Chapter 3 explains how students can "experiment" with technologies. The book describes experimentation as something that "involves investigation or examination with the expectation of finding something important" (p. 44). When I think of experimenting, I immediately think of science and the scientific process. Experimenting with technologies has a very similar concept including steps such as hypothesizing, conjecturing, experimenting, speculating, and testing (p.44). As I was reading this chapter I couldn't help but think about all of the technology we have to day that we did not even have when I was in elementary school. Terms like microworlds, interactive physics, and SimCalc were very foreign to be before reading the chapter. I might still be a little confused about microworlds, but I believe it is an internet based problem that resembles a problem in real life. The interactive physics and simcalc are subcategories underneath the microworld that include physics and math respectively.
I particularly thought the section about simulations were interesting. Simulations are "imitations of something real" -much like the microworlds- (p. 48). I think simulations would be good to use in the classroom because students can manipulate and play around with different parts. I've heard of games such as SimCity and I believe games like this could be good for challenging students' creativity.
Gaming and "virtual worlds" are not something that I know everything about or fully understand, but as a future teacher I know it is important for me gain more knowledge about. Students that I know love video gaming and online tools, so hopefully I can find ways to incorporate these into the classroom curriculum in a way that is meaningful and will help the students learn.
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