I chose pictures of what are called Fractals. Fractals are visual representations of a recursive, geometric mathematical formula. If you look closely at these images you will notice the same pattern is evident throughout the image. The images I have selected a group of fractals that all have at least one of what is called a saddle point. This means that the repeating patterns within these images converge at those points. You will notice the first two images have several saddle points whereas the last image has only one. You will notice with multiple saddle points you end up with a very erratic and irregular image that appears more random, whereas the last image with only one saddle point is much more smooth and appears almost as if it were planned or drawn by an artist.

Multimedia Presentation

I created a Bike video using some clips I had from a previous ISIS course. I combined the clips using different transitions on imovie and added text to identify each clip. I kept the clips sufficiently short and made them work up from difficulty/experience of riders. I also added some music that I felt added to the multimedia presentation. The intent of my video is for entertainment, so I attempted to maximize arousal in order to enhance the audience's rating.

Technology and Education

Technology to Support Learning highlights many of the important benefits of technology that we are all familiar with, but I believe there is a lot to be considered in looking at some of the potential negative impacts as well. When we consider the enhancement to communication and educational tools we often forget that we are leaving behind those that may not have the skills, understanding or financial backing to keep pace. In fact, I believe that a lot of the educational institutions in the United States have lost sight of the fact that there is still a large population of people that are essentially discriminated against when such institutions force its members adapt to the new technology or be left behind. I am not suggesting that we should ignore advances in technology that offer a great deal of obvious benefit to education, but I believe we should be utilizing them to improve the education of everyone and be careful not to allow it to create an even larger rift between the top and bottom of our culture's socioeconomic ladder. I hope that we can explore a lot of these issues in this class and talk about how we can make sure that we are not leaving anyone behind.