Inspiration

NETS - T (3)
I created a mind map using the design software Inspiration, to visually present artifacts that meet the NETS-T standards.


Inspiration is a visual learning tool that can be used to support students in developing and organizing their ideas.  It supports visual thinking techniques and has the ability to engage students in collaborative learning. In addition, the Inspiration program facilitates the communication of relevant information and ideas in an effective manner to students, peers, parents, and colleagues.

Journal 9

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

AAC includes all forms of communication that can be used to make friends, socialize with peers/colleagues, express ideas, wants and needs. AAC can support people with communication needs in saying and or writing whatever they choose. AAC comes in many forms it can be “low-tech”, such as gestures or picture cards or “high-tech”, specialized applications, software, or hardware.

AAC & Communication

Low-tech
A communication tool that educators can create is a communication flip book. A communication flipbook includes various pictures, and can be organized with tabs to make it user friendly. The teacher or  student can flip to the correct theme board, and then the student can choose what they need to communicate. Here are some great sites to use if you need pictures for your flipbook:

Picture Set  
Smartysymbols

                   

High-tech

A great high tech communication tool that I found from a tweet was Proloquo2Go . Proloquo2Go is an AAC software product for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, which provides natural sounding (as best as possible) text-to-speech voices. The student chooses from a variety of categories on the home page. When the student taps their choice the item speaks. You can then add the pictures and vocabulary to the message window. When the student is finished with their message they tape the message window and it will speak all the items. This program also has a text to speech feature, with word prediction. This program is awesome and has great supports. Another great app I found was conversation builder. It is a fabulous app, conversation builder. This app supports students with Autism develop social language. I can't wait to use it.  

AAC & Accessibility

Low-tech

For some student fine motor function, the use of small motor function, such as writing can be extremely difficult. Two simple tools that support students in increasing their writing samples are the short pencil and a slant board. According to the Occupational therapist at my school site, when students use a shorter skinny (yes not fat) pencil, they are developing the small muscles in their hands needed for writing. The slant board position the paper at an angle that is comfortable for the eye, promotes better posture allowing the students to better position themselves for writing assignments.

High-tech

A great and FREE software option for students with special needs is Speak Text Free. This is a great tool that reads and translates reading materials or websites. This resource is fantastic because it breaks down the barrier for students who have difficulty decoding and gives them access to the same materials as their peers.

Journal 8

Ferrell, K. (2011). Finding the truth about the pacific tree octopus. Learning and Leading, 39. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Learning_Connections_Find_the_truth_about_the_Pacific_tree_octopus.asp


I have been guilty of using Google to search a topic and looking at the top three hits. Very often I have taken it for granted that many others do the same and perpetuate the same good or perhaps not so good websites. I appreciate how this article makes you reflect on your own researching practice, in addition to giving a good example on how to instill good researching habits in students.

Q1 How do you as an educator model good researching techniques?
To often teachers do all of the learning when teaching. We talk and talk and talk. We propose a question suggest answers listen for a little bit then give them the answer or in this case research information. I know I am guilty of doing this. Often I feel as though there is not enough time to get through all of the standards , so, I feed them the information. Obviously not best practice. The instructor in this article takes a much better approach in teaching researching techniques. First, he begins by creating a question that knows will lead into the lesson. Next, he gives the students an opportunity to discover the problems with their researching techniques. Then, once he has them engaged, he begins to unfold the researching lesson and begins to facilitate a discussion that includes the students in learning how to find reputable websites through good researching techniques. In the end, the instructor discovered that by allowing the students to learn through doing, they retained the lesson better.

Q2 How will you teach students what is credible information?
This article reaffirmed to me how important it is to teach students that everything on the Internet is not credible. We must always use our brains and ask ourselves does this seem possible? In addition, we should always put sites to the 5w’s test, who, what, when, where, why, and look at the URL suffixes (ed.gov, etc). 

Journal 7 PLN

NETS-T (5)
I began developing a Personal learning network by joining Diigo, a social bookmarking website, to follow members with similar interest. In order to collaborate with a global community and continue to learn about new digital tools I also joined the social networks Twitter, Hootsuite, and Educator's PLN.

