goodbye CEP 416!

As this semester comes to a close, I have had a lot to reflect upon. It seems as if we have gone through a whirlwind of technologies, only tapping into the top of the glacier. We have only briefly begun to see the immense resource that these technologies are. I hope that I will hold onto these various technologies and go back and explore more later. I am grateful for all that we have been taught and hope to carry this into my professional career.

The main message that this class has taught me is that technology in the classroom is not only important, it is imperative. It makes learning and teaching more upbeat and puts a fresh perspective on perhaps dried out subjects. This class has been a "gateway drug" so to speak, for the fact that it has pointed me in the direction of other technology that we have not covered.

I would have to say that Jing has definitely been my favorite technology we learned about, with Wiki's in a close second. I feel that both of these technologies will be extremely useful to me in the future and are ones that I can see myself most likely implementing.

Thank you Greg and CEP 416 for teaching me so many valuable resources. I hope we can keep in contact in the future and collaborate on the many new technologies that are soon to arise!

:)

wiki wiki yeahhhh

I have always been extremely curious what EXACTLY a wiki is and today, my mind was enlightened. I have been using wikis and felt kind of silly when I found this out. Of course, I was excited to see what creating my own wiki was all about.

Once again to my amazement, I was delighted to be presented with the amazing-ness of a wiki. This is yet another tool for my Tech Toolbelt that will be extremely helpful in my professional career. Not only can I use this for my classroom, but for my own personal life as well. A wiki seems to be the ultimate "opening" of outside of the classroom contact. It is different from a website, or as explained in the YouTube video Wikis In Plain English an email. On a website, the students can keep in contact, but multiple users cannot easily edit the information.

The wiki is the ultimate "online classroom" As we have seen from our classroom, it it an easy, accessible way for multiple users to edit and link their information. A wiki also has a multitude of other information available through the widget pages as well. The widgets are my favorite part of a wiki. Through widgets, the teacher and students can add relevant information that will be useful for the multiple collaborators.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Wiki and think that out of every technology we have learned about, it will be the one that I most likely use in the classroom.

You can check out my very first wiki here **** ENJOY!

assistive technology and the OSK

I am so excited assistive technology was brought up as an option during this week's work. I think that a major problem with the special education is the lack of communication between general and special ed teachers. Did you know that general education students are not required to take ONE class about special ed students when they will MOST DEFINITELY have a student with some sort of special needs in their classroom? I'm glad this class is at least making general education students aware of the presence and need for assistive technology.

It is also quite interesting that Ira Socol's blog was posted, as I was in his class and am already following it and using it to gain ideas. For this week's assignment, I chose to look at on-screen keyboards. I chose this because over the years of volunteering I have been drawn to the students with fine motor disabilities and think that this would be a wonderful technology for them to get to know. It also fits in with the Toolbelt Theory and FreeTech that Socol speaks of. It is another tool for them to add, and there are free versions avaiable.

Better Living Through Technology is a fantastic website that can help teachers stay up-to-date with the latest assistive technologies. An On Screen Keyboard, or OSK is an extremely useful tool for students with fine motor or visual impairments. As the website explains, "An On-Screen Keyboar is a visual representation of a standard keyboard that can be installed on any Windows computer.OSKs vary a lot in their features. Some are accessible by a variety of pointing devices and some can be accessed by switches and a variety of other innovative access solutions." There are 7 different types of OSK's described on the wesbite, but going with the FreeTech stream, I am going to focus on the free Window's XP OSK.



The Windows XP OSK seems to be the least technologically advanced, but is perhaps one that is best suited for the classroom. A majority of the classrooms I have been in have not had brand new technology available to them, and using a newer OSK would not be suitable. This Windows is limited, but still extremely useful for our purposes.

The website first goes on to say that the visual appearance cannot be changed much. The keyboard stays the same size and you cannot change the colors. This might be a difficulty for students with visual impairments but at the same time still beneficial for students with fine motor impairments. The next aspect talked about is Dwell Delay. Students with fine motor problems find it difficult to double click and this solves the problem. By leaving the mouse over something for a certain amount of time, the user can easily double click.

