March 30 class

In the class Lee started out with a "bird walk" and Lee showed us a new application sharing tool. It looked like it would help make like a little easier. We were supposed to decide what type of weather we would be, I think today I would be cloudy because I am sleepy (yes, still) although I think I would be "sunnier" if I were to take Olivia out for a walk in the wonderful sunshine! We talked about assistive tech, what is it? Why do we care about it? what are some examples? and joy added, Where did you search for examples? What different levels of technology did you find?

We started with where we searched, I searched google, it seems to be the go to for me.Next we went to what we found, this is straight from my discussion board post because that was over a month ago and I can't remember everything I said I found one website called Read The Words. It is a website that reads what you type. I thought at first that it was like Voice Thread, but it's not. What is does is it puts your text into words, this would be great for a deaf student who can't talk. If they have a presentation to do, they can type out their presentation and when they are ready they just click on the play button and it reads it out loud. I thought that was a very cool tool to have. Another website I found was Able Data It has all kinds of technologies for any kind of disabilities from blind/deaf to orthotics. I looked at so much stuff on there that I can't even begin to list them all. There are so many things available for all kinds of disabilities. Why do we care about it? because everyone deserves to have options to use in schools and everywhere else. Just because someone isn't able to speak doesn't mean that they shouldn't have the opportunity to participate in class. There are so many more things that go with this.

some examples are...souns systems, handwritting tools: grippers, TTY, dragon speak, magnifying tools, touch screen computers that allow expression of the individual who uses it, hearing aides, wheelchairs, tape recorders, cochlear implants, books with large print, communication boards, wiggle seats.

We talked about different searches and why library and eric seaarches are better than what we can find on the internet. I think it is because they are more resources to back them up more of a trustworthy area. Internet is a lot more user friendly and quicker to find what you are looking for.

We then talked about flicker and flickercc. I have been to flicker and they have lots of neat photos on there. My neighbor uses it and I like looking at photos she has marked as favorite. There are lots of things to look at on there. Those who wanted to could set up a flicker account, I decided not to do this, my pictures are really not worth sharing :) I am not a very good picture taker! I just followed along. I loved the picture of Jessica "the rubberband" what a cool picture! After that we were to go to flickercc and find a picture to play with I came up with this one

http://www.flickr.com/photos/viagallery/2110571280/

After that we discussed where we would like to post the homework and then class was over.

April 20th class

During check in we were asked to pick an animal that describes how we are feeling today. I chose this sleepy dog. He makes me want to curl up like this and take a LOOOONG nap! (http://madcraic.com/maze/2009/10/02/fridays-sleepy-animal-photo-7 )

We then looked at the ASD website about ed tech. We were to think of questions to ask about the ASD ed tech program. One that I would like to know is what does it take to become an ed tech teacher and what does the job entail? I looked at the website and there are lots of interesting things on there about ed tech. I didn't find an answer to my question but I am sure I could call someone and find out. I don't know if the valley offers a program like this but it would be worth it to find out. During the discussion we were to think of a question and a highlight. My question would remain the same but my highlight would be the laptop program at Wendler, I thoguht that was a very cool thing, I am anxious to see if that spreads throughout the district. After we all went over our questions and highlights we talked about our final project and what we are to do and how we are to do it. I think I may have done my "story board" wrong. I hope not! After we were done with this we decided to take a "45 minute break" HAHAHA! I am sure everyone needed a break to finish everything up!

Global Communities

I had a hard time finding exactly what I was looking for so, I read over others blogs and liked what I found on Joy's blog about epals. I went to look for a group by map and came across a classroom of 8 from Kazakstan, this is what their post says: "Hello! We are enthusiastic 4th graders from Kazakhstan! We are 8 great kids, 3 of whom are ELL and the rest are either native or native-fluent speakers of English. All of us are willing to collaborate with kids of our age from all over the world on various projects. We would love to communicate through emails (due to time zone differences) on a weekly basis. Hope to hear from you soon!"

I think it would be awesome to have a classroom pen pal from a different country. When I was in 4th grade we had penpals from Queensland Australia. That was a lot of fun. I even stayed in touch with my pen pal after school was out for a few months then we lost touch. It was a lot of fun to learn about different countries and how their school system works. If I remember correctly, they go to school all year round and have breaks every so often. NO THANK YOU!!
Anyway, that is what I found!

Videos in the classroom

I finally had time to catch up on my blog readings. I found a blog posted today and I thought it would be a great idea for older kids. On the Cool Cat Teacher Blog she posted about a video she had her students do (highschool students). She posted one video that was very cute. You can see the video here. I thought it would be a fun project for a group project to have the students do a video of their choice using digital cameras. They could come up with an idea, brainstorm about it and then put their project on video. I think it would be fun to host a "film festival" for the parents to watch the videos their children produced/starred in/put together.
What other ideas could you guys come up with for videos? I am anxious to hear all about them.

Research

While doing research for Assistive Technology, I used google on AOL, Delicious and Diigo. I liked the AOL search options because that is what I am used to. I am still having a hard time using Delicious and Diigo, I am not sure what I am looking at but I think with a little more playing around with them I will get the hang of it...is there ever enough time in the day?? LOL!