Putting Technology to use Pt 3

This week, J and I took time to record the information we wanted our audience to know. It took time especially because J is below reading level. His reading is slow and we would have to restart when he came to words that he was not sure of even after just having repeated it. After recording each slide I had J help me drag his pictures to movie maker and choose the transitions. Once that was finished I uploaded his voice recordings and took about half an hour or more trying to cut them and extending the slides to stay with the recording. It was a bit tedious but the end product was satisfying. J was able to take the link back to his inclusion classroom and show his video to the entire class. His teacher was impressed and so were his peers. J told them he knew some of them would be "jealous."

This project though time consuming and perhaps a little more difficult thanks to the attention span of my student, was entertaining and informative for both me and my student. If I were to do this again with my students in the future I would keep the same procedure. I would prepare more websites for them a head of time. I would also try a hand at letting them add their own recordings.

Take a look at our end product!

Assistive Technology

I was able to explore theassistive technology offered by the disability services of my university. It was interesting to see all the equipment that can be used to help those with adisability. Pictures of some of the technology I saw can be found here.

The Disability Services on campusservices many a person with disabilities. They primarily see those withdyslexia and learning disabilities, some with low vision or vision impairments,and a few with hearing impairments. They also service a few people witharthritis and temporarily even those who experience a broken arm.

Most of the gadgets were quitepricey. A Smart view 360 CCTV which is a magnifier with a swivel camera headthat can be used to zoom in on papers or the board, cost a whopping $2400! For astudent with dyslexia or vision impairment a Kurzweil 3000 can be used. This isa text to speech computer software that can be used to read aloud textbooks andother such materials. It reads at about 160 words a minute which is a littleslower than normal speech. The user can speed it up to 300 wpm. The great thingabout this is that it can be saved as an mp3 file and played back in ITunes sothat the user does not have to stay sitting to listen to it. Something similaris a Victor Stream DAISY Player that is a hand held device that be used to heartextbooks by a person who recorded themselves reading it. This is taped by pageso that the user can skip around. About 90 students use this on campus. Thereare apps for smartphones to access these recordings.

For someone who needs assistance to remember lectures or notes there is an Echo LiveScribe Smart Pen. This niftylittle tool uses a special kind of paper that allows everything that is writtento be stored and recorded for later playback. If chosen, one could also recordwhat is being said at the moment the writing took place. Also for dictationpurposes, one could use the Dragon Naturally Speaking software. This allows forpapers and such to be written as someone dictates through a microphone. TheDisabilit

A Comfort Contego FM System thatserves as a transmitter and receiver for someone with a hearing impairmentcosts about $750. A professor can use the transmitter and the student can usethe headphones to hear more clearly what he or she is saying. There is also away that instead the transmitter can be pointed in the direction of the speakerso that the professor does not have to wear the transmitter. Also for someonewho cannot communicate effectively through speech or hearing. There is a UbiDuoCommunicators that is almost like a texting software. There are two stationslike mini computers that send text messages to each other.

Putting Technology to Use Part 2

We are making headway in our research on tornadoes. After allowing J to look around on the websites to satisfy his attention, we discussed how best to present our information so that students would be interested and also how we could make it cool. We discussed that filming him was not allowed through the school district so we talked about using pictures that we found on our legitimate resources and have him narrate the facts that we decided were the most important. I told him that we could even play around with his voice recording and he thought that would be the coolest thing. These facts we got from our KWL chart from the previous session's work, but we went through it together to figure out which were the most important facts for our audience to know obut tornadoes.

We spent our session creating a powerpoint and locating pictures to fit our facts. We spoke again about the importance of using legitimate resources even for pictures. At the end of our presentation we put a works cited page. I explained to J why it was important to let people know where we got our information. I told him how important it was to let people know that we did not take these photos ourself and give credit where credit is due. I posed the question "how would you feel if someone took the video we are going to create and say they did it?" That really hit the spot. He made sure to tell the speech pathologist who stopped by to see his projcet, why he had to credit people.

I cannot wait to try out his voice recording!

On the Movie Making Trail

 

Sitting here thinking I could not make a movie and guess what? I did! There was a process to the entire thing though and I definitely am no movie producer or film major. I found out how important planning out sequence and pacing was. I did not take much stock in the planning nor did I really understand how much time some scenes would take. Thank goodness that the plan was pretty solid or else the video would have been a total fail.

 

Throughout this process I had a partner,  Jessica Nelson. While I videoed, Jessica directed our student and participated in the video by making a cameo as well as helping with the sound effects. Together we came up with the topic and sequencing of events. We are both Special Education Majors who deal with alot of behaviors in the classroom. We had the idea of recording a video of a social story that we have used in the classroom. Social stories are formatted to fit a specific child and voiced in the first person allows the student to understand what kind of behavior is expected of him or her.

