Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Dec. 11th

4 Seasons
*Internet Resources - Starfall.com (Online activities); Kinderart.com (can make wreaths);
Ben and Jerry's.com (Interactive snowmen) -different interactive activities online for each
season.
Social Skills (Focus students with severe mental retardation)
*Modelmekids.com - provides materials for social skills
*Socialskillstraining.org
Exploring Availiable Resources for Parents of Students with Special Needs
(Morgan Center)
*Focus is on Home/School /Community Collaboration
*For parents to be better informed about how they can address their child's needs
Stellaluna
*Tools students will use to reach objectives
- Graphic Organizers
- Books (any books related to bats)
- Internet
- Word Processing Program
- Movies
*Reference Materials
- batquest - website
- Living Culture
- Academic language (using language as if students don't have disabilities)
Reflection:
Sharon this was a great class! I learned a lot this semester and I will take everything I learned and implement this into my future teaching practices.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Dec. 3rd

There were a lot of great presentations this evening. It was neat to see what other people have created/implemented within their own classrooms. I was really inspired by Becky's power point presentation on Plymouth and how she really broke down the 5th grade social studies curriculum without "dumbing down" the curriculum. That looked like a fantastic unit!
I was also just soo impressed with a few of the other presentations and how my classmates were doing such awesome projects with their students - the earthworm project and the poetry and music presentation were also awe inspiring. It was really neat to see all sorts of units/activities that you could do with any population of students that you work with. I can't wait to see what next week's presentations will look like.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Nov. 27th

I. Tech. Plans

National Center for Technology Planning - http://www.nctp.com/

California Department of Education Technology Planning http://ctap/

A. What is your commitment? To you? Your students? Your school? Your district?

1. Different Types of Technology

- Integrated Learning Systems

1. Accelerated Reading/STAR/STAR Early Literacy/Accelerated Math

2. Mathscore.com (Just online)

3. Bridges

4. Plato

- Known as EPSS systems

Problems: Accelerated Reader - Great for regular ed. students. (All visual)

Mathscore.com- Not great for Special Ed. Students: Doesn't help kids who are

trying to figure out the problems.

Bridges - All visual

Plato - You read online. It is self paced. For special needs learners who need

video, audio, visuals - has to be accessible. Is this touch screen

available?

II. Computer Lab

A. Your computers are a tool to do something else. What is it you want your kids

to learn?

B. One computer per two students

III. One Computer Classroom

1. Teacher use (data management)

2. Presentations

3. Discussions/points of view

4. Cooperative learning activities using TV/Projector (virtual fieldtrips) - If you have

the internet. (Virtual webcams) best to do it at home to discover which websites are

safe. (Can go to google trips).

5. Teacher communications

******** If you don't have internet - then you can load things up on a flashdrive and upload it

to the computer at school.********

IV. A Few Computers

1. Cooperative groups

2. Learning Center

V. Distance Learning

1. Great, but what are the considerations you need to know? (Can make it into closed

captioning).

VI. Portable Labs

1. Purpose?

2. Library Centers

3. Mobile Workstations

4. PDA's

Reflection:

How are you going to take what you know and get - how are you going to transmit be a resource person to collegues, school, and district? How are you going to become a resource tech. person at school?
How I will share these resources with my collegues is by helping them trouble shoot problems. I will also share what I have learned in class with my collegues as well as implement what I have learned in this class with my own class.
In regards to the district, I will continue to look at the district tech. standards to see if what they are trying to implement is feasible. If not, I will try to talk to my school's tech. support person and voice my concerns if there any.
I have learned a lot in this class and I want to really try and share what I have learned with my collegues so that my school can be more technologically advanced.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

November 20th

Answer the following questions on your blog based on the information on the links and the files that you have downloaded:

1. What is the value to me and my students for using virtual reality?
The value to me is that I can be more of a facilitator rather than the person who stands at the front of the class and lectures the whole time. Providing a hands on approach for my students would be ideal especially because Deaf and Hard of Hearing students are for the most part very visual learners. They would benefit from a hands on approach to teaching. Virtual reality would facilitate active learning as well as balance active learning with concrete ideas/information.

2. What types of VR (virtual reality) would be appropriate for my student population?

I think the types of VR that would be appropriate for my student population are Non-Immersive/Desk top and maybe Total Immersion. To me, non-immersive would be ideal because information is presented on a computer screen and students can use a mouse, keyboard, wand, joy stick, or a touch screen to use this form of technology. This allows students to explore and manipulate computer generated 3-D multimedia environments while also providing text on the screen so students can understand directions. My main concern about total immersion virtual reality is that students are required to rely on not only their visual perception but their hearing perception as well. This would be fantastic for my Hard of Hearing students because it will require them to work on their auditory skills. The research that we looked at today suggests that total immersion virtual reality is a multisensory experience that provides both visual and auditory stimuli. However, not all of my students are Hard of Hearing. If I had to chose only one type of virtual reality to have in my classroom, it would have to be the desktop type.


