Special Education

Today is the last day of our class.  Prior to this class, I thought I had no idea how to use technology.  I knew how to perform research, use Microsoft Office, somewhat use Facebook, iTunes, etc.  I know it sounds like a lot, but compared to others my age, I am not technologically savvy.  I avoided it because I was afraid and intimidated by technology.  This made me uninterested or I would never try to use any.  Once I began this class and experienced a number of different technologies, I realized that I can use and learn from it!  Technology isn’t as scary as I thought it was!  I am already implementing things we learned in this class personally and educationally.  I recently starting using skype to speak to friends and I used prezi for a presentation in another class of mine.  Both work great and have inhanced my life!  Once you become more comfortable with using technology, there are endless possibilities on how to implement it in your life and in your lessons.

The class had a discussion about trying to keep up with the 21st century learner.  This was a valuable lesson that I need to be aware of.  I will try to stay aware through friends, research, and even the students! All of the tools that I have tried over the past two weeks are things that I can and will implement as a teacher.  This can be used as a base while other technologies are being updated and coming out.

Some of the technology tools that I really engjoyed using were Photo Story and Comic Life.  If I have fun using these, I can’t imagine how elementary students will react!  I look forward to using these in my classroom.  I have so many resources that can help me implement these into the class.

This class has taught me different technology tools and how to implement them in the class.  Out of any other courses I have taken, this has been the best one that actually shows you how to do it.  I am very excited to take my new skills into the classroom!  

I can’t believe that tomorrow is our last day! We have done a lot of work in a really short timeframe! 

Today we worked on podcasting.  I knew what podcasting was, but never really listened or watched one before.  There are a lot of creative people that make podcasts.  Podcasts are videos or audios that are up on the internet.  They are great to watch or listen to for personal purposes or educational purposes. 

I am creating a technology integrated lesson plan on the geography of Virginia and the Native Americans that inhabited the land prior to Europeans coming to the area.  Steve (our professor) gave me a great website called virginiatrekkers.  This website was developed by four teachers that went around Virginia and created podcasts of the different geographical areas within the state.  They had fun creating them and are very educational.  This could be an additional resource that you tell students about.  Outside the classroom, they could explore these podcasts.  They won’t realize it but they will be learning outside the classroom!   

I was also introduced to Comic Life.  It is a program where students can tell stories in a different way that they are interested in.  I did make a silly comic life of my feelings towards technology and the class.  I think Comic Life could be incorprated into any grade level from 1st – 12th grade! 

There were three presentations today.  My group presented on starfall.com, another group presented on skype, and a third presented on photo story.  Mike, Kim, and Alexis provided a great presentation and examples of photo story.  One of there examples was a photo story of Macbeth created by Mike.  Students could see Macbeth in a different way than just reading.  All the presentations were very informative!

Overall, we had a busy day.  We learned a variety of useful websites, resources, and IT tool today.

A new communication tool that I found is called cliKball.    This is a website where you can share and discuss things you find on the internet.  Once you find something interesting, you are able to share with a group of friends, classmates, or teachers.  Another benefit is that you can chat with these same individuals. 

This would be beneficial in a classroom when students are doing research on a topic.  They can share their websites and research by posting it on clikball.  You can then invite all their classmates to view.  This is a great sharing tool for research.  Students can also post comments and chat with other students.  (hopefully to ask about their research)  This is a great sharing tool where students can have resources in one spot.

You are able to use this with other teachers in your school by inviting them to cliKball.  Teachers can also share resources they have found on the web, breaking stories, or chat during school abouit any issue.  It does not take too long to set up and a user friendly tool. 

Another fun tool that you may be able to apply into a lesson is mapjack.com.  It is similar to google maps street view.  If you are talking about a city or country, you are able to put the kids into the street of that city.  The screen is split so that the student can see where the city and/or country is on a map, and then there is a street view so the student can feel like they are in that location and see first hand what the people, buildings look like, etc.   The only negative is that there are not too many cities that you can currently look at but hopefully the website will slowly build additional views of cities. 