 

To shoot this video we used an Ipad to capture the video aspect. We had a few takes for each step. We then transferred the files to Jessica's Mac where we used IMovie to edit the video. At first it took awhile to figure out how to get our clips to the IMovie section. Thank goodness for Apple Support that walked us through many of the steps of movie making in IMovie. Editing took us a few tries, playing with the cropping of the individual scenes as well as using different transitions. All in all, IMovie proved to be a user friendly tool for even the most "untechy" of aspiring teachers. Using this in the classroom will prove to be quite easy as you just point and shoot. Using IMovie will not be much more difficult as long as intensive and step by step insturction is given. After a few tries I do not see why even an elementary student like ours could not do this on his or her own and the middle school and high school students could find endless possibilities.

 

We tried to use Voice Thread to create the audio portion of our video which comes in the form of narration. We had a very difficult time trying to start the video and get the recording of the narration at the right timing. We tried a few times before we gave up and found out that we could add sound through IMovie. Again thank you Apple Support. After this it was smooth sailing. We even found out how to compress the file so that it was easier to upload to Youtube.

It was quite a journey through our first ever movie making experience.
To see what we thought was a neat idea of making a video of a social story click play below!

 

 

Also check out some of my peer's videos to see some other neat ideas to use when creating movies!
Jessica Weldon
Alex Morin

Putting Technology To Use

I selected a student to work with trying out technology in the classroom and really investigate how much my students are capable of. Can inquiry based learning really be used with my students and can I even get them to understand more of the internet than just click and search?

I selected a student with an active imagination and a fascination with tornadoes. It was a little hard to direct this student's hyper attention to answer questions once he knew would get to investigate tornadoes. But once I got him to understand that people were going to see his blog and we were sharing information, and essentially teaching others he quieted enough to get a KWL chart going of his knowledge. I told him we had to get an idea of where we are going with our project and what we want people to be able to learn from his posts.

We then created blog for him under a pseudonym. He loved being able to create this little piece of his own world. He selected a picture for the background and wanted to post his KWL chart on it as the first post. He also insisted on putting a video of a tornado on it. I walked him through searching for legitimate videos on Scientific websites.

He had so much fun, he did not want to stop looking for information and told me he would come up with more ideas on how to make his blog "better"

What's the big deal of copyright?

What are our responsibilities and resources regarding copyright knowledge in education?

I have to say copyright is one of those grey areas that at least in my classes was mentioned but not taught so well. I came away each time thinking “so we can or we can’t?” But what is the big deal with trying to figure out what you can use and what you can print? LAWSUITS.

With the jump in technology so much is at our fingertips and we are so eager to use everything we can in our classroom to help drive our point home or keep our students entertained. Yet rarely do we understand that we must credit sources or watch out for material that is not free to use. It is our responsibility to give credit where its due or else we are “stealing” someone’s hard work.

First, it is important to know that anything posted on the internet is automatically copyrighted. Give credit to anything you take. Also, there are websites that allow you to check if you have permission to use it. Many times you can avoid copyrighting by posting a link rather than printing out the resources. Now there are instances when certain circumstances arise that you may share and distribute work. The following are most likely allowable under fair use:  

• copying reasonable portions of longer works for

your class;

• copying a timely article (or one you’ve recently

discovered that is relevant for your class) when

it’s unreasonable to expect a sufficiently rapid

reply to a request for permission; and

• copying a graphic or an image from a work

to display in your lectures.

Also, there are four pillars that must be considered when debating whether or not it is fair to use or distribute the materials. An acronym PNAM can help you remember the needed checklist: What is the Purpose, the Nature of Use, the Amount of work, and how does it affect the market.

Some restrictions have been eased thanks to the TEACH ACT of 2002. It “provides educators with a separate set of rights in addition to fair use, to display (show) and perform (show or play) others' works in the classroom. These rights are in Section 110(1) of the Copyright Act and apply to any work, regardless of the medium.”

Now what about if you wanted to put your work out there and ensure that it is correctly copyrighted? Creative Commons helps create licenses and is very user friendly for those looking to license their work that they wish to share. This website also provides a search engine if your are looking for creative works.

To check out some free digital media there are many websites. There are resources to find free photos, educational resources, and other educational materials.

VIdeos in the Classroom?

Integrating video technology into the classroom is both fun and creative. Students have an opportunity to explore the aspects of capturing an event or project on video, but also the project itself requires critical thinking on behalf of the student.

 

In an effort to create a video that is both relevant and useful to a class full of students with special needs, I developed a project plan 

that would address a specific desired behavior following the format of a social story. This is in answer to the fact that sometimes, though we assume they do, students do not always know the correct behavior expected of them

            The point of view or perspective of the author in this video is first person point of view, following the format of a social story. This allows the student to assume the role of responsibility and understand the antecedent and correct response and behavior.

            The dramatic question, or question that will be answered by the end of the movie, addressed by this video is what is expected of me or what can I do when I am so overwhelmed, I just cannot take it anymore?

