Sarah West

Thesis:
Technology is prevalent in todays society, and it is becoming increasingly important for students
to be exposed to it by teachers in an inquiry-based learning environment, especially with
standards incorporating technology.
Sources:
Aziz,H. (2010). The 5 keys to educational technology. Retrieved from
http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/09/16/the-5-keys-to-educational-
technology.aspx#eAl2bdUitYOKQODp.99
Daugherty, L., Dossani, R., Johnson, E. and Oguz, M. (2014). Using early childhood education
to bridge the digital divide. RAND Education. Retrieved from
http://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE119
Education technology. (2010). Retrieved June 7, 2014, from
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=46
ISTE standards students. (2007). Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-
14_ISTE_Standards-S_PDF.pdf
Maeots, M. and Pedaste, M. (2014). The role of general inquiry knowledge in enhancing
students transformative inquiry processes in a web-based learning environment. Journal
of Baltic Science Education, 13(1), 19-31.
Nagel, D. (2012). Apple sells twice as many ipads as macs to U.S. schools. Retrieved from
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/07/25/apple-sells-twice-as-many-ipads-as-
macs-to-u.s.-schools.aspx
SmartArt in PowerPoint for flowchart
Reflection:
I was inspired to do this infographic after completing some research. I have learned from
personal experience that teachers do not often use the technology that they have in their
classrooms, but this should not be the case. I want to raise awareness of this, and I wanted to tie
it into an inquiry-based learning environment. Technology can play a major role in an inquiry
learning environment, and it is becoming more prevalent in the standards taught today. Students
need to be guided on how to properly use technology, and it should start with the teacher.
I used Discover as my main source of information. After that, I looked up standards that were
found from credible sources. The rest of my information was found by searching Google scholar
and Google for data pertaining to the information I was looking for. I found an article about
Apple through a blog site. I knew that I wanted to create a flow chart for some of the information
that I found, so I searched how to make one and found PowerPoints SmartArt.
The biggest challenge in this infographic was deciding what route I wanted to take as far as
research. It took several days to gather enough information to make a coherent infographic. I still
feel like I could improve my infographic to include a more coherent thesis, but the researching
was really difficult. I also tried my best to synthesize the information that I did find into one idea.
I enjoyed using the infographic creator tool, and I would encourage my students to use this for a
project.