Abstract
The foundation for much of the technology being used in today’s classroom is the Microsoft Office suite. It is fast becoming the integrated software package of choice for many schools and school districts. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access are the staples for many students and teachers. Complimenting these capabilities, Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator are the tools of choice for accessing the World Wide Web. Why not help teachers utilize these same tools to develop text, visual, and Web-based materials for the classroom, and leave the more complex and costly packages to multimedia designers and commercial artists? The success of this philosophy has been borne out by a blistering growth in applications from K-12 classroom teachers, technology coordinators, and corporate trainers.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Concrete Learners: Individuals that learn best with hands-on methods and show the most success when doing it themselves, being involved with their learning process and “doing” rather than “watching.”
Interactive Lesson: A self-paced, student-controlled, individualized learning opportunity embedded with assessment events along the way. In practice, these lessons are offered to students who need individualized instruction as well as immediate feedback.
Kiosks: Self-running presentations found at many trade shows, amusement parks, and conventions. PowerPoint’s kiosk feature supports unattended slide shows that run continuously, restart automatically after each showing, and advance without user intervention.
Multimedia: Refers to integrated collections of computer based media including (but not limited to) text, graphics, sound, animation, photo images, and video.