Week 5

I wish I had more time to play around with the program because by the time I was done with my lesson, I felt like I had a good handle on it. I thought maybe if there was a little more direct instruction about the different parts of the program I would. It took me a long time to figure things out, that by the time I felt comfortable, I didn't have much time to actually work on, and make a good project. I feel much better at my SMART Board skills, but I definitely want to work on it more before I try and implement it into my classroom lessons. I think I will be able to use this in the classroom, but like I said I need more time to practice and learn.

Models of Internet Use

Internet project and Internet workshop are similar in that they have the kids independently use the computers to get a task done. This will strengthen their skill set on internet use and possibly open their minds to new, successful, and appropriate ways to use the internet as a tool. Internet project is more geared towards teachers modifying their curriculum to use computers. They can use projects that are already set up, or create ones of their own. The students use these web projects to learn something, while working collaboratively. Internet workshop is where the teacher uses the internet to enhance their curriculum. They can have the students pre-research a topic that they are going to be studying in class or further explore a topic once its been introduced. This is more independent work for the students. The teacher doesn't need to change her curriculum plan, other than to incorporate a day or week for the students to conduct their research.

Pearltree Language Tools

  The specific tools that I found would be helpful are the websites that have classroom games. You could use them in the classroom. Also there are a lot of websites that support second language learners, and there are a lot of informational websites that would help kids research a certain topic.
  For language tools, you can use many different types. As a world language teacher you could pearl different helpful websites for second language learning specific to your content areas. If you invited your students, they could have access to all the helpful and appropriate websites that they could use. The obstacles that could be present are if you have children that cannot figure out how to effectively learn the process of pearling. Also it doesn't seem like the website is very structured and it would be hard to monitor what kids would pearl. Maybe a way to get around this would be to have them only have access to the website in a classroom setting.

ThinkQuest

http://library.thinkquest.org/11799/
I chose the site "Just Because We Have A DisAbility Doesn't Mean WE BYTE!" This one stood out to me because the whole goal of the website was to educate people about different disabilities. I think that a well educated person has less prejudices and holds less stereotypes because they know better. Its because of that belief that I think the website is very important. I would share it as a resource with students, and hopefully open their minds a little to the differences in all of us. Also, I think its important for people with a disability to know that they aren't alone. Because of the nature of many disabilities, they vary greatly from person to person. This means that disabilities can be somewhat isolating, and knowing about other people out there with a similar situation is very helpful. Also, some children have a disability, and for whatever reason, they don't know much about it other than their own experiences, and a resource like this website could be very important for them being able to learn how to self disclose and/or help other people who also don't understand them. This would connect to the state standards because you could use these to enrich your curriculum, and give the students the best education possible. Similarly, this would have a relationship with NETs because NETs is a protocol for teachers to better implement technology in your classroom, and using this website, as well as other websites from ThinkQuest, would make sure you are using technology, at least in a minimal way, in your classroom.

For a student with a hearing impairment I would use a microphone or an FM system. The microphone would be easiest because I as the teacher would just wear it around my neck, and all the students could benefit. If I used an FM system, I would still wear a microphone, but the student would have a small receiver box and an ear piece, and that way, the student can adjust the volume for his/her comfort. For someone with low vision, I would place them in the front of the room so that they could see the board, and give them hard copies of whatever I was presenting so that they could see it better. Also I could provide large print books in the classroom and increase the size of the typing on my handouts to all students to make it easier for that child. For a broken arm, assuming that the right one was their dominant hand, I could provide that student with hard copies of the materials so that they could just focus on what was being said, and review my notes later. I could also assign them a study buddy who could take notes for them for however long their arm was in a cast. I could also allow for homework to be typed because maybe that would be easier then hand writing. For non-communicative autism, I would definitely want to provide them with some sort of ACC device, whether that be a Dynavox or an iPad or whatever, so they would have some sort of mode for communication.

Technology in the Classroom

I have been to Glastonbury High School (GHS) (the school where I will be placed this fall) a couple of times, and have had a chance to just look into the classrooms and see what is available. According to the cooperating teacher, every classroom is provided with a smart board. At the middle school and high school I attended in my hometown, every classroom also had a smart board, and it was one of those instances where the school got everyone excited about them, but never really educated the teachers on how to use them. Because of this, we as students got to use them a lot, because the teachers didn't know how, and most of us could figure it out a lot easier. We were encouraged to use them in presentations and stuff like that so I have some experience with them from a student perspective. In addition to the smart boards in the classroom, all the teachers at GHS communicate with their students off the teachers' personal homepage. I am told that this is a place where I will be able to post assignments, update a schedule for my students to view, post discussion topics/read answers etc. Further, as a Special Educator, I will be exposed to certain programs that the teachers are currently being taught how to use such as Reading programs that can be purchased on an iPad. The school seems technologically advanced so far, so I am looking forward to being able to use the skills that I learn from this class when planning my lessons and working with the students. Because the special education system at GHS is going through some changes, my cooperating teacher is not even positive what specific classes she will be teaching in the fall, much less has any lesson plans for me to work on. However, since I was so used to having them available, I was expecting them to be there, and I don't think it will be a problem for me to come up with something interactive to do with them once I know more what I'm doing. Because most of my knowledge is self taught, I am looking forward to learning more about how to use them since I'm sure there are many features I am not aware of.
Off of the top of my head, I remember there are ways you can manipulate a powerpoint with the smart board, and that would be a way to get students involved in the lesson. If I were doing a lesson on rhyming, for example, the students could manually move a group of words into one column or the other maybe based on end sounds or beginning sounds. This way I could have students take turns gain a sensory experience as well as the visual. Or if I were in a high school classroom and I were doing a lecture, I could put up just the main points, and write in additional information with the smart board markers. This would allow the content to move in a more spontaneous way, and allow for more student contribution, instead of just plain lecturing. These are just a couple of examples I can think of, without a lot of information about what else is available with the boards. 

Connections Week 1

This week we had to do several different presentations in the different classes and I had a couple opportunities to use Google Docs. I had never used Google Docs before last week's class, and using it for group work was so much more painless then all editing the same document. I felt like in all the classes we had a small discussion about technology in the classroom, sometimes just as simple as looking for ways to engage students in your lesson plans, and different technologies and strategies came up. It was nice to be able to find connections between all the classes and see how the content all transferred from one class to the other in a seamless manner.