 
Personal Learning Network (PLN)

A PLN is a reciprocal network that you create and earn from. It is personalized and specialized for you because you find the groups or peers that interest you and similar opinions that you value and in turn you add your experience into the conversation. Currently I am using Twitter, Diigo, and Hootsuite to follow various people and groups that have similar interests. In the future, I plan on sharing with my network what I have learned.

Twitter

Twitter is a great social networking site because by using hash tags and a key word (#edchat), it is easy to connect with other people who have similar interests. In addition if you have a question you can put it out there and see what responses come back. I haven’t actually participated in commenting and posting but I am sure it would be a positive experience. 

 I have begun to build my personal learning network by following 5 different people. The first I followed was Techieteacher. I found him on Mr. Heil’s page. I figured if Mr. Heil followed him he must have plenty of good idea. After I read his profile I was pleased to find we had a few things in common. He was interested in assistive technology, literacy, Autism and was a special education teacher like myself. In addition he had experience with a Smart board something that I am going to use for the first time next year. So if I have any questions I will have someone to ask, Yay! The next person I chose was Steven Anderson. I chose him because he sent out tweets with great web2.0 tools. They were so great that I bookmarked them in Diigo. In addition, he had tweeted the article “Getting To I Can,” which made me believe that I could use technology with my students. I also chose Mary Beth Hertz.  She also sent out great links in her tweets. The one that caught my eye was http://gamesalad.com/. This website let’s you create your own game, how fabulous! I plan on using this link to create games that are liked to educational lessons. Mary seems to send out great resources I hope she has more to come. I also chose to follow a couple of groups. The first group I followed was PowerUpciti. I chose this group because it offered resources to improve the education for students with disabilities by using technology that is evidence based.  The last group I chose was EducationWeek. As an educator it is important that I understand what issues are occurring through out the learning community. Keeping up to date allows me to have access to the newest theories and thoughts among the educational community.  I chose Education week, because the site sends out links to educational current events that are happening around the world.

 On Monday 8/1/2011 at 3:30 p.m. (EST) I participated in #Mathchat. The topic was, How do I stimulate students seeing connection in math? Some suggested using cross-curricular links. In addition, putting them into groups and having them investigate what the similarities/difference or uses of the mathematical topic could be. Others suggested giving real life situations where the solution would have to be solved mathematically. For me, it was great to see people collaborating around and educational topic. Some were asking questions, other giving solutions. The mathchat itself is a good tool for me because I do teach elementary math and at times have questions about how to make the content relatable. However, the most valuable experience I took from this chat was that there are people out there who want to help, and collaborate with each other! I was also great to see that everyone was polite, on point, and very civil.

Diigo  

Diigo is an efficient social bookmarking tool to use when looking for new information and when trying to build your personal learning network. To begin building my personal learning network, I searched the word special education and used the community library to find bookmarks. Next, I looked at the members who bookmarked the special education pages read their profiles and added some to my network. I added Amanda Kenuam, Kathleen N, Sylvia Martinez, George Courous, and the group AT in SPED, because they all share the same interests as me, Special Education! 

As I stated earlier you can use Diigo to build your own personal learning network. However, if you are like me and time goes on you will forget what a PLN is, what it’s for, and how to create it! Foreseeing this problem, our Techieteacher, Mr. Heil, made us tag three PLN sites. I tagged The Innovative Educator: 5 Things You Can Do to Begin Developing Your Personal Learning Network, The Educator's PLN - The personal learning network for educators, and How Do I Get Connected and Create Collaborative Global Relationships? Each of these sites had great ideas and tip on how and why to create a personal learning network.

NING

I joined the Educator’s. I viewed the video Future of Teaching by, Joe Larson. In the video he discussed how the American educational system was antiquated and was no longer meeting the needs of our students. He proposes that educational be individualized by using individual computers and “computer instructors.” Explicitly each lesson is formatted like a game. For example, the game begins with a mini lesson (2-3). Followed by an activity (2-3 minutes). Completed with an assessment. If they pass the assessment they can go onto another lesson. If not they go back to the original mini lesson or another variation of the lesson. Mr. Larson dubbed this type of learning “gameification.” After viewing this video I thought it was a great idea. Kids love the gaming format. It seems obvious that we as teachers should tap into their mode of learning. However, the drawback is how much individual computers would cost. Nonetheless, there are steps that we can take to incorporate technology as much as we can into our classroom. I plan on using the computers we have to create various lessons for the kids to access. I would love to have a system like Mr. Larson’s.

