Chapter 11: Generating and Testing Hypotheses

Two points caught my attention in this chapter; first “Technology can play a vital role in generating and testing hypotheses because new developments in probeware and interactive applets allow students to spend more time interpreting the data rather than gathering the data.” (203). Many teachers myself included struggle with the time involved in using technology, do you teach the content or teach how to use the program? Many times the learning takes a backseat to learning how to use Word, Power Point etc especially when asking elementary students to create final projects. Therefore, it is of great interest to me that students can collect data, easily input data and see the results almost immediately via a few tools and a spreadsheet and not necessarily turn it into a final project. I read with interest the examples given in this chapter, but probably would encourage use in the classroom instead of the library. It does call for collaboration between the teacher and the librarian to incorporate these types of activities into various subject matters and thus the information is beneficial to me.

The second point I found in this chapter was the teacher using the “Help” button. In the first reading of this chapter my first thought included the teacher shying away from creating spreadsheets because they did not feel comfortable or felt that it was above their ability level. We must always remember that “help” is just a click away. We also have other options such as using our instructional technology department, or even “Ask Al”. With the availability of experts around us one only hopes that more and more technology can be incorporated into lessons, whether in the form of spreadsheets, web resources, or data collection tools.