Blog Assignment #12: Collaborative Blog Post

What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher?

“iPad Usage For the Blind” and “Teaching Mom What Her Deaf/Blind Child is Learning On the iPad” are both videos that discuss that an iPad has different features that allow sight impaired people to use them just as anyone else would. One can swipe their finger across the homescreen and an automated voice would read aloud the names of the apps and what one should do to use and access them. For example, in iBooks, the automated voice will read aloud the book chosen, as well as tell you the chapter you are reading, and also read aloud the different functions in iBooks that are available on each page of the book such as “Library button” or “Table of Contents”. For our future students that may have sight disabilities we can provide headphones so that those students can have the automated voices speak to them during class without disrupting other students. We would want our disabled students to enjoy school and get the most out of our classes, just as any other student would.

The first three sources that we were given for this blog post were Assistive Technologies for Vision and Hearing Impaired Children, Apple Assistive Technologies  and The Mountbatten. These three sources give us different technologies that can be used in the classroom to help vision and hearing impaired students. The Assistive Technologies video talks about how there are so many children that are vision or hearing impaired. The video seems to be a motivation video to make a difference and be able to have these students do what the other students are doing and to not let them be completely limited. The Apple Assistive Technology source was a website that showed different accessories that you can get for an iPad that students can use in the classroom to help them. The Mountbatten video is about the Mountbatten Braille Writer that helps blind students be able to respond in the classroom. When the student brailles, the student announces what the machine is typing in Braille. This machine is able to save files and also send files to a computer. This machine can be helpful in the classroom, especially if a teacher does not know braille. It will help the teacher know what the student is typing because it says it out loud. Both assistive technologies sources will be great to have handy in the classroom because it will help students be able to not have any limitations in the classroom.

In Teaching Math to The Blind a professor at the University of San Francisco talks about a device that he created to help blind students solve simple and advanced math problems. The device is a grid that holds small square pieces. The square pieces has a number written on one side and on the other side the same number is written in braille. With this device teachers are able to teach math to blind students at a younger age. I think that this device would be very useful to me in my classroom. The device will help the blind students model and solve math problems just as a sighted student would.

In the 50 Must See Blogs for Special Education Teachers, there are tons of blogs that could be helpful to any teacher, not just special education. Teaching All Students was a great resource to look at. It had many blog post added weekly that contained different tools that teachers may need. In Dyslexia My Life, Girard Sagmiller shares about his struggle with dyslexia and gives teachers advice on how to teach children with dyslexia. Special Education and Disability Rights Bog is an important blog to review because it explains different legal issues you may face as a special education teacher. My Special Needs Network could be a very helpful blog for teachers. It is a group of blogs from teachers AND parents that could greatly help you understand how to help a child because you don’t only have a teachers view but also a parent view!

C4Tp#3

In the post The Possibilities of Student Blogging from the Langwitches blog, she discusses how much opportunity there is in using blogging with our students. Students have a wider range of peers to hear their opinions and critique their work, and not just the person sitting next to them in the classroom. This also helps them with their communication and social skills because they are connecting with people from around the world outside of their social circles. It's this generations version of pen-pals!

In the post Documenting FOR Learning, Mrs. Tolisiano discusses her opinion on documenting for teaching and learning purposes. I never really considered documenting for such reasons until reading this post and now it makes more sense. I catch myself every now and again doing this for important assignments or upcoming due dates, but this would be a very easy way to stay organized in a crazy classroom!

C4Ta #3

For my C4Ta I was assigned Mrs. Thumann's blog. In her post Untapped Apps on Google, she talks about the different parts of Google that very few people know about and take advantage of. One of those parts is Google Drive, which I just recently found out about and started using through this class. She also introduces several other Google Apps that can be found in the Chrome Web Store.

In her post 2012- The Year I Went With Apple, she talks about her first purchase of a Mac computer, and explains how much she likes it and what she uses it for. This post caught my eye because I have been considering purchasing a Mac because the education system is using them so much for so many things. I'm glad I came across an opinion on Mac from another educator!

