:
Puppet Apps
Apps such as PuppetPals and Toontastic are great tools to be creative. To use puppets to create a story, a skit, or role play can make a boring subject interesting without requiring a lot of effort.
Whiteboard Apps
Show Me, Explain Everything, Educreations , and Doceri are all great examples of apps that can capture a presentation to show to students later. When prepared well these lectures can often be more effective than those given in a formal class.
Word Processing Apps
Pages, Google Drive, and CloudOn are mobile apps that are almost as powerful as their computer counterparts.
Presentation Apps
Apps and web services such as Keynote, Haiku Deck, Story Creator, and Prezi make it possible to make presentations engaging, interesting, and diverse.
Video Apps
iMovie, Animoto, and Splice are just 3 examples of Apps that can make fun, and professional quality videos.
These apps are just tools. Each user has to find his or her style, or voice in their own way. These tools are only as effective as the one using them. No baby learned to talk without talking. The same applies to technology. I would be more afraid of not using technology for fear of falling behind. We must find something that suits us and make something with it that inspires, educates, or lifts the audience it is intended for. This is the heart of Educational Technology: using these great tools to reach others in new ways.