I think that OSK's are extremely beneficial tools for the classroom. In a classroom that is more technologically adavanced, newer and more rich versions of the OSK can be put into use, but for most classrooms with a lower budget, the Windows XP OSK works great.

the art of digital storytelling

This week's lesson on digital storytelling was actually quite a challenge for me. While this is a very useful tool to use in the classroom, I had a difficult time trying to think of a story. I used the "get started" tools on the wiki but still spent most of my time trying to think of a story. I feel that in a classroom this would be much more useful.

In the classroom, when students have their thoughts and ideas in their heads, this will be more useful. For students, it is a more fun, innovative way to tell a story, rather than to write down words and draw pictures. It is useful because it also can be an assistive technology for special education students. Perhaps students who have difficulties writing or difficulties with their fine motor skills will prefer this over the more conventional way of telling a story.

This would also be useful for myself as a teacher to use. It is an unconventional way of reading a story (because in some cases the story reads itself). I feel that this is a more advanced version of the audio book.

I chose to use VoiceThread and I am mostly a fan. I like that the "editor" can comment in different ways, such as through audio and typing. I also like that the editor can draw on the picture to highlight specific things. It is also a benefit that multiple others can comment as well.

The only disadvantage to VoiceThread is that you must stay within the VoiceThread page to display the show. The comments are always visible, which is something that I did not like.

Overall, I enjoyed using VoiceThread and can see it as something I would like to use in the future.

crazy for jing!

I AM IN LOVE WITH JING. Really, I am! This is the absolute greatest technology that can be used in the classroom! It has a more intimate feel and is not intimidating because it is not like a live chat on a webcam. You can check my first experience with Jing here. * I feel that this will be extremely useful in the classroom and once again opens up the door of out of school communication between the student and teacher. This would also be useful outside of the classroom, as shown in the demonstration video. This is my favorite technology we have learned so far and I plan on using it many times in the future. I LOVE JING!!! :)

Happy Father's Day!

the news and technology

Today at dinner, my little brother made a comment that led me to this post. He said "Sis, Michigan has been in the news a lot lately." We further discussed what from MI has been in the news. He mentioned Jim Joyce blowing the Tiger's game and Izzo's decision to stay at Michigan State. When I mentioned the shutting down of Detroit Public Schools and the student from Kalamazoo who fell asleep during Obama's speech, my brother was speechless. He said he didn't really care if it wasn't related to sports. I think that using technology and some of the tools we have learned about in class would be great to keep students up on current events.

Using the tool GoogleReader in a classroom would be extremely beneficial. The student could have two folders, one for fun and one for classroom materials. While it would be no surprise that the student would check the fun folder more often, the classroom material will be there as well.

I was on the newspaper staff in high school (wayyy back in the day :)) and that was one of my teachers biggest concerns about students. She believed (maybe because she was the journalism teacher!) that all students benefited and did better in school when they were kept up on current events.

I decided to research online and see the different ways that this tool could be implemented in class. I found this fantastic and suggest you check it out if you are at all interested!

Google Reader in the Classroom

my mind is blown!

I think I finally finished my lesson plan! Man, it was a lot of work! When this weeks assignment was posted, there was something that really intrigued me. I had no idea that Michigan had specific standards for teaching technology! And to think that ten years ago half of the things posted on there didn't even exist...and there are so many standards! I think this is crucial for children in school now. Technology is only going to blast off even further into space and the children need to be well equipped with what to do in case of a technological "emergency" ;)

It also goes to show you how rapidly technology is changing. I truly believe that using technology in the classroom is extremely beneficial. This is my second class relating technology to teaching, and it has widened my horizon. Not only will I use it in my future classrooms, I have also begun to use some of the tools in my personal life. I love pageflake and tweetdeck. Actually, I'm OBSESSED with tweetdeck.

While I've been dreading having summer classes, I genuinely enjoy what we are learning about and can't wait to see what is up next. I hope that through this class, it opens even more doors for me finding relevant tools for my children with special needs.

listen to me!

Learning how to add audio to a powerpoint was quite simple. I feel that this makes the presentation more formal when one cannot be face to face. I think it also makes the presentation more clear. I hope that this will help my students in the future stay more connected to the material and be able to grasp it better.

This will also be helpful for my students who I do get to see face-to-face. I can upload the audio version, and in case a student was sick, or just needs to hear my voice to connect to the text, this helps them with just that. Here is my new audio version of my weather lesson!