Blog Assignment #11

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

In Brian Crosby's video,  TEDxDenverEd-Brian Crosby- Back to the Future, he uses project based learning to teach his students about maps, distance, and tracking. His students did a project using balloons, which they sent off with a GPS attached to them, and they kept track of where each balloon was going. This project was a great way to turn a rather boring subject into a fun activity. Another perk of project based learning!

Paul Anderson teaches about the Blended Learning Cycle in his video Blended Learning Cycle. The Blended Learning Cycle consists of several types of learning including mobile, online, and classroom learning. He also lists the five E's to the Blended Learning Cycle which are: Explore, Explain. Expand, Engage, and Evaluate. These five E's of the Blended Learning Cycle play a huge part in project based learning, because without these there wouldn't be much learning going on. I learned a great deal from this video about how to make PBL successful in my classroom.

Mark Church explains a project he used in his sixth grade classroom in his video  Making Thinking Visible. I never thought of doing this, but he has his students reflect on the lesson before it is completely taught by having them write a headline that explains early human beginnings. When the lesson is complete he has them repeat the task and compare their original headline to see how much they learned. This assignment is a great was to prove to students that they really are learning in school, and it will motivate them to continue learning!

In the video Project Based Learning by Dean Shareski, three teachers discuss how they structured PBL to work into their lessons, and how they organized it all. Not only did they plan out the project for the lesson, but they also provided time for peer editing of the projects so that the students could learn about a better way to improve their work.

Several teachers from Roosevelt Elementary discuss how they structured project based learning in their classroom and emphasized they their lessons would teach their students things that they needed to know that would apply to real-world situations in the video  Roosevelt Elementary's  PBL Program. 

My favorite of all of these videos was  Super Digital Citizen, by Sam Pane. My reason for liking it so much is because it directly applies to students of this day and age. In this video, Pane is teaching his fifth grade class about how to use the internet safely, responsibly, and effectively. I think this video was the most important of all of the videos I watched, because the internet and technology are being used so much in classrooms that students need to know the do's and don'ts of the internet in order to be successful in their schoolwork, and most importantly, to stay safe on the web!

Project #10: Interview Movie with Mr. Deer

Interview Movie with Mr. Deer

Blog Assignment #10: What Can We Learn From Ms. Cassidy?

I really enjoyed watching the videos with Ms. Cassidy and how she uses technology in her classroom. In the video, Little Kids...Big Potential, it shows her students actively engaged in the technology provided to them. You see them using things such as the internet and podcasts. The students are also blogging and really enjoying it. The students may not know it, but blogging is building up their writing ability, and teaching them how to peer edit at a very early age. The students and parents both love the blogging experience, because not only are the students allowed an active audience to critique them, but the parents can keep up with what is going on in their child's classroom at the click of a button. This makes it easier for parents to be engaged in their child's learning, but they can do it at home instead of in PTA meetings.

In the interviews with Ms. Cassidy, she discusses what happened when she was first introduced to technology in her classroom, and how she took advantage of it for her class's benefit. She was initially not allowed to download any software to that technology, so she creating her class's blog to help her students keep up with what is going on, and help them stay in touch outside of the classroom. I see this helping students think about what they learned outside of school, because it is also a place to talk to their friends before they get to the age of cell phones and Facebook (hopefully). In one of the videos, Dr. Strange makes Ms. Cassidy aware that some students are rejecting this "new" idea of technology in the classroom, and she explains that classrooms are changing and that teachers need to get used to this form of teaching and learning. I see having a class blog not only to benefit the students by building up their writing skills and communication skills, but it will also benefit the teacher. It gives us somewhere to keep up with what our students are talking about and what interests them, as well as keeping up with their learning styles. A blog would be one central location for teachers to learn so much about their students. I plan to have one for my classroom, if possible.

SmartBoard Assignment Video #1

SmartBoard Assignment Video #1