Week Two/Three

I keep meaning to reflect on my ITLP progress, but I keep putting it off. Yikes.

I've been inspired by my ITLP work in learning Google Sites and my mind has gone a little crazy.

I just spent five and a half hours putting together a website for my English 12 class. It is amazing how comfortable I'm getting with all the Google aps. Clicking around makes sense to me know and I can easily navigate through all the management tools.

This site incorporates what I learned about Groups, Docs, Calendar, and Sites. I embedded images and video, created links to Google docs, and created a group for my class to use as a discussion board. I can't wait to put my site to use! How long has it been since I was excited about a Monday?

We've been talking a lot about modifying and accommodating for our students on IEPs. This is my answer to that discussion. Each of my students will be on his or her own IEP. Each student will choose his or her novel from the list provided and create his or her own unit of study. This site allows me to keep up with their work and allows them to see the progress they make. Good stuff.

I've also been playing around with Aviary, which is a web-based design suite. It's been a bit of a struggle to figure out how it all works (I was unable to upload my first photo), but I'm confident that I'll advance soon.

Learning to Build a Newspaper

Week One

This process is very excited but also a bit tedious. Whenever I'm introduced to a new form of media, I want to instantly know how to understand and utilize it. I know, I know. I am of Generation Instant Gratification.

I made it about half-way through the YouTube tutorial in my ITLP and followed along while the presenter moved step-by-step. It really helped to be able to pause the video and switch to my page to practice what was just introduced.

I played a bit with creating pages within pages and adding photos to the site. It was interesting (I had to learn to resize pictures), but I still need to see how I can format this site to be user friendly and pleasing to the eye.

This week I am going to finish up the YouTube video and try to get to a place where I can begin teaching my students how to use the site.

Testing my directions

Here is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Assistive Teaching

Ted Hasselbring and Margaret Bausch present readers with an article that pleads for the struggling student. They have done extensive research on technology-assisted education and provide some good points in favor of its utilization in the general and SPED classroom.

• Most students with learning disabilities struggle with reading which negatively affects their abilities to scaffold learning. The foundation is missing or too shaky to handle more weight.
• Text-reader software (Read & Write Gold; Read, Write, and Type!; Learning System; Read Naturally; READ 180) allows students to work at their own pace and level.
• AT (assistive technology) has the power to integrate students with disabilities into the general ed classroom.

While I love the advancements in technology that are allowing equal academic success and independence to all students, I have to wonder where Hasselbring and Bausch think we can find more time. What would their model look like in the classroom? A student wearing special headphones or using portable text-reading devices in the classroom works nicely, but a row of students on computers during class is disruptive to everyone.

How can we make this work?

We All Need Community

Ms. Poulson and I collaborated on a unit to teach Citizen Kane. In the past she has taught the film in conjunction with Gatsby, but this year we thought it would be fun to teach the film as its own entity. Teaching film requires even more preparation than teaching literature.

I joined an online community to help me gather ideas for teaching this piece. Most of was unhelpful, but I did discover a few gems in the mix.

Here is a link to The Story of Movies

Bloggin Away

How can I count the ways my students loved this project. When asked, I found that most of them had had some experience with a blog, but most definitely not for educational purposes. They could not believe that they were assigned to play with this technology.

Student smiles are so fantastic. I sprinkle them on my Kashi in the morning to give me that extra boost.

English 10 blog

We will publish their Self-Portrait assignment sometime next week. I want them to do a final polish before the rest of the world has access to their work.

The Express Who You Are Unit

I used this IEP assingment as an opportunity to experiment with technology in the classroom. This unit was designed for my poor English 10 class, on whom I bestow the badge of High Guinea Pig.

The Blog unit is linked to a Self-Portrait unit, which seemed to work well. When I teach this again, I will link the blog lessons with something a little less personal. Some of my students were hesitant to write about anything too personal since it was to be posted online.

Following are the links to the five lessons that I taught.

Lesson One
Lesson Two
Lesson Three
Lesson Four
Lesson Five