Cep 416 weather lesson best

View more presentations from johnson19c.

hello real world

This week has been quite challenging for me, trying to balance working full time and taking two summer classes. I think that this week's lesson was very interesting on presentations and "beyond bullet points" I hope that this information stays with me well and helps me in my future career. I decided to do a short presentation on.... (drum roll please).... WEATHER!!!!!

href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CCHRIST%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C04%5Cclip_filelist.xml">

google crazy!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE using GoogleDocs! I briefly learned about them in CEP 452 and forgot how useful they really are. They are great for me personally because I can upload my documents and there is no need for a flash drive. It is extremely easy to edit on as well.

I think that it will be even more helpful in the classroom. Students working on group assignments do not have to plan a time to get together (we all know it is EXTREMELY difficult with a busy life and conflicting schedules!) GoogleDocs make it easy to collaborate on a project at all times. It is also wonderful that more than one person can be working on it at one time. It is also helpful for the teacher to put insight on the assignments. It could even be used as a dropbox and a place where a teacher can grade, or simply leave comments to help the students. As with Twitter, it is extremely beneficial to the student and teacher and opens the realm of teacher-student communication outside of the classroom.

Another very helpful GoogleApp is Google Reader. Students in a journalism classroom would find this most useful. The students can stay up to date on current issues and organize the information in a useful way. I think Google has top of the line technology and is always a step ahead of the competition (not to sound like a Google Rep or anything! :] )

I can't wait to see what Google comes out with next!

assistive technology

For this weeks "choose your own adventure" lab, I chose to go with audio books. I had briefly learned about them in my CEP 452 but I really wanted to explore the options more in depth. I am passionate about my special ed students and I want them to exceed their goals and be able to grow and learn as easily as a general ed student. I will be teaching learning disabled students, and audio books will greatly help them with their reading skills. Assistive technology is an example of Universal Design for Learning (or UDL). This is a major area in special education that is growing at a rapid rate. Firefox also has a text-to-speech reader that we learned about when using audio books. This will help my students even further.

There are many different options to choose when searching audio books in google, but I chose to research LibriVox which is a fairly recognizable program online that allows users to read books that are in the public domain. The other choice that I almost choice was Kurzweil. This seems to be for more severly disabled students than the ones I am going to be teaching so I chose LibriVox instead.

LibriVox runs strictly off a volunteer basis. Volunteers record the books and then make them available on the website. The website is also extremely helpful as it has links that show you how to listen/read on the website. You can either download a zipfile or save it in your itunes. I found the itunes version to be extremely easy to use. After you download whichever book you choose into your itunes, you click play just as you would with any song. I choose to try Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

The largest drawback I saw to this website is that there are no pictures for the books. For younger students, this would be problematic. However, I plan on teaching middle school when the students are moving away from using pictures in stories to plain texts. I think that this will be extremely beneficial to them.

I hope to explore other audio book sites as well, but I think LibriVox is a useful starting tool that will hopefully open new doors to teaching and learning.

tweet tweet

Photo Attribution:
Original image: "twitter pack"
www.flickr.com/photos/carrotcreative/2511539541/
by: carrotcreative

Released under an Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

I think that this picture, although intended for another message is perfect for my blog this week. The message the artist is trying to convey is that twitter is unflitered (like cigarettes) as one often sees with celebrity bashes and things of that manner. However, when I saw this image, I thought of something completely different. I chose this picture because I think that twitter is uber-addicting. This past weekend/week I have felt that I need to slow down on the twitter train because I am posting too much. I also find it addicting to see what others are up to as well. The fact that you can also hook it up to your cell phone just adds to the twitter mania.

I think that twitter would be great to use in the classroom. The teacher and students could have their own accounts and snyc them to their cell phones. The teacher can post due dates, extra information, and sources for the students. With twitter, they can constantly be reminded. Students can also post questions for either the teacher or other students to answer. I think this is a way to bridge the gap between teacher and student. With twitter, each party can be in contact with each other outside of the school area.

frustrations

This week's assignment is a little mind boggling to me. I am trying to take a screenshot and use adobe photoshop, and neither want to cooperate right now. I feel that this frustration with technology is why a lot of educators are afraid to/don't use technology in the classroom. How many times have you been in a classroom, at a meeting, or at home when technology you were relying on did not work? The help videos and tutorials are helpful, but also frustrating when you still cannot figure out how to use them. Hopefully my next post will be more cheerful and full of interesting technology I have learned to use!
xoxo

my first attempt!