Above is a voice thread that I created for a lesson plan about Virginia’s location and the history of Virginia’s settlement.  I only added one sentence into the voicethread but each slide picture can have voice.  One thing I wish that it could do was to add text without having to modify the picture. 

We also experienced Twitter.  I did sign up for Twitter but I do not like it.  I feel like it is not a good tool for educational use either.  Twitter has short sentences and comments which I do not think has any educational value.  If I want students to have a conversation, I think I would use a blog because the students can creat full thoughts and the teacher is able to modify or address any inappropriate blog postings.  Twitter can also have a lot of spam which students should not see.  I experienced this within minutes of creating an account.  I do not think parents would approve of that. 

Cindy, Nevada, and Kate presented on smartboard.  I though they did a fantastic job explaining what smartboard can do, modeling a possible lesson, and providing references were you can get information and lessons for smartboard.   

Today we watched videos regarding 21st century learners.  I watched Teacher Education and 21st Century Skills and Learn to Change, Change to Learn.  Both of these videos were geared towards teachers and administration.  The main ideas are teachers need to learn what the 21st century skills are so that they can model for the students.  This means that teachers need to understand and learn the new technologies.  Unfortunetly the videos did not provide any ideas of how to apply technology and 21st Century learning into the classroom.  Throughout this class, we have learned new technologies to apply in the classroom.  This is a good base to start with but I will need to do further research to find any other additional technologies.

This morning in class we all shared either a photo story or cartoon animation.  I was so impressed with everyones!  Some classmates created educational ones while others created personal ones.  I could be taught a thing or two from some of my classmates!

Afterwards, we discussed Standards of Learning and how to break those standards down so the teacher and students can better understand their goals.  I will be creating a lesson plan that involves Virginia history and the physical environment of Virginia.  We had to break down the Standard of Learning (SOL) and answer some essential questions.  This is what I came up with. 

Grade: 5

 VA Standards:

VS.2       The student will demonstrate knowledge of the physical geography and native peoples, past and present, of Virginia by

a)   Locating Virginia and its bordering states on maps of the United States;

b)   Locating and describing Virginia’s Coastal Plain (Tidewater), Piedmont, Blue Ridge Mountains, Valley and Ridge, and Appalachian Plateau;

c)   locating and identifying water features important to the early history of Virginia (Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay, James River, York River, Potomac River, Rappahannock River, and Lake Drummond and the Dismal Swamp);

Questions to Support Standard:

1.      How did the physical geography of Virginia affect its history?

2.      How did the location of Virginia affect the history?

3.      What important figures are present in the early history of Virginia?

Teaching Strategies:

1.      Modeling

2.      Group work

3.      Group discussion

Technological Support:

1.       Use Googledocs for group work papers and presentation

2.      Incorporate Photo Story to show physical features of Virginia

3.      Use internet website to create a map of Virginia

4.      Have students create Prezi presentations of historical figures

This morning in class we started working with GIMP 2.  GIMP 2 is software that you can dowload for free that allows you to edit photos.  You can do a lot to the photos like cut a figure out of a photo and place it with a different background.  You can also crop photos, etc.  I also learned about a lot of websites where you can take photos from.  These include flickr and freefoto. 

We also learned about Photo Story.  This is also a free download.  You are able to tell a story through pictures.  You can add text, voice, and music to your story.  We were able to create one of our own.  I created one on a trip I took to Vermont for a few days.  Here is my photo story of My Summer Trip to Vermont.

Untitled from Ashley Fanning on Vimeo.

 Although my story is fun, this could also be used for educational purposes.  Cindy created a great one for the development of butterflies with a voice over.  Check out her great idea to teach students. 

