While I'm glad to see the holidays are just about here, I am sad to see this class end. It's definitely been an eye opener into all of the issues surrounding students with special needs, the supports they recieve/don't recieve and the possibilities for success when teachers work together and take the time to learn about their students and the resources available. I know everyone has gotten excited about the possibilities, and the ripple effect that results in our excitement will positively affect teachers and students around us.
Great job, everyone, for your amazing case studies. I know as teachers we know that students learn as much from their peers as they do from their instructors, and while we may not be experts in assistive technology like Barbara, it really is amazing to learn from each other's unique situations and experiences using the technology and interacting with students and colleagues. It is amazing the successes that have been acheived in such short amounts of time! Kudos!
Thanks too for your feedback about my own case study. I was feeling a bit discouraged about the red tape and resistance I recieved from the administration at the school at which I had originally hoped to work. Of course we should always make sure that we are getting proper authorization and consent when doing research on our students. Now I know to contact Judy White, the HRSB senior staff advisor with inquiries such as case studies. I did realize that the student I ended up working with was a bit young to be concerned about in terms of literacy skills, but am glad that the teacher, class and student will benefit from our time together.
Thanks to all my classmates, and especially Barbara Welsford, for sharing their expertise, thoughts and ideas in this exciting journey of discovery into the possiblities of assistive technology for student and teacher learning!
Week 5
Working on these in-class assignments has been great in reducing the work to be done at home and in allowing us to help and learn from each other while learning about all the available features and short cuts for using them efficiently. It certainly is a learning curve from the first to second time you use a program, and having this experience will certainly increase my confidence in using the program again in the future. While I liked the group/pod aspect, I was so absorbed in my part of the assignment that I admittedly wasn't overly involved in the other parts, though I guess that's part of group work! There just isn't enough time to learn everything about every program. I did like working with Clicker 5, and can definitely see how it can be used differently for some different levels of writers who have a hard time with traditional pencil and paper writing.
I am glad we had a chance to go discuss the final case study assignment, as I had some questions. The sample presentation we watched was really useful.
I am glad we had a chance to go discuss the final case study assignment, as I had some questions. The sample presentation we watched was really useful.
November 15
Watching the way the groups used Kurzweil today to make activities accessible to their students for so many different types of activities and levels was really great! Nice job everyone! I hope we do have the chance to share some of our work to explore each other's ideas and topics more closely. I know that I had fun with the working hands-on like this and imagine our students will too. It reminded me that our students often learn as much from each other as they do from us, as we did today.
The value in the reading and writing task analysis that we did these past couple of weeks is evident when we see how many of these skills we take for granted. As teachers we are the successful learners of our childhood classrooms, and need to be reminded that even if we did struggle, most of these literacy skills are now pretty automatic. We may think we know how sophisticated the act of written expression is, especially as we explore literature and authors with our students, but seeing the list of skills and concepts on the charts we were handed out today really amazed me. What amazing brains we have! I have enjoyed seeing the Writing webs that have been posted in my classmates blogs showing many of these concepts and skills and how they are linked.
FYI If anyone is interested, the link for the youtube video downloader we used to show our video clips today is http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/
The value in the reading and writing task analysis that we did these past couple of weeks is evident when we see how many of these skills we take for granted. As teachers we are the successful learners of our childhood classrooms, and need to be reminded that even if we did struggle, most of these literacy skills are now pretty automatic. We may think we know how sophisticated the act of written expression is, especially as we explore literature and authors with our students, but seeing the list of skills and concepts on the charts we were handed out today really amazed me. What amazing brains we have! I have enjoyed seeing the Writing webs that have been posted in my classmates blogs showing many of these concepts and skills and how they are linked.
FYI If anyone is interested, the link for the youtube video downloader we used to show our video clips today is http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/
November 1, 2008
Working hands-on with Kurzweil today was a great way to discover how many possibilities the program offers not only as a teacher designing a reading and/or writing activity, but also the different options that students can have for sharing their knowledge and understanding with the teacher. This is a program that creates many possibilities for differentiated learning activities, adaptable to the different styles of learners.
My project partner and I chose a middle elementary novel study to adapt for a student in grade three who has difficulty sharing his ideas in writing, most likely due to problems with fine motor skills and limited experience (most often having teachers scribe for him). We were able to scan the book in order to have the program read the book aloud to him at a speed appropriate for him (he seems to be able to follow along well when a book is read aloud, but often looses interest quickly), and were able to easily insert the novel study activities at the appropriate places in the novel as bubble notes (multiple choice questions, short answer typed responses with word recognition support from the uploaded novel vocabulary, matching activities) as well as voice recorded responses, and text note instructions for pencil and paper drawing activities. The different modes of delivery of the activity instructions, the use of novel means of sharing his ideas, as well as learning how to use the program on the computer (equipment he enjoys using) and keeping up with the class, are likely to make this a successful use of the program in his case. Some issues with the scanning (being our first time using it) were in editing the zones to be read when the program picked up page numbers and some areas of pictures as text. This was a time consuming process, especially if we had already created bubble notes on the page before zone-editing (which it doesn’t let you do.) While the novel study did take some time to set up, it shows promise as something the teacher can easily adjust and adapt to many students over a few years of use, and can be shared among teachers for students of similar reading levels, and therefore worth the extra planning time.
It will be interesting to see how the other students in the class used the same Kurzweil options with their assessment activities.