            The emotional content of a story or video is something that speaks to the viewer. In this video, we highlight the seemingly devastating situation of being overly stimulated or overwhelmed. Because social stories tend to be written with a particular student in mind to target undesired behavior and form alternative correct behavior, the emotional content is highly personal to the intended viewer.

            This of course directly relates to the ­gift of voice or the personalization of the story to help the audience understand the context. The intended audience will directly relate to the content and those who watch but are not the intended audience will at least understand the subject.

            Another important aspect to consider when putting a video together is the power of the soundtrack which is the music or sounds that support the story line. Because too many sounds can distract a student with disabilities and/or be to too much sensory input, the sounds will be limited to the narration except for two dramatic points in the video where an overstimulation and undesired behavior occur. This is mainly to make a point that overstimulation is loud and overwhelming.

            Economy is using just enough content to tell the story, This is important in social stories and this video because attention spans of students with special needs run short and adding too much information will cause the student to lose focus and miss the lesson being taught by the video.

            A movie should be paced according to content. The pacing of this movie is deliberate and even as if a student was reading a book or content was being explained clearly to a student.

Innovation and Technology

This educational technology book, as long as it is, provided many useful resources for teachers looking to pump up their classrooms with new and innovative strategies for fun in conjunction with learning. From an extensive list of classroom friendly games and the research to back up the benefits of their use to how to use the many available resources of podcasts, screen casts, and videos. I appreciate the table of contents of this book to be able to zone in on the topics that I was interested in reading more about.

 I am so glad that someone has put together a list of all the resources that we as teachers as well as our students can benefit from.  See my outline of interesting topics here. I think my favorite part of this book was the research provided on the benefits of a gaming curriculum and how children function with interactive play. Gone are the days of constant lecture and pen to paper assignments, and here are the days of innovation, technology and learning through experience. I cannot wait to be a part of this developing front to education.

We are joing this front whether we like it or not, our students are more savy than ever, what will we as asprining educators have to contribute to this future of technology?

Using Blogs in the Classroom

            Starting out this course, I wasn't sold on the idea of using blogs in the classroom. Throughout my time as an education student, I’ve come across many blogs created by teachers who post their lesson ideas and unit plans, etc. I have used quite a few of them as resources but always wondered “really, how does one use a blog in the classroom?” Obviously I could go the above mentioned route and have all my ideas that I snag from Pinterest for further reference and to help out other teachers or use it as a resource for parents to have a place to keep up with what is going on in their student’s lives, but then as I dug into the Wartlick site and found the Video a Day site, not only did I get distracted (so fascinated with "how do you" in space videos), I became inspired.

         What if I created a blog that contained videos and activities pertinent to the content we review in class? I could use it as resource during class but also leave it for students to access during free time or at home as added practice and enjoyment.

         What if students created their own blog to keep all their favorite videos or websites(all learning-related of course) all in one place for easy access? Doing this, organization and categorization could be a skill taught to keep their blog in order.

         During projects like the one I want to do in my Unit Plan, I could provide students with available links to get them started on their discovery journey of community based organizations that promote change. 

 

I suppose what really was lacking in my understanding of a blog was, that it isn't just an assignment to have my students do; it's a resource. As teachers, we are some of the most resourceful people out there, constantly digging up new things to use. I had my qualms mostly because I will be in special education classrooms where I am focusing on ensuring that my students can read and write or do basic functional skills. Who has time to teach kids how to blog? But in reality, I have seen many of my students who are so far behind other students, navigate through the internet better than many adults I know. This tool, although a bit tedious to teach how to create, takes almost nothing to teach how to use, and my students could benefit from something "cool" and alternative to using pen and paper.

Changes All Around Us Unit Plan

All the hype in educational research are two forms of learning inquiry-based learning and project based-learning. Both are vital learning strategies to use in a classroom to promote student involvement. Inquiry-based learning is seeking information by asking questions. It is in an involvement of the students in their own learning.quiry-based learning is seeking information by asking questions. It is in an involvement of the students in their own learning. Inquiry-based learning is being used in the classroom to tie activities and knowledge from specific subject areas in the classroom to the outside world and giving students a sense of the “bigger picture.” The components are also aiding in developing useful problem-solving skills that can be applied to future "need to know" situations that students will encounter both at school and at work. In the classroom, inquiry-based learning develops habits of mind that guide learning and creative thinking. Inquiry-based learning is being used in the classroom to tie activities and knowledge from specific subject areas in the classroom to the outside world and giving students a sense of the “bigger picture.” The components are also aiding in developing useful problem-solving skills that can be applied to future "need to know" situations that students will encounter both at school and at work. In the classroom, inquiry-based learning develops habits of mind that guide learning and creative thinking.
In my Unit Plan, these two learning bases are important. Students will have to question what they see around them and apply new knowledge to what they already know. Students know that the world around them changes but it is important to discover it on a new level. Project-based learning will also come to play a part in this unit plan when students explore ways to change their communities and schools.
Essential Question: Why does the world around us change?
Unit Questions: How does the world change? How do we change? How can we change the world around us?