Today we discussed the pros and cons of powerpoint and how to use prezi.  Most people know powerpoint.  I know many of us have been stuck in boring presentations where people read off their slides that you can’t read because there is so much information on it.  We discussed ways to engage the audience and keep things interesting.  A powerpoint should be talking points for you.  You can have links to movies, pictures, and sounds.  Something that wows or at least doesn’t make your audience fall asleep!  One time I was observing a high school classroom.  The teacher sat in a chair and for over an hour used a powerpoint presentation with tons of text.  The students weren’t paying attention at all and the other teacher in the room looked like they were almost asleep too! 

A new website we learned about is called prezi.  It is a website where you can create a unique presentation.  You write minimal words, put pictures in, and movies.  It jumps around from word to word.  It is something fun to use instead of powerpoint.  When you first start working with it, it can be time consuming (two hours for me today)  But once you get the hang of it, I think you can cut your time down to probably a quarter of that.  Here is my first experience at prezi.com.  I tried to create a presentation to introduce to my students.  As you will see it needs some work but it is a good start.  Getting to know Ms. Fanning  It is easy to use once you get the hang of it but be careful…it can be addicting! 

During day 2 of class, we did a lot of different activities.  To start of the morning we split into two teams and debated on whether lesson plans are beneficial for teaching.  I do think lesson plans are beneficial because it keeps the class organized, you have a lesson that will have different modifications and accomodations for students.  It is also beneficial to have in case your principle wants to view your plans, you have a substitue, or you are collaborating with another teacher.  Both sides did put up fair arguements either way. 

Afterwards, we discussed how technology can enhance debates.  Tony posted a great idea on having a debate with students in a different country.  Here is his idea: http://ed554.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/tuesday-debate/#comments  To build on his idea, you could have a your class and possibly a country or two from the EU participate.  Each class would choose a country and then choose leaders for the country.  Students can get into groups and prepare a debate topic that would be chosen.  It would involve research, team work, and meeting students from a different country.  It would be a unique idea for all involved.

Another way to incorprate technology is through preparation.  I used another tool introduced today, myWebspiration, to create a graphic organizer on why lesson planning is a positive.  Here is the example:

http://mywebspiration.com/view/156878a1437

We also learned how to use GoogleDocs.  It has always been readily available to me but I have never used it.  It is a great tool if you are working in groups.  It allows for version control, sharing ideas, and sharing your documents with others.  All documents are on the internet so you do not need to worry about a flash drive or having it be compatible with a computer.  Here is an example of a googledoc I created during class.  http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd33pqzm_20hmbxkccm&hl=en 

We also looked at additional websites useful for teachers.  These included Read Write Think ( http://www.readwritethink.org/) and webspiration http://mywebspiration.com/  Each websites have a lot of information that you can use for ideas in your classroom. 

Once again, I learned a lot of new information that will hopefully make my classroom more interesting and fun!

I had my first day of computer and technology in the classroom class.  I have already learned a lot of information in just the first day.  We watched a couple of videos and created our own blog.  I have never created a blog and it is definitely a learning experience seeing I lack many technological skills! 

One of the videos we watched was called “Did you know?”  This provided facts about technology, education, and students today.  Here is the video.  I suggest watching it because it is eye opening.  Did you know? video.

There were many facts that surprised me in the short video.  The video scared me regarding student’s future education and how they will be taught.  I think that it surprised me that students cooperate in groups on different continents.  With technology being a large part of our social life and quickly becoming an essential part of education, I am concerned about the over use of technology.  Issues regarding students safetyand believing everything they read on the internet are a concern.  There are many resources on the internet that look credible but are actually are not.  Students need to be taught how to differentiate credible sources from non-credible sources. 

Creating a blog is more difficult than I thought.  There are many small pieces that need to come together.  I think once I get more comfortable with the blogging website, it will be slowly be easier.  A blog is a useful resource for a variety if topics and interests.  Before this class, I never read blogs but I see it can be a useful resource.