My project partner and I chose a middle elementary novel study to adapt for a student in grade three who has difficulty sharing his ideas in writing, most likely due to problems with fine motor skills and limited experience (most often having teachers scribe for him). We were able to scan the book in order to have the program read the book aloud to him at a speed appropriate for him (he seems to be able to follow along well when a book is read aloud, but often looses interest quickly), and were able to easily insert the novel study activities at the appropriate places in the novel as bubble notes (multiple choice questions, short answer typed responses with word recognition support from the uploaded novel vocabulary, matching activities) as well as voice recorded responses, and text note instructions for pencil and paper drawing activities. The different modes of delivery of the activity instructions, the use of novel means of sharing his ideas, as well as learning how to use the program on the computer (equipment he enjoys using) and keeping up with the class, are likely to make this a successful use of the program in his case. Some issues with the scanning (being our first time using it) were in editing the zones to be read when the program picked up page numbers and some areas of pictures as text. This was a time consuming process, especially if we had already created bubble notes on the page before zone-editing (which it doesn’t let you do.) While the novel study did take some time to set up, it shows promise as something the teacher can easily adjust and adapt to many students over a few years of use, and can be shared among teachers for students of similar reading levels, and therefore worth the extra planning time.
It will be interesting to see how the other students in the class used the same Kurzweil options with their assessment activities.
Thoughts on MPTT and Scherer Chapter Readings
In thinking of ways to use assistive technology in the classroom, the environment (milieu), personality, task, and technology are seemingly obvious factors in deciding on ways to adapt the activity for the child, but which can easily be overlooked for a teacher new to these technologies. What is important to consider is not just how these technologies can assist students in learning new skills and finding new ways to share their ideas, but whether you are using your student's time and the resources most efficiently to build on skills needing development; matching the correct technology to the task and the student; and in the appropriate situations (teacher/ educational assistant / parental support or supervision, time of day, student's technological, motivational and attentional capabilities).
It is easy to imagine teachers getting carried away by enthusiasm for a particular AT computer program and start using it with students who are not necessarily a good fit, just because it has worked with other students with great success in other situations. Getting to know the students strengths and areas of difficulty, their temperment with different levels of assistive technology, and attentional and motivational capabilities will greatly determine the types of assistance you will want to provide your students. Experience with the technologies will be a great benefit in learning about the levels of attention and motivation needed to work with the programs.
It is easy to imagine teachers getting carried away by enthusiasm for a particular AT computer program and start using it with students who are not necessarily a good fit, just because it has worked with other students with great success in other situations. Getting to know the students strengths and areas of difficulty, their temperment with different levels of assistive technology, and attentional and motivational capabilities will greatly determine the types of assistance you will want to provide your students. Experience with the technologies will be a great benefit in learning about the levels of attention and motivation needed to work with the programs.
Saturday, October 18
Today's class was really interesting for a few reasons. One is that I always find learning the science behind an issue fascinating, and the movie segment from the Secret Life of the Brain did an excellent job of summarizing the development of the child's language capacities. It really is amazing to think about all of the concepts and skills that are necessary in order to hear, process, understand and create spoken and written language. The stories from the video were so inspiring and emotional because communication through language is so important to our development and well being, that losses or challenges to our capacity to communicate in any form can be devastating not only for the individual facing the challenge, but also for those who love and support them. Language is so central to our humanity in how it allows us to interact so significantly with others; to share ideas and feelings, and empowering us to contribute to society and manipulate our own environments. It is so easy to take these amazing feats of communication for granted until we see how even one missing concept or skill can stall the whole process of learning to read or write.
Secondly, it was amazing to learn there are programs out there designed to help students with developing these specific skillsand concepts for reading and writing, and that they aren't used more in every classroom! Why isn't this a required course for Bachelor of Education programs! Anyone who works with or has children could benefit from many of the programs available. When you think of all the different ways that we can learn and share our knowledge (i.e. multiple intelligences), and all the different resources that are available, it seems a real shame that it takes so long for these resources to actually become more mainstream and available for daily access in our classrooms. What a shame also that the schools which could benefit the most from these sorts of resources (Kurzweil, Bailey's Bookhouse, Classroom Suite, Earobics, etc) might also be the ones to lack the funding for computers and equipment necessary to run them.
I've always had an interest in communication and language development, as became evident in my undergraduate studies in psychology, which explains my concentrating on the language areas of assistive technology in this post. I could argue that I see more students affected by reading and writing difficulties in the classroom than I do by mobility issues. But as severe physical mobility challenges can often also present as language challenges, it seems the more an individual can express his/her needs and ideas, the better we can address his/her physical needs and determine the best solutions to an individual's physical challenges.
Secondly, it was amazing to learn there are programs out there designed to help students with developing these specific skillsand concepts for reading and writing, and that they aren't used more in every classroom! Why isn't this a required course for Bachelor of Education programs! Anyone who works with or has children could benefit from many of the programs available. When you think of all the different ways that we can learn and share our knowledge (i.e. multiple intelligences), and all the different resources that are available, it seems a real shame that it takes so long for these resources to actually become more mainstream and available for daily access in our classrooms. What a shame also that the schools which could benefit the most from these sorts of resources (Kurzweil, Bailey's Bookhouse, Classroom Suite, Earobics, etc) might also be the ones to lack the funding for computers and equipment necessary to run them.
I've always had an interest in communication and language development, as became evident in my undergraduate studies in psychology, which explains my concentrating on the language areas of assistive technology in this post. I could argue that I see more students affected by reading and writing difficulties in the classroom than I do by mobility issues. But as severe physical mobility challenges can often also present as language challenges, it seems the more an individual can express his/her needs and ideas, the better we can address his/her physical needs and determine the best solutions to an individual's physical challenges.
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