Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Assitive Devices for the Classroom


    Assistive Technology


           A Quick Overview of the AT Concept:
                         You Tube Video: Understanding Assistive Technology:  Simply Said.

          I learned from the You Tube Video: Understanding Assistive Technology:  Simply Said, that every state has a technology program at http://www.ataporg.org/. There are also Pacer activity centers that can help those who need assistive devices to explore resources that are available. They have lending library that lets people try different kinds of AT to discover what works best for them.

          Assitive Technology comes in several forms: Low Tech, Mid Level Tech, and High Tech

                        Low-tech AT

http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/ATBasics/Populations/LowTech/printmodule.php
Assistive devices, age groups, and the reason they would be used.  

I. Early Childhood-
2a Paper Punch (Fiskars) This tool would for a student that has trouble holding objects. This paper punch features a large, non-stick button for whole-hand use. It offers 13 different "punch" shapes. Students can enjoy decorating and designing items with the fun pieces they can punch by just placing the hand over the puncher and pressing down.

2b Mary Benbow Scissors (OT Ideas) There are all sorts of adaptive scissors for children who do not have mature fine motor skills. This would be good for children who have problems holding items with the hands, because these scissors feature small finger loops coated in vinyl to help scissors stay on the child's fingers for a better grip.

II. Elementary age-
3a Built up Grips Some students can more easily grasp and hold pens, pencils or markers if they're built up and made larger. Some students can more easily grasp and hold pens, pencils or markers if they're built up and made larger. 

3b eBooks-These are accessed on the internet and it has a touch screen to increase the size of the
font for kids who have vision problems. The eBook is currently available in two models from Gemstar: the GEB 1150 (previously Rocket eBook) and the larger, full-color GEB 2150. Features include the ability to take notes in the margins, use the touch screen to bookmark pages and to increase the size of the font.

III. Secondary and/or Post-Secondary-
4a. Touch Turner (Touch Turner). This was chosen because it has page turners, which can be used with a single switch. Pressing a switch turns the page and holds it in place. Some models also turn pages in reverse. There are two models that have forward turning and forward/reverse.

4b Math Line This would be good to help with math manipulations. It is an actual math line that can be held and manipulated. Move the rings down the line to see how numbers represent size and quantity. There are Manuals and videos on using this self-contained math tool.

IV. Home and Recreation
5a. TV/VCR/Cable Remote (Enabling Devices). It has a cordless remote, and this would be good to help a child watch an educational video at home.  This cordless remote unit allows the user to control the basic functions of a TV, VCR, or cable box by simply operating one or more switches! It accommodates 5 switches--one for each function.

5b All-Turn-It T Spinner (Ablenet, Inc.). This would be a good device for a child who enjoys playing games. It uses a spinner for curriculum adaptations, Student with severe disabilities can be active participants to many commercially available games. There are also accessory packages available for Golf, Bowling and Bingo and for creating spinner games. It requires the use of any single switch.
 
                              Mid-techAT
http://typesofat.wikispaces.com/MID+TECH+AT

I. Early Childhood-
6a Time Timer (Generaction) – This will help children who are a little slower than others to
stay on task. The child will know how much longer he or she has to do a particular task in red as the clock counts down. This will help children who are a little slower than others to stay on task. Instantly shows children time remaining for a task and give sensory challenged children confidence
 
6b
Talking Photo Album- This is an inexpensive way for a child to write a story. For children with learning disabilities are more visual learners they can tell the story and display pictures.
The photo book has digitized speech device. Individuals can record four minutes of speech, 10 seconds at a time, in any language of your choice. You can use photos, book cutouts, symbols, drawings, Xeroxes, newspaper clippings, and/or text on each of its 24 pages. Individuals can use TPAs to give instructions, to begin a conversation, to tell stories, to record autobiographical information, to facilitate daily conversation, to order in a restaurant, to facilitate memory and for scores of other purposes.
II. Elementary Age-

7a.
Time Timer (Generaction) –– The child will know how much longer he or she has to do a particular task in red as the clock counts down. This will help children who are a little slower than others to stay on task.


III. Secondary and/or Post-Secondary-

8a.
Neo (AlphaSmart, Inc.) portable keyboard – This would be mainly used in schools for students who have dysgraphia or trouble producing written language or other learning disabilities that make penmanship unreadable or difficult to produce. Keyboards have small displays that allow the user to see a few lines at a time, but material either needs to be printed or downloaded onto a personal computer into a word processing program to see larger areas of text and for more editing features.

8b.
Speaking Homework Wiz– This device helps students with proper spelling and definitions as well as penmanship. This tool can help a child stay on task with his or her homework. It promotes reading support for student independence.


 IV. Home and Recreation
9a.
Talking Photo Album- This is an inexpensive way for a child to write a story. For children with learning disabilities are more visual learners they can tell the story and display pictures. The photo book has digitized speech device. Individuals can record four minutes of speech, 10 seconds at a time, in any language of your choice. You can use photos, book cutouts, symbols, drawings, Xeroxes, newspaper clippings, and/or text on each of its 24 pages. Individuals can use TPAs to give instructions, to begin a conversation, to tell stories, to record autobiographical information, to facilitate daily conversation, to order in a restaurant, to facilitate memory and for scores of other purposes.
9b. Neo (AlphaSmart, Inc.) portable keyboard – This would be mainly used in schools for students who have dysgraphia or trouble producing written language or other learning disabilities that make penmanship unreadable or difficult to produce. Keyboards have small displays that allow the user to see a few lines at a time, but material either needs to be printed or downloaded onto a personal computer into a word processing program to see larger areas of text and for more editing features.

