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!

Tool #7 (cont'd)

Have been trying to post my digital story and I keep getting an error, I will continue to try.

Tool #7

I love the video story.....the kids will have a blast with it. It can be used in so many different ways and when I return to work, I will work on one showing exactly how to accommodate text, etc. It was a little difficult to do that without specific content here at home, but I loved making one of my 'break' from work!!! I have used animoto before and this was just as easy. I did not have access to a microphone, and therefore there is no dictation, but I will be able to do that when I return to work as well. I love finding out about all this technology. I think this is highly motivating to the children......and this, in and of itself, is an accommodation for presentation for students who may have difficulty writing, or getting up in front of their peers to present their projects.

Tool #6

As I create this blog to help teachers out, I want to develop a wiki for teachers/diagnostictians and others working with children with special needs to add to and edit the current recommendations and suggestions for accommodating for these children. This would be the perfect avenue. Now, I just have to set one up and figure out how to add it to my blog. Which I will do now. I love the idea of collaboration and it seems the further I get into this project, the more collaboration there is. The old saying that 'one head is better than two' certainly applies

Tool #5

This was interesting and will be helpful in my 'at home' bookmarking as well as here at work. I checked out delicious and diigo. I tried to sign up for delicious, but for some reason never could get it to work, and since diigo really seems to offer more, I signed up for that and added it to my toolbar. I'm assuming I will have to do that on all my computers in order to use it, but it is sooo cool. I was searching the internet for suggestions for accommodations and modifications for children with special needs, so when I found some interesting websites, I bookmarked them on diigo. The sites I found particularly interesting are:

http://www.ldonline.org
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/special-education/resource/5347.html

Both of these sites give some good recommendations for accommodations, but I need to keep searching as I'm wanting specific suggestions for teachers that are quick, but effective. I will add these websites to my google document, as well. I tagged these sites with 'accommodations, special needs, and LD'. I think this will be a great tool for teachers in a specific field to work together in finding resources to help with their subject. I will share mine with my diagnostician friends, as well as with my special education teachers. Kids can share them with other kids who are researching the same topics. It's awesome. The diigo feature of highlighting, etc. can be useful for those with special needs and have difficulty reading. Teachers could find websites for the students....highlight and provide a sticky note with a simpler explanation for the child. It would take a little more time; however, very beneficial.

Tool #4 (cont'd)

I created a google document that I hope to share with all the teachers in my building. It is a list of websites that I have found that will help teachers accommodate for students in their classrooms that may need them. My first set of websites deal with helping students who have difficulty with grade level reading. These first few websites are designed for text to speech capabilities and audio readers and books. It's called "Websites to Help with Accommodating for Students". I will only be giving access to those who need it and it will be an ongoing project for teachers to access. Here's the link:
http://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1qiQA7SH9sNNjpx-UAf6pmVSl_xCJTALPK-DxMqXQJA8&hl=en&authkey=CNzAibID

I hope it works. I added my blogs I want to follow on the google reader, but wasn't sure what else I was to do with that???? It seems that the ones I had added on an earlier tool were already there??? So, that makes it easy.

Tool #4

Now, I'm finally beginning to feel like I'm at work on the content of the actual blog, rather than just trying to get through the steps of creating it. I absolutely love this google documents, and am hoping it can be utilized within our entire department for documents that have to be worked on by more than one person. Since only those who are tagged can view and/or edit the documents, I am hoping the confidentiality of the documents won't be an issue. I'm not sure how the people I chose to access the document I created are supposed to do that. I'm assuming I give them the name of the document and they will be able to access it. I see a problem though if they are using a different email address than I have. For example, I'm not using my work address, so will there be a problem with that? The eReader is cool, but I haven't really found anything I'm interested in keeping up with yet, other than the blogs I've already chosen that are on my blog. Ok, so now I'm feeling a little better about this whole exercise and hope to be able to really get some use out of it.

Tools #3 (cont'd)

I did end up using mosaic maker, which I think was fairly easy. One can use their own photos or upload from the different photo sites, which is fun to peruse. All in all, though, this tool, for me, was quite time consuming and frustrating, beings how I never was able to upload my 'wordle' to my blog. blah!!!!!

Tools #3 (cont'd)

OK, I worked on trying to get the 'Wordle' into my blog for another hour and never could. I moved onto uploading some pix from FlickR. It was a litte more time consuming scanning through pictures that I wanted, but fun. I ended up saving them into my facebook page, though to get them onto my blog. I worked on saving them some of the other ways and never could get the hang of it. I checked out some of the other picture uploading sites and some of the them appeared not to be able to handle saving the pictures in the jpg. or png. formats, so I didn't bother with them. My Wordle can be found at: http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2209473/Accommodate I will keep working on trying to get it onto my blog, but I've worked on this for over 3 hours now. I'm done for this tool for today!

Tools #3

AGAIN, technologically delayed!! I created a wordle, which was lots of fun, but still haven't figured out how to get it into my blog. I have the URL for it and everything, but can't import it???? Very frustrating. I'm going to try something else now, and come back to the wordle.

Tools #2

I like the idea of the PLN. In this age of instant gratification, if I'm looking for information on a specific topic, this would be an ideal place to get to quickly. Who better to help me learn new things related to my job than those who are/have been doing what I am doing, yet have a different view of that job. The idea of two heads are better than one certainly applies. Also, have learning networks like this might cut down on the eamount of meetings required as information could be shared via these learning networks. I'm all for that....I can read blogs in my spare time and pick and choose the subjects that pertain to me.

On another note, while reading through different blogs, it made me realize how really delayed I am in this area of technology. Some of these blogs are truly amazing. I first got interested in this, from the movie: Julie and Julia (I think that's the name, where Julie writes a 365 day blog about her experiences while cooking through Julia Child's cookbook). I hope I am as passionate about finding accommodations for kids as she was about cooking. Thus far, this blog really hasn't centered on what I want the topic to be.....so I'm hoping we get to that soon.


As for the commenting advice, it didn't seem like there was much....it seemed there was more about how to invite comments. A critical part of this, especially if using with children, would be to teach the netiquette (SP?), as one would teach children about peer conferencing with students during writer's workshop. I would like to read more about proper commenting.

The posts I chose to follow are:

Blue Skunk Blog http://www.doug-johnson.squarespace.com
11 Tools Professional Development http://www.coopers11tools.blogspot.com
My Teaching Life http://www.iteachilearnigive.blogspot.com
MWE Purple Martins http://www.mwepurplemartins.blogspot.com
Online Gadgets http://www.emaillenium.blogspot.com

Some of these blogs are fun to watch unfold, some are giving me some really good technology information and some are food for thought. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time searching through them.

Tool #1

For those of us who are not so savvy in technology, this little assignment has taken forever. I keep having to go back and forth between the websites, simply because I wanted to save paper and not print out everything. It seems the directions sometimes are not as specific as I might like them to be, so some of my work is trial and error. I hope at some point, I'll be able to instill a little personality into my 'avatar'. Right now, it's all about the basics, then I'll go back and add flair, ha!! At least, I hope to, as I really want to add the content that I'm thinking will help teachers at my campus better accommodate for the children in their classrooms that need these accommodations.

Beginnings

So many times, teachers find it very time consuming when they need to accommodate materials and curriculum to meet the needs of all students in their classrooms. This blog will hopefully help by giving quick and easy accommodations, many of which will use technology as the background. Teachers have a variety of reading levels in their classrooms and many times reading material must be accommodated in order to meet the needs of children reading below grade level. In the next few days, I will be posting some techniques in order to help with this problem.