3. How can VR provide my students enhanced access to: (pick one)

a. functioning in the community

b. the curriculum

c. communication with peers

VR can provide my students enhanced access to the curriculum. Since I teach 3rd-5th grade curriculum and my students are academically one year behind the grade they are in, VR would be a fantastic way to teach the curriculum. Recently we have adopted a new social studies curriculum that provides many tips and ideas on how to present the material in a more palatable manner to students. This is very helpful, however, I find the curriculum to be dry and really lengthy for my class. If my students were to learn directly from textbooks, a good majority of what they were asked to read would be extremely difficult for them to process. VR would allow students to go back in time and see how the states were formed as well as experience parts of American history that are taught in 5th grade. By allowing students to learn by doing rather than reading out of a textbook, my class would have a better understanding of the social studies curriculum.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

November 13th

Different levels of interactivity


- Websites


-Wikis : Free for all, where anyone can change anything and everything.


- Looking at the fact that the internet is not just a semination of information.


In terms of a web page - in google, if you have a google account, you have access to google docs - you can invite people to just people to see what you are doing, can do presentations online now - can do google powerpoint. Can put that on your webpage, or can design it to be like a wiki.


- As of right now you can't add sounds to your text.


- When you evaluate a webpage, you also want to evaluate yours as well. See Pg. 111 in Technology for Inclusion.


-Video and audio design - don't have audio but don't have that. DON'T use animated blinks or animated texts. You have to be careful of what colors you are putting together.


You want it to be easy to navigate, be carefull of


-Limited words (want it simple similar to power point presentations).


-Each page has to be limited to two to three screens.


-Meta Navigation websites - Meta links = are on each page at the same spot.


-Bloom's Taxonomy Revised


**** When creating a web page for your website:


To create a link, add the pages in your footer - write titles for each page using the (shift key and the forward slash key to create )


- Next, high light the key word, click on link, when asked to create a new page, click on the page title. It should be linked up.


-When linking to another website - site outside of your page - same thing except click on website


** A webpage is pretty much a site for information out.


** Blogs are for minimal two way communication


** Wikis are a free for all.


** You might want to put up tracks linking to sites. Especially linking to social studies websites.


** Social Studies SCORE sight - http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/


*** If you're going to link your track - it is huge!


Website called http://www.tinyurl.com/ - all you have to do is high light the url for the website and paste it into the tiny url website.


****** FOR NEXT WEEK: Need to have your website url - need to email it to Sharon. Going to have to email the url to Sharon's email address.


Next week's class - Is going to be a virtual class next week. What will have on the white board are questions about virtual reality on Sharon's (tapped in website). There will be some questions on there and links to some websites - answer the questions in the blog.


**** Will be doing a guest log in. Will end up in the reception room. Click on the online button, click on SharonE. Then click on the open door to get into Sharon's office.


- Questions will up on the white board - you can copy and paste onto your blog to answer the questions. Questions will be posted between 6 and 8 on the 20th.


**** When you finish your website - See notes from today written in the notebook to double check the pre-reqs. for everything.


Deadline for the whole website thing is: ALL DUE NEXT WEEK!!!

Reflection:
Tonight is the first night that you are going to be putting all of these things together as a unit. How are you going to use all of this? When you are finally starting to put all of this together.

After putting my website together, I now have a grasp on how I am going to be putting things together as a unit. The website that I designed will be used as a link between what occurs within the classroom ( links to outside resources and keeping parents posted on what students are learning) and my parents. Communication is extremely important between parents and the classroom. By having a webpage, I am hoping to promote more parent involvement with their child to be able to help them with their homework and reports. A good majority of the parents that I have this year are wonderful at supporting their children at home. However, I would like to promote technology in a postive manner by having parents and students work together.
I am also hoping to use this webpage as a more technologically advanced way of communicating with my parents as well as promoting the internet for students as an advanced form of research that can be done in a cool way. Maybe even have homwork online in the near future?!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Oct. 30th (Technology Across the Curriculum)

In class assignment

Last time - worked on technology for curriculum areas.

- This time - look at tech supports for disability areas. When you are working with kids, there are no blanket areas. Looking at the issues tonight. Have to think about the specific thing for their student. There are a few websites for younger kids and more severely handicapped.

