Cognitive Constructivism:
Symbol PadsCognitive Constructivism:
Symbol PadsSymbol pads are surfaces for the construction and manipulation of symbols and language. Examples include student notebooks, index cards, word processors, drawing programs, and database programs. Symbol pads are traditionally notebooks and blackboards. The symbol pads used in technology-enriched classroom are mostly standard word processing programs, although there has been some use of Hypercard (http://hypercard.apple.com/) as a more advanced form of symbol pad.
The sections below explain several popular types of symbol pads. The explanations are, however, very brief. You may want to explore the links in each section that take you to examples of the different types of software. "Playing" with the software will give you a much better feel for what symbol pads are.
ExamplesBook With Blank Pages under the main menu gives you the choice of starting a new story or finishing a saved story when you click on the book. By choosing Finish a story option, you can also finish supplied story starters. Students in groups may use their own inspiration or any of the story-starters to bring ideas to life.
As seen on the following screen capture, you can move from one page to the next by clicking on the page-turn arrows that appear at the bottom of every page. The current page number appears between the arrows. Storybook Weaver Deluxe has a page limit of about 680 pages per story.
The following screen can be used as the title page of the collaborative writing project. It can be created in just a few seconds by choosing from the Border Box, Author Box, Comment Box, and Color box.
With thousands of objects and hundreds of scenery combinations to choose from, you'll fill every page with action. Images are grouped by themes for easy look-up. The following screen capture uses a landscape background. After selecting the background, students may start collaborative writing and adding multimedia features to their stories right away.
Students may decide to personalize the stories with the object editor. They may use a scanner to easily copy their own photos and more into the stories -- or import pictures from other programs. Students may add their dog’s bark or a friend’s laugh. Hundreds of prerecorded sound effects and music selections also add drama and excitement to the collaborative projects.
Story Weaver Deluxe lets students create new objects or change objects. Click the Paint Program button on the tool palette. Choose draw, erase, magnify, drag, bigger, smaller, or flip. To change the color in the pencil, click in the box of the color you want. Select Save to place your new or changed object in the graphic area.
Story Weaver Deluxe also lets you choose the type of music to be played for each page of your story. When you select Read a Story, the music you selected is played while each page is on the screen. Click on the Music button on the tool palette and select the music you want from the Music Selection window.
Under the Goodies menu there are:
To try out this trial program, you must install it on your computer's hard drive. To do that you must copy the folder called sweaver to your hard drive. That folder is on the CD-ROM in the subdirectory called programs/sweaver/. You might create a subdirectory on your computer named EDSoft (only if you do not already have one). Then you could copy sweaver into the EDSoft subdirectory. Once you have copied sweaver over to your hard drive you can use the standard Windows procedure to install that program by clicking on setup.exe in the EDSoft/sweaver/ folder on your hard drive. Then follow the directions on the screen.
Click here to know more about installation.
To start the travel, you select a companion and a country to explore. The four companions, representing the four key writing structures, are (according to the sequence on the following screen capture):
It features over 500 photographs and maps representing four continents.
The program provides a wealth of material to write about. The three tours feature captivating stories and facts about each country's history, geography, and culture. As shown on the following screen capture, learners may navigate to "Slice of Life", "Adventures of the Past", or "Places to Explore".
Learners make their own decision whether to follow the links to learn more details about a certain topic. For example, there are four screens for the "flower and garden" topic. Learners may follow the hot link "landscape gardens" in bright blue text color, as shown on the following screen, to view an accompanying picture of Japanese landscape garden.
A built-in glossary defines content words which are unfamiliar to the learner.
Learners may click on the Travel Log any time to check their itinerary. The program provides them with basic outline and some guidance. For example, on the following screen capture, after the learner viewing the Tea Ceremony, the program proposes the question: "What are the different stages of the ceremony?" The idea button represented by the light bulb suggests more areas to explore which relate to the writing assignments.
Learners may click on the stamp icon on every screen to plan, scratch, and write their postcards. The program provides them with story starters to help them organize the content.
At any point, learners may click on the Tour Map to retrieve the following screen to know the places they have visited and activities accomplished, or to view a slide show, check up maps, facts, and figures about that country. The following is the Tour Map of Japan. Depending on the path traveled, every learner's Tour Map may look quite different.
The assumption of the program is that, by starting with short postcards, students become familiar with text structures that underlie well-written books, articles, and stories. Once the key text structures are mastered in this postcard format, they readily transfer to formal writing projects. Besides, from their travels they gain personal, academic, as well as global perspectives.
Crayola Art Studio 2 not only brings crayola creativity to the computer, but also allows them to be more creative with the help of computer simulated crayons, markers, stamps, stickers, sounds, and watercolor . Technology expands the power of coloring in a number of ways. The drawing feature of Crayola Art Studio permit carefully controlled composition of drawing with flexible editing. As the following screen shows, the watercolors, for example, will allow kids to mix and create an unlimited range of colors to their like.
Children may also spend hours playing with the many activities, crafts, and coloring books. The activities include word puzzler, what's in-what's out, and other activities skillfully weave educational benefits together with fun. The following is a sample page from the coloring book. The "Hidden Treasure" coloring book helps to build letter recognition, pre-reading and spelling skills.
With another activity Badge Maker, users design, color and print badges and medals.
Animation and sound add new dimensions to kid's creativity. As the following screen shows, kids may click on the stickers and stamps at the button or the right hand side panel to create animation. There are hundreds of stamps and stickers to choose from. The following screen, for example, uses sun and cloud to decorate the screen.
To try out this trial program, you must install it on your computer's hard drive. To do that you must copy the folder called crayon to your hard drive. That folder is on the CD-ROM in the subdirectory called programs/crayon/. You might create a subdirectory on your computer named EDSoft (only if you do not already have one). Then you could copy crayon into the EDSoft subdirectory. Once you have copied crayon over to your hard drive you can use the standard Windows procedure to install that program by clicking on cmgplay.exe in the EDSoft/crayon/ folder on your hard drive. Then follow the directions on the screen.
Click here to know more about installation.
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