I watched the lesson called Differentiating Instruction Through Interactive Games on Edutopia. There was a great amount of technology incorporated into the lesson for the second grade classroom. The teacher starts the lesson off by conducting a whole group discussion to refresh their memories about adding and subtraction. When he feels like they are prepared, they are allowed to play math games on the macbooks provided by the school. They are supposed to complete three math games before moving on. He did not specify if they could play any game they wanted or if they had to play a specific game, but either way, the students looked engaged and excited in the video. On the laptops they were playing on PlanetTurtle, which allows the students to play games at their own pace. This is so important for children to work at their own pace so that they can learn on their own time and not be pressed for time. The classroom also had IPod Touches and a free trial for DreamBox website. The students seemed to enjoy the games. 

The translation of ideas, or how the ideas or concepts are expereinced in the classroom are valuable. At the beginning the teacher and students are interacting verbally in a whole group discussion to transfer ideas about addition and subtraction. After that, the translation of ideas is on the websites that they are on. The websites allow the students to gain information in a fun way in the form of games. This is how the students begin to understand the concepts. PlanetTurtle differentiates the games and provides information to the teacher so that the teacher can see how the students are doing. This allows the teacher to step in and help the students who need it much sooner than if the teacher had to go around and check all the answers and see who needed help. This is the form of offloading in the lesson, as the teacher relies on the website to accomplish the task and make his life easier. Similarly, because the website provides information to the teacher, it is a kind of monitering or formative assessment because it shows the results of the games instantly, which allows the teacher to make changes or help students as soon as possible. It also holds the student accountable because they know that they need at least an 80% to move on. Overall, I think that technology has the potential to make students and teachers smarter, if the teachers and students are using it correctly. I think it allows for more intervention of the teacher and another way to learn for the students. 

Distributed cognition is one of the ways that our brains process information. This process can be dispersed between any form of communication, technology, or experience.