Software searches:

- http://www.assistivetech.com:591/chartsonline.htm (Search for STAGES levels for software)



- In terms of teaching students cause and effect - teaching them "click and hold, click and

release"

Language readiness

-http://closingthegap.com/ go to Resource Directory About the Resource Directory Can I search the Resource Directory on-line.



Even if you have a student who is very severly impaired but older you want to make sure that all graphics are age appropriate for them.

Reflection: Class was going well until the earthquake! Yikes! My group and I had generated many great ideas for assistive tech ideas to help students with cognitive delays. I found that it was sort of difficult at times to generate different ideas than the ones that we had listed for our other group project since some of them intertwined with ones that could be of use for a student with cognitive delays.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Oct. 23rd (Research and Application: Technology across the Curriculum: Inspiration)

* Intel book - you should already be on Module 4/5 for Unit Plan.
- For your Wiki - and you have little ones - you should set up your Wiki based on parent
communication.
I. Graphic Organizers
A. For SH and preschool/infant don't hear about graphic organizers at all. (Terminology
wise). Mind Mapping.
- There are lots of ways of doing graphic organizers that you can teach in the classroom.
**B. Inspiration
- A way to make a graphic organizer pretty easily. You can go to www.inspiration.com and
use it for 30 days for free. You can save it as a jpeg (picture).
- Graphic organizers can be pictures, sounds - if you don't have it on your computer, you
can use Word. If you have Office 2007 you can save it as Dot.x but only Office 2007 will
be able to read it.
- Graphic organizer - the one that will create tonight will go with the theme of the unit that
have been working on for the project at the end of the semester.
*****Graphic organizer websites*****
1. http://www.readwritethink.org/
http://www.graphicorganizers.com/
http://www.eduplace.com/ (Houghton Mifflin website)
http://teachers.teach-nology.com/index2.html (Gives for preschool and early childhood
ed a bunch of stuff).
http://cmap.ihmc.us/Index.html (Graphic organizer tool/concept tool)
http://www.internet4classrooms.com (has really cool Daily dose of the web - cool
websites to check out)
http://www.factmonster.com
**** Don't discount homeschool websites - there are a ton of resources!
- To create a graphic organizer - can do rapid fire- everyone gives an idea and will be
creating a graphic organizer. Teacher will type in all the ideas
- Can create using Word or Inspiration - check out kidspiration at school too.
- Great to use for 50 States
For Word: Can use ovals to format graphic organizers
II. Unit Project
- You want it linked to state standards.
- What will you title it?
- Something catchy, something serious
- What topics and reference materials will be researched on the Internet?
-What's your project
- What other resources will you need?
- You need to think of that in your unit plan
- Questions to Answer
- Is the unit plan student centered?
- Want it as interactive as possible
- What 21st century tool will you use?
- Outline of project requirements?
- What's the plan?
-Resources for students
- Daily activities
- Prompts for discussion and open-ended tasks
- Links and descriptions of appropriate websites
-Models of student work
- Resources for homework assistance
- Classroom announcements and news
-Design Elements
- When you create a website
- Photographs
- animations/charts
- Scanned illustrations (student works,etc.)
*** - On a website - you want to have the most important info on the top part. If have to scroll
down, then not going to work.
**** You're graphic organizer needs to be tied into what you did your lesson plan on that you turned in last week. It's similar to what we turned in for the class assignment tonight. Has to be based on the concepts that are/were written in the lesson plan -unit plan.
The unit plan, the graphic organizers, everything will tie in together for the assignment due at the end of the semester.
*** Next Week:
- Covering things over the Intel Binder
- Covering technology for curriculum
- Graphic organizer assignment - don't need to write a blurb on that. Sharon will open the assignment up and how it fits into the lesson that turned in last week. If you got the graphic organizer turned in already and it was already uploaded then you don't need to turn one in for next week.

Reflection:
Question: How can you use graphic organizers to support student learning?
It was interesting and fun to play around with the graphic organizers. The Word one was a little hard at first to play around with but the end product was neat. As we were discussing Inspiration - I realized that I do have kidspiration at school and never realized it! That is very neat so all I need to do is play around with it at school before having my students use it.

Question -
I use graphic organizers already in my classroom to teach my students the writing process - using what we call a "Star Chart " graphic organizer -one arm for each separate idea. Students generate ideas for each arm. It is a great way for students to organize their thoughts as well as how to write 5 full, complete paragraphs.
- Graphic organizers will also come in handy when my students start designing their Power Point presentation on their 50 states to organize their thoughts and ideas.