Tools Reflections

1. What are your favorite tools you now have in your personal technology toolbox?
I love posting the videos once I finally learned how. There is soooo much information on accommodating for students out there, and many of the videos give you exact how tos, so why reinvent the wheel. I also liked playing with the voki, but my most favorite thing I learned, which I will definitely put to good use is the google documents. I can't wait to be able to share documents with all my diag. friends!!!
Briefly describe a particular activity that you will plan for your students using at least one of these new tools.
Since I won't be teaching this to students, I will be teaching my colleagues how to use the google documents. As we write reports, I can incorporate the different therapists information in the report with the click of a button and send it on its way to whichever therapist will be adding to the document. This is soooo awesome!!!
2. How have you transfomed your thinking about the learning that will take place in your classroom?
Again, no classroom, however, I think the teachers have a huge responsibility in helping their students become digital citizens. I do not envy them that task, but I do know the teachers at MWE are definitely up for it. I think this is going to make learning so much fun for the students, as long as the technology is used, not for technology use in and of itself, but for the actual learning that will go along with it. It will certainly level the playing field for those with special needs.
3. Were there any unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
That I was actually able to finish it was my biggest surprise. I would not have been able to do some of the items, were it not for Robye and her help in uploading my videos.....most of the other items, after much reading, trying and retrying, I was able to figure out. I think if the children had as much trouble as I did getting some of this done, they MIGHT give up.....but again, they come from the technology age and this stuff comes much more easily to them than it did for me.

And now to the assessment!!! I look forward to now being able to post my actual suggestions for accommodations!

Tools #11

Wow, I can't believe I made it....this was sooo hard and I still don't really feel like I'm a 'digital citizen'! Perhaps with more practice, it will become easier. I am a diagnostician, so I will not actually be teaching children how to function in the digital world, or even using it with children for that matter. There are some issues that I think are very important if I were going to teach it.
1. Safety....teaching the children how to be safe in the digital world. As a mother, and past teacher, this would be the very first thing I would address.
2. Teaching children 'how to learn' what they need/want to learn. There is a saying about teaching a hungry man to fish, rather than giving him food, or something like that, and that's what I envision for children. Giving them the tools to seek and search for themselves.
3. I would give them lots of choices.....children will respond much better when allowed choice, and the rest of course, is technology and we all know that children LOVE technology. Things are moving so fast, technologically speaking, that there will be new things to learn absolutely every day.

I really liked the I-Safe Fact Sheet, if a school adopted something similar, I believe all students would end up full fledged digital citizens.......

Tool #10

Finally, a technology tool that I know a little about. Our school received a grant for I-Touch's and the 5th grade teachers and our technology specialist, Jenny Meyer, have done an awesome job in incorporating them into the classroom. Because of the work they did, I purchased an I-Touch because I was so enamored with it. The applications are absolutely phenomenal and I was pleased with this part of the assignment, in order to review more applications, and obtain sites that help me choose applications. It's also fantastic that so many are education oriented and free. Some of the applications that I feel will help with children and their accommodations are:
Read Me Stories: Sends a story a day to the device, reads it aloud, helps the child build vocabulary, fluency, and basic sight word vocabulary
Brain Tuner: Brain teaser game, the child gets to take a break, but is still using his/her brain
Talking Phrasebooks: translates simple phrases into other languages.....excellent to use with ESL students and teachers will find it helpful
WeDict: Dictionary-what better tool is there for a student to have at his/her desk
TouchCalc: Calculator-once we've gotten past basic fact learning and for those with short-term memory difficulties that just can't learn those facts
Word of the Day: helps build vocabulary
Stanza: students can download books to read at any time day or night

These are just a few of those I found that would be excellent for all children, but especially children with learning disabilities. Given access to these devices on a continual basis, I see those children as being on an equal playing field with the rest of the general education population. I love playing with my I-Touch. I keep my calendar with all appointments on it, have downloaded several different e-readers on it, so that I have a book with me at all times. Of course, Ive downloaded music, movies and educational podcasts to listen to when traveling or stuck in traffic. The students can assemble their video stories on the devices. Now this part of technology, I love. I'm sure it is that I have had an opportunity to spend more time on this device and practice with it. Thank you, Jenny Meyer for turning me onto this device!

Back to Tool #8

Woohoo!!!! Thank you, Robye! I finally figured out how to embed the videos into my blog, after some clear instructions from Robye. I would never have figured that out.....that I had to choose the html selection on Add a Gadget!!!! I figured those were videos......we need clearer instructions!

Tool #9

1. Using jing will be great to actually create short projects of how to use technology to accommodate text, etc. for students with special needs. As soon as I get my hands on curriculum material, I intend to do just that for the teachers.
2. Skype is something that would help me in working with other diags. across the country when a student with special needs transfers to our school. To actually discuss the student would be much more beneficial than just seeing paperwork. It would be a more confidential way of communicating, rather than using email and/or paying long distance telephone bills.

This whole process in this tool is really cool, but to be proficient on it, I would need instructions and lots of practice time. All of this is very time consuming and some of the videos do not clearly explain how to actually activate some of the tools. My frustration level is pretty high with some of this. THIS IS HARD!!! Especially for those of us who has technologically delayed!

Tool #8 Videos

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Care-for-Children-with-ADHD-or-ODD-73560382

Since my website will eventually be devoted to accommodating for children with special needs, I chose some videos about this topic. The first video is about working with students with ADHD or ODD. It gives some good tips to use with children with ADHD. I found this video on BlinkX


http://www.teachertube.com/members/viewVideo.php?video_id=1882&title=Strategies_for_Multiplication

The 2nd video is about teaching children strategies to learn their multiplication facts. It's called StrategiesforMultiplication. I found it on Teacher Tube Videos. Many children with special needs have difficulty memorizing basic facts. This video and others like it help with this short/long term memory issue. This is an accommodation that teachers can make in their classrooms easily.

It was very interesting to see the different videos and the wide variety. I will not be showing my chosen videos to children, since I'm a diagnostician, but hopefully teachers/parents will choose to show these to their children. There are some excellent videos out there. Several of the ones I chose, I think had the capability to be embedded, but since I'm so technologically delayed, I never could figure out how to actually embed them. I would copy the 'embed' info from the site, but then never could figure out how to actually get it to my blog, so I have just included the links.
Did I miss the directions on how to actually embed the videos?

Time Out! Digital story! Tool #7

I finally got the video to upload, yeah!!! But then, because I had been having such trouble with it, I forgot to put a title or anything on it! Oh well, learning curve!