Movie Night

This past week we watched the digital stories that our class created earlier in the semester. This was a fun night, and I enjoyed watching other people's stories. Everyone was very creative in making their stories, and they all turned out really well.
There were a lot of stories created from personal experiences, some fictional stories, and some information pieces. Tuesday night showed that everyone was successful in making a personal, creative story, using their own voices, music, and images from various locations.

Software

This week we discussed software that is available to purchase for classrooms and schools. We talked about many types of software (drill/tutorial, simulation, generative, diagnostic, teacher-productivity, and everyday applications), with a focus on the drill/tutorial, simulation, and generative software. We talked about the process of buying and evaluating the sofware, looking for items that have free trials, and determining whether the software is a good fit for our classes. Some of the popular software producers are Scholastic, Tom Snyder Productions, Riverdeep, and Sunburst.

We spent some time looking at the websites for these producers and choosing a piece of software that was drill, simulation, or generative and commented about them on the discussion board. We found some great programs (FASTT Math, BBC Science Simulations, and Neighborhood Map Machine 2.0), but some of them are rather pricy. It gets even more expensive when you want to purchase the software for many computers. If a school wanted to get a few programs for a lab, it would rack up quite a bill. I think that before doing something like this, the school teachers would need to get together and run demos/trials to determine which programs fit the most needs. Many of the programs have adaptive levels available, which are great for a school purchase to fit the needs of more classrooms.

After looking through the class' finds, I noticed that while many people did find the same packages, there are many types and levels of software available for classrooms. We were only given about 25 minutes to look through these sites for programs, and as a class we were able to come up with many. This tells me that with more time and consideration, we could look through and find some great programs that allow us to receive trials/demos to determine which ones are worth purchasing. I think that if the teachers can determine which programs are the best for them, it would be worth purchasing the larger package for the school.

Cognitive Technology

This week we presented in our groups to the class. Each group was assigned a different type of cognitive technology. We worked together to create a multimedia presentation to teach with. My group taught about cognitive technology devices, which help the user more easily remember, access, or process information. We used a child with ADHD as our example, who wears a watch to give him reminders of when to take his meds, turn in his homework, catch the bus, etc. The three main types of devices we talked about were watches, vibrating technology, and handheld computer devices. These devices are great for people with cognitive disabilities, but can also be used by others to help with daily reminders and tasks. Our main point was that devices should be chosen with the user and their individual needs in mind.

We learned about speech recognition software, which allows the user to convert speech into words. People who have trouble communicating can use these devices to clarify their thoughts orally to others. Some of these devices can also translate speech into other languages!

We learned about interactive white boards, or smartboards. These can be used in many ways to take notes on a board and save the notes and to make things clearer for children with disabilities. These boards seem like a lot of fun, allowing the user to use touch to create documents or move documents around.

Next we learned about AAC devices, or Augmentative and Alternative Communication devices. These devices are used by those who cannot use speech. We were able to examine some of these devices, including recorders, and key/picture pads that have pre-recorded phrases on them. A child with a disability can use this to touch a picture relaying their message without speech.

Lastly, we learned about text to speech technology. These programs allow the user to type a phrase or thought into the computer, and the program will then dictate the written language. This is also a good device for people who cannot use speech but have the ability to move their hands and type.

Overall, we learned today that there are many types and levels of technology available to help people with disabilities communicate and work more easily with others. These devices all relate to UDL and can help put all students on a more "level playing field".

Week 10

This week, we began class by meeting with our groups for our presentations next week. It was a good time for us to finish organizing and making decisions about our presentation. We were also able to ask any "last minute" questions while in class. We found it difficult to find very many times to meet outside of class, so this was helpful.
Next, we learned about Inspiration, a website we will use to summarize the content we present in our groups. We learned how to make outlines and diagrams and transfer our information into various types of documents. We also briefly discussed Kidspiration, a similar site that is more child-friendly. Although we were not able to see this in class, we heard about the speech that is available on this site, the colors, and many images that are available in this version of Inspiration.
Third, we discussed teaching Social Studies with technology. The three types of technology we discussed are digital primary sources, virtual field trips, and geographic information systems (GIS). We looked at a variety of sites that will allow students to get close to primary sources they may not normally be able to see, that zoom in on various locations showing landscaping, populations, etc., and look at some tours and trips of locations the students may not be able to travel to.

Many topics from this class session can be applied to the classroom when we are teaching. I think that either Inspiration or Kidspiration will be great tools to help students outline and organize their writing. It might also be used in vocabulary studies, creating a tree with synonyms or other anchor ideas to help a student remember the meaning of a word. This site will be very helpful and useful to use with children in various ways.
I also think that the various sites we examined for use in teaching social studies will be good tools to use in the classroom. It is easier and more meaningful for children to learn when they have more hands-on experiences. Since there are many places that the students will not be able to travel to, they can get this experience by using one of these programs. It would also help visual learners examine landscaping and geographical information across the world.

As of now, I do not have any questions about this lesson. Everything seems very clear from our initial investigations of the sites and tools. I hope that the presentations go well next week!

