Where's the Beef?

     The first thing that I learned throughout this article, was that just because you have your students use media when showing their knowledge about the topic you are working on, does not mean that they are using their higher level thinking skills. Instead, they can often be using technology, but still just regurgitating or summarizing what they have read. A better method is to have them expand on the knowledge and have them create something new based on it. Another thing that the author of this article suggests, is that there is no right piece of technology for a specific project that you might be doing. The nice thing about that is that is that you can fit the technology into your lesson however you like, you could also allow your students to individually explore and pick a type of media that they personally like best. A third thing that I learned from this article was that there can be dramatic benefits to allowing the students to pick what kind of media they use, and how exactly they will put their project together. The author says that this gives the kids a kind of ownership and pride over their projects, motivating them to work harder on it. I think that that idea really makes sense, and even though for grading purposes it would be easier to have everyone doing the same thing, it would be worth it to let them have choices.
       This article had a lot of good ideas to think about. One thing that I could take into my classroom would be to look at the assignment that I have given them and ask myself if it is going to get out of them what I want it to. One appropriate question to ask would be, does the digital demonstration show what your student really knows about the topic beyond just the given facts. I think that this is a useful thing to do because it allows you to make sure your lesson is appropriately focused. Another idea that I thought would be really good to integrate into my own classroom was using the flow chart. The article suggest that you use a flow chart that starts with clarity about the type of communication, then selects the best mode for your purpose, and finally identifies the tool. This seems like a good method to use as a way of keeping your students organized and getting what you want out of it. 
      One question that I had while I was reading, was whether or not there still is a place for testing students on the basic facts of things. I know that while I was going though school we were often tested like this, and those specific facts that they asked I will never be able to remember, whereas the main ideas I can recall a bit more easily. One place that this kind of testing may be appropriate is just to simply make sure that the students have done their reading.