Me and some friends this past weekend! :) I think this copyrighting is right!


memorial day weekend is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License


Incorporating images into the curriculum is a way to make learning more vibrant for young students. Without pictures, everything would be plain text (and no fun!). Learning how to correctly copyright images is extremely important however. It thunderstormed here today, AND I am extremely interested in weather and how it works and teaching it to my future students so I chose a fun picture that really exemplifies a perfect cumulus cloud (which are formed by a cold air mass moving into a region where a warm air mass is sitting over FYI! :]


Figuring out copyright and fair use is tricky! Here is my first attempt at doing so! Any comments would be greatly appreciated! :)

Photo Attribution:
Original image: "cumulus clouds"
http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/bigs/wea00082.jpg
by: Ralph F. Kresge

Released under an Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

copyright craziness

WOW! I definitely did not realize what a thin line there is between copyright and fair use. In Copy Cop I did not even realize that those everyday scenarios can get a teacher and school into some major trouble! This weeks beginning readings have opened my eyes to something that I was not particularly careful about before. I hope to learn more about this as I continue to do Week 3's tasks!

classroom integration

Technology integration in the classroom is a topic that I have been thinking about more often than not, due to my continued experience in the classroom. I would like to start with sharing my own personal experience of using technology as a student in my middle school classroom. In eighth grade, we were given PDA hand held devices to use. This became more problematic than not. Well I am quite aware that the year I was in eighth grade technology was only just beginning to appear, I think that it could have been handled much differently. Most student's did not understand the purpose of the technology (that it was to be used for school). Most students messed around and even a few were suspended for downloading games when they were supposed to be using it for school work. Since my experience as a student was not a pleasant one, I thought when I was in the teacher role, I would handle it much differently.

I had field placement in a kindergarten classroom last year. The school was in a lower budget district and did not have much technology. The few items of technology I witnessed were computers (probably at least ten years old), tape players, and videocassettes with headphones. I feel that the technology did immensely help the children and made it seem more fun for them. However, the students who were struggling could have benefited from more recent technology. However, my collaborating teacher maximized the usage of it and it definitely helped the students. I hope that I can use technology like this in my classroom.

Based on a previous course (CEP 452) and through this course, I am now aware that there are many different technologies that can be utilized in the classroom. Some are expensive and some are not. I hope that when I do become a teacher, I will be able to give my students the best technological environment so that they can perform a comfortable level and also feel comfortable with technology in general.

peers are a great source of information

This week, we had to choose a classmates blog to read and respond to. I did not know who to pick, so I chose Melissa's (because that's my little sister's name!) and was pleasantly suprised. We have many similar feelings about technology. In my house, I am definitely the most technologically advanced and my family often looks to me to help them out. I do use technology quite frequently although I, also like Melissa, still prefer face-to-face communication. I think when she talks about using technology to make learning more interesting, she is making an extremely valid point. I remember using technology in classroom always was a "special" day and the information actually stuck with me. Using technology to get to know one another better is also something Melissa and I share in common. I feel that through technology, we can learn things about each other almost instantly that would usually take weeks to getting to know someone in person. Melissa mentions using laptops for students who have difficulty writing. I am a special education major and we learned that this and many other tools can help students with disabilities.

I hope to continue to learn and collaborate with my peers throughout the rest of my schooling and my professional career!

xoxo

my background and expectations

I feel that I am not as up to date on technology as I should be. Fall semester '09 I took CEP 452 which dealt with using technology for students with special needs. That class really opened my eyes and pushed me into a world that I had not known. It was unbelievable to me how much technology there really is out there, and how it is constantly changing. I also learned that technology is a great way to collaborate with other teachers and professionals (which is extremely important!) On a personal level, I feel that I am competent in technological areas such as cell phone use (texting, calling, email) and basic computer programs such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. I have had a little experience using GoogleDocs and VoiceThread (from CEP 452).

My expectations for this class are high. I am hoping that I will learn how to use and integrate new technology into my classroom and use it in my professional life as well. I hope that the websites I learn to use are useful for my students as well as for myself. I hope that this class makes me feel more competent in learning about new technology.