Teaching Science with Technology

This week we discussed using technology in teaching science to elementary school students. We began by looking at all of the different strands of science taught in elementary schools within the four main science branches. We looked at various scientific processes and how technology can help explain things and make them more "hand-on" for students to see.
We looked at CameraScope, a free UVA program used to hook up to a digital camera, webcame, or digital microscope to record data at different speeds. We saw how this technology allows students to study things that are too small, too slow, or too fast to examine with the naked eye. Some examples were looking at clouds, plant growth and movement, blinking, a firecracker exploding, and amoeba.
We also examined Gizmos on Explore Learning. These are simluations students and teachers can use to explore various aspects of science that they may not normally be able to create or touch. An example was looking at how viruses spread and infect cells in a simulation. Another was using many kinds of pulleys in class, which many teachers will not be able to set up.
We also spent some time examining our assistive technology assignments and discussing lesson planning with these topics.

The topics from this class will easily be used in elementary classrooms. First of all, these tools would be great ways to introduce topics in science that are difficult to examine by eye alone. I think it would be great to use a tool like CameraScope to slow down or speed up things like cloud movement, plan movement, and objects at a cellular level.
The Gizmos would also be great for similar reasons. There are topics in science that students often learn without seeing or examining closely. Using this site will give students the feeling of studying science in a more hands-on fashion than normal.

The question I have from this week is if there are certain sites that are good for finding videos like the clouds or plant we saw in class without having to film them all ourselves. Are there resources that are reliable for finding tools like this to use in class. Is there any Fair Use that comes into play with things like this?

Using technology to teach content

The first thing we worked on this week was learning how to embed files into our websites. We began by looking through our Pod-O-Matic account to see our podcasts, and then we learned how to stream them through our own websites. We also learned a similar technique for our digital stories. We will use a tool like Photobucket or YouTube to embed a video player on our websites as well.
Second, we spent some time looking at websites to help teach language arts with technology. Two of the sites we looked at are Read Write Think and Starfall, which both seem to have some educational value. There are many tools and games throughout these sites to help teach language arts.
Third, we looked through a few online activities to help teach math with technology. There were a lot of activities to use manipulatives on the website. These sites are similar to the language arts ones, in that they help plan activities and lessons relating to specific content knowledge.

One thing that I took from this lesson that will be helpful when I am teaching is using lessons in different ways and through different methods, like using online games. I think that these would be good tools to use with students occassionally to teach certain lessons or continue work on those lessons in a fun, interactive way.
These websites also give some good ideas for lessons themselves. Even if the website is not used, teachers can use the resources and lesson planning ideas from the sites to create their own activities for class.
Another useful thing we realized this week is that we need to be careful to examine the websites we may use with students carefully. As we saw with one of the sites, there is no way to save work in progress. This would be a problem if there is limited time in a computer lab or if a student is pulled out of class for another lesson. It is a good thing to keep in mind and be prepared for when using sites like these.

The only question that came to mind this week was regarding that site that seems to not have any save capabilities. I wonder if there is a reason for this, or if anyone has suggested adding the capability to the site. I think that it would be much more widely used if it were more 'classroom friendly'.

Podcasting Part 2

This week we spent most of class working on our group Podcasts. Since the recording took longer than expected, class was mostly dedicated to this and we will continue with the rest of the planned lesson next week. So, there weren't the same 3 types of big ideas this week as usual, but I would say that I came away with a few big thoughts. My group is working on a podcast on fire safety.
Audacity is a little bit complicated to use sometimes, as we saw when we tried to line up all of our wav files. We noticed that when we tried to line up the various wav files, we had to listen to the full sound all together to move them around more than we thought we would have to. We worked to overlap some of the files more than others to have a more smooth transitioning sound file.
Everything seemed to go really smoothly with our script writing and even recording the script, however we did run across some problems when it came time to put everything together. Somehow, everything sounded great as we played our file back in Audacity and we were feeling confident that our podcast was well on its way to being finished, but when we exported it and listened to it elsewhere, the beginning part of our podcast repeated itself, looping back over and over again. This was very frustrating and we could not figure out what had happened to cause this repetition. We found that technology can cause some problems and frustrations in this lesson.
A third thing that came up while we worked, was the concept of Fair Use. Luckily, we have already discussed this concept in class, but we did have some questions about our song use. We wanted to use a theme song from a tv show, but realized that the whole theme, while under 30 seconds, is copyrighted, so we had to make some adjustments.

These ideas can be used in our classrooms, or should at least be considered. We do need to be very careful about Fair Use laws with our students if we have them creating podcasts and finding music/sound effects to go along with the podcast. Even thinking that we were clear on the rules, we found that we were not quite sure about some things. This is a concept/rule that we should review again as teachers and relay carefully to our students.
We also need to keep in mind that technology can cause some issues and frustrations, as we saw in our group. As teachers, we will need to be very knowledgable about these possible issues and how to troubleshoot them. We will also need to watch students carefully for frustration levels and help out when needed.

The question I still have refers back to our repeating loop problem of our sound file. I don't know if this was just a kink that we somehow created or if this happens often with Audacity, but I am wondering what causes it and if there is a better way to fix it than reseting the whole podcast, as we did.