 

 

 

Journal 6 - Student Voices for Change

McClintock Miller, S. (2011). Student voices for change. Learning and Leading, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-june-july-2011.aspx

This article discusses how a Van Meter Community School in Iowa found a way to give a voice to all of its students form grades 6-12.  The school district gave each of their students a lab top computer and made technology a priority. The students began to access their own learning communities and continued to pursue their passions and knowledge. As a result, students became more confident, passionate, and accountable for their learning.

Question 1. How can technology improve student’s confidence, passion and accountability?

Well, if you use technology as a tool for learning it can embed confidence and accountability; if you let them follow their interest they can develop their passions.  In order to build confidence we must teach them the skills they need to use the programs and then let them share their knowledge with others. They can share with other students, different schools, or other teachers. Encouraging or requiring them to share their work is holding students held accountable for their work. Furthermore, we all like to study or learn about subjects we are interested and kids are not different.  So, by allowing them to follow their interest they will be more enticed to learn.

Question 2.  How would you help students develop a voice?

I would start of by having students create a Blog.  On the Blog they would answer questions, pose questions and interact with their classroom or school blog community. Then once they were comfortable, I would introduce them to Twitter and teach them how to find others who have the same interests.

 

Journal #2 - Join the flock

Ferguson, H. (2011). Join the flock. Learning and Leading, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-june-july-2011.aspx

This article discusses how to use twitter to develop professional learning communities. In the beginning it does take some dedication by you/me the user to develop a network. However, once you’ve begun you can join the conversation. Or for others listen to the conversation. Either way having a professional learning network is a great way to amp up you teaching methods and knowledge.

Question 1: Why is Twitter scary?

Well, it can be intimidating to many because it is a fairly new tool to educators. As the saying goes, Change is scary. In the beginning using Twitter was intimidating because I didn’t know how to use it. It seemed as though there was an influx of information and I had no idea how to filter it. In addition, when you tweet you are exposing your thoughts and teaching style up for criticism.

Question 2: Does twitter have to be scary, can it be useful instead?

No, Twitter does not have to be scary. Once you have begun to follow people all you have to do is log in and read everything that comes through. You don’t ever have to say word.  However, once you become more comfortable you can start your maximum 140 word comment; keeping you safe from rambling on.

I imagine that once you get into the groove of it Twitter will be very useful. So long as you make time to find and follow people and groups with the same interest. So make it a point to find those special groups such as #edchat, and #spedchat. Furthermore, Twitter is a great way of getting feedback on ideas and finding new ideas from a broad group of people. 

Journal # 4 - One size never fits all

Courduff, J. (2011). One size never fits all. Learning and Leading, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-june-july-2011.aspx

The article, One size never a fit all (Courduff, 2011) discusses how education and the modes in which we teach must be varied in order to address the needs of each student. In particular the article addresses the needs of students in Special Education and the ways in which educators can use technology to support the various learning levels. To begin the article discusses a Tier system for teaching students and teachers how to use technology to learn. Later on the article discusses a tool called Fusion Writers. Fusion writers are portable computers that can be used as text to talk or talk to text.

How would you use fusion writers in the classroom?

I would use fusion writers to promote and differentiate writing assignments. Based on the student’s level fusion writers can support the student in developing and organizing ideas (talk to text) with out the stress of spelling, and printing. Or for advanced students who can spell and type fusion writers can support them in developing sentence structure by reading back what the students have written.

Is the Tier learning system necessary for teacher and students to learn how to integrate technology?

Yes, I believe it is absolutely necessary! So many times we go to training and get a feel for a new program but then we do not use it immediately and what happens, we forget. Or we are not sure how to integrate it into our classroom. The tier training system that Etiwanda school district developed is very practical and important. It is great how the first tier is hands on and teaches them about how to use technology. Then the second tier still provides face-to-face support and introduces more technology. In the end teachers and students continue to learn more about technology but through online collaboration. The tier system instills independence and confidence in all parties to continue to seek new technologies. Helping ever size find their fit.