Topic #11 Assistive Technology

This is my 2nd attempt to publish this post as my first one had an error and was deleted...ugh!

I had never heard of Assitive Technology until last week, so this whole idea is new to me and I don't know about many resources. I spent time on the internet looking at various recourses, and found a few that were pretty good.

My favorite site that I went to this week was the one we looked at for our homework (http://www.atto.buffalo.edu/). This is the site that offered the AT basics as well as the tutorials. I thought the tutorials were extremely helpful and offered some great ideas for implemenation in the classroom. I plan to use the Talking Books idea on power point. I think this site offers great explanations of the basics of AT and how to use them in your classroom.

I have also enjoyed reading the materials from Closing the Gap (http://www.closingthegap.com/). I think this provides great insight to AT for teachers as well as parents. I think the articles are very informative.

One site that I found is awesome. It's called Education World (www.educationworld.com/assistive/sp_ed/assistive/index.shtml ). This site has an ENORMOUS amount of resources for both parents as well as educaters and students. There are 3 sections. The first is "General Recourses" which includes articles/resources for technology in the classroom as well as basic information for parents. If you go to this site, make sure you check our the "Technology Center". This is a great section for teachers and tells you about many different resources you can use with your students. There is a great article by Larry Ferlazzo that offers 2.0 activities for students. I highly recommend checking it out. They also do an "On the Big Screen" spotlight and this month it features a software called Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which allows students to map different areas. It sounds a little like Google Earth. The two other sections inclue "Narrowing the Gap in Academics" and "Creating Independence". They showcase different sites such as PlaneMath to help children. They also discuss a program called Speak to Write which is a federally funded project and uses voice recognition to allow students with disabilities to write.

Washington University also has a great site called Access IT (www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?109 ). This site offers information on AT as well as a great knowledge base idex. This index has 162 articles about AT. These articles are anywhere from how to implement different things to identifying various AT needs.

I head Don Johnston's name when I was listening to the Dr. Nelson podcast. He also has a wonderful site (http://www.donjohnston.com/). There is an excellent tab called "Recourses" and there are many wonderful recourses that teachers can use with their students. All of the recourses are literacy recourses and they are amazing. You should check them out. His site also includes videos to see how some of his products are implemented.

Apple also has a site for their Mac (www.apple.com/education/special-education/?cp=WWA-EDUSEM-Q409 ). I had no idea that they had created an OS that focuses on AT. Their products help with Literacy & Learning, Vision, Hearing, and Physical & Motor Skills. I'm glad to see that Apple is focusing on the needs of people with different disabilities.

I am enjoying learning about Assistive Technology and look forward to finding more great recourses.

Topic 10 - Tech Skills

To be honest, when I started this class I thought I was somewhat "Tech Savvy". I am proficient in Word, Excel, and Power Point. I have a Promethean board. I use technology as part of my every day instruction. My specialization is going to be in technology, so I thought I would be right on track. I figured out pretty quickly that I have some learning to do! My first realization came when I took that MTT test...OH MY! All of those technical questions threw me for a loop! While I may be a more advanced technology teacher than some teachers in my building, I am far from being "Tech Savvy". I think I pretty much just know the basics.

Since the beginning of class, I have become more aware of what teaching tools are out there. One collaboration tool that I am excited about is blogging. I have never blogged before and I think my students would really love it. I think it is such a great way to interact with others and I think it allows you to get on a more personal level with people. I am also glad to have learned about Atomic Learning. I have not yet created my database, but I think the lessons provided on Atomic Learning are very helpful as tutorials. I am still not sure that I will use a database in my third grade classroom, but I can see how great it would be for high school aged students. I'm sure that webquests have been around for a while, but sadly enough, I had never heard of one! I think they sound awesome and I can't wait to try one with my students.

As I become more proficient with various instructional technologies, I plan to incorporate them more and more in my classroom. From reading the articles and learning more about distance learning, it sounds as if education is taking steps in that directions. While I still think F2F learning is very important, you can see the benefits of DL. I don't think DL should ever be the only choice for education, but I did like reading about the combined approach and incorporating both of them. I think that if children are going to be truly ready for college and the working world, they really need these technological skills. As a teacher, I think I need to look at some of the work I am giving my kids and see if it could be enhanced/improved with technology. I really want to have more collaboration via the Internet with my students and I want them to see what is available to them.

The Atomic Learning Self Assessment basically showed me that I have a lot to learn! The area where I struggled was the technological part. I wasn't quite sure about all of those technological terms. I think Atomic Learning is an excellent tool.

Topic 9 - Student Research/Publisher

Last week my students started their first research project (in third grade). Before we began, we reviewed what "kid-friendly" sites look like as well as the difference between a website and a search engine. We have been studying communities in Social Studies. I had them pick a different community in the U.S. and a different community in another country. I then gave them a research page that I typed on word. I thought this might be a good way to start them off so they could have a note taking page and their research would be structured. They had to research their own community and the two other communities that they picked.

We researched Dallas together. Normally, I don't allow my students to use Wikipedia, but I checked the facts about Dallas ahead of time and they were accurate, so I used this as a learning tool and explained to my students that anyone can go in and post on Wikipedia and is usually not the best place to find research. I then showed my kids NetTrekker, Enchanted Learning, and Google Kids. I gave them some time to research and find the specific information they were looking for.

The next step is creating a brochure on Publisher. My kids will tell about each of their communities in a brochure format. This part of the lesson is very guided by me since they have not used Publisher before. Last week we designed the covers. They got to explore with different layouts, fonts, colors, etc. They also were able to go to Google Images and find a picture for the front of their brochure. We are going to continue this lesson on Friday and my students will designate a portion of their brochure for each community. They will find picture of their community and describe the different cultures and interesting facts about their community.

I have enjoyed doing this sort of project over giving them the worksheets that come with the book. They are learning the same type of information, but this is hands-on and more "real" to them. I think they are learning more about different cultures by researching on their own and not just getting facts from the text book. I think this assignment has had more meaning to them because they were able to choose the communities they wanted research. I also think my students are highly motivated by technology. We started this project using our COW and my kids are always excited about using the laptops.