 High-tech AT
https://connect.mybps.org/groups/bpsoiit/wiki/03630/Assistive_Technology_High_Tech_Tools.html

I.  Early Childhood-
10 a. Touch Window – (Edmark) The Touch Window is a touch sensitive screen that goes over the computer monitor. The Touch Window is ideal for students who have trouble manipulating the mouse. It is especially effective with early learners, and it is recommended for students with developmental or physical disabilities. This portable touch screen takes advantage of children's natural desire to reach out and touch what they see on the computer screen. They make selections, move objects, pull down menus and draw graphics, all with the touch of a finger.
10b. Earobics (Cognitive Concepts) – Earlobes is auditory discrimination software. Students with reading problems may benefit from Earobics, because of the way it exercises the ear-brain connection, the software teaches children reading skills through a set of highly-structured games.

II. Elementary Age-
11 a. Electronic books, e.g., Start-to-Finish Books (Don Johnston) –These books strengthen reading fluency and comprehension, so students so struggling students can build volume. The Start-to-Finish Library offers readers who are struggling a wide-selection of age-appropriate narrative chapter books written at two readability levels (Gold for 2nd-3rd Grade level, Blue for 4th-5th grade level) and available  in three media formats. The students can practice reading fluently and with comprehension using multiple text and electronic supports, while accessing the curriculum’s required topics, genres and literature.
11 b. Inspiration/Kidspiration (Inspiration) – Children that have difficulty with reading comprehension can greatly benefit from programs and curriculum that provide visual support.  Kidspiration is a software application program designed for K-5 learners and develops "thinking, literacy and numeracy skills using proven visual learning principles. In reading and writing, Kidspiration strengthens word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension and written expression." 
III. Secondary and/or Post-Secondary-
12 a.
Zoomcaps would be good for a student with low vision. The visibility is enabled by color-coded letters and numbers and function keys.  ZoomCaps™ have upper-case letters with white letters on black for high contrast or black letters on beige to match keyboard. Lower-case keyboard labels from Hooleon feature color-coded vowels, numbers and keyboard functions.
12b. Electronic text -For students living with visual impairments or learning disabilities the E-Text makes printed formats more accessible. E-text is textual information available in an electronic format. This text can be read and interacted with on or by a computer. E-Text can be converted into several accessible formats to meet students’ various needs.
IV. Home & Recreation
13 a. Board Maker –The Board Maker is designed for individuals challenged by significant speech or language disabilities. The Board Maker can be useful in the classrooms to support students with a wide variety of reading, cognitive and communication needs. This tool has features like natural sounding voices, word prediction and more. It has Picture Communication Symbols software; create stories with text/symbols; picture dictionaries, supplement text with symbols, substitute text with symbols, create communication boards, etc.

13 b. Loc Dots – This will helped students who are visually impaired with raised plastic dots that are used to identify keys on a keyboard or objects. In this way students with visual impairment can use their sense of touch to find the keys on a keyboard or object with the dots placed on them.
5. My Dream Classroom site (slide 12):
http://www.humanware.com/mydreamclassroom.com/college/categories/blindness/partners/bookshare
Response “14” Name a the product and tell why you might see yourself using it in the classroom.

          One product that would be useful in a dream classroom as an assistive device is called the Zoom Text Magnifier and Screen Reader. This tool magnifies the computer screen for the visually impaired child. The child can use the Zoom Text Magnifier reader computer software program to help visualize the screen, when the student is trying to do computer work. This will help the child interact with classmate in a collaboration project, and be part of the group without allowing the visual impairment to slow down the learning process.

Voice Thread

Voice Thread       In my technology class at East Carolina University, we learned how to use Voice Thread to make a slide show presentation. We could share pictures of an event in our lives that we wanted to share, and then we could comment on other classmate's Voice Threads. The teacher set up a Class Google Doc in which everyone in the class were asked to submit their url into the Google Doc for classmates to be able to access each classmates Voice Thread submission. Once the url was copied and pasted into the browse, students could access the Voice Thread of classmates and leave a comment about that particular voice Thread. I found Voice Thread very easy to use.
What is Voice Thread ?

Access the url below to read 7 Things you should know about Voice Thread.
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7050.pdf

Tutorial on how to use Voice Thread.


Voice Thread has several tutorial videos on the site that tell how to use Voice Thread.
https://voicethread.com/share/409/


How to use Voice Thread 


 
How to use a smartboard with voice thread 



Here are several articles I found on how to incorporate Voice Thread in the classroom.


Getting Started in the Classroom
http://voicethread.com/media/misc/getting_started_in_the_classroom.pdf

VoiceThread --a valuable classroom collaboration tool Written by Patricia Bruder

http://www.njea.org/news-and-publications/njea-review/march-2011/voicethread


Welcome to the Voicethread 4 Education wiki
 written by Colette Cassinelli

http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/

Free Technology for Teachers
written byRichard Byrne
On this website Mr. Byrne shares a Voice Thread of 100 ways on can use Voice Thread in teaching.

100 Ways to Use VoiceThread in Education
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/06/100-ways-to-use-voicethread-in.html#.UL5Vy4bhfYQ


         

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Venn Diagram

Venn Diagram lesson to use with Reading Comprehension

           Children that have difficulty with reading comprehension can greatly benefit from programs and curriculum that provide visual support.  Kidspiration is a software application program designed for K-5 learners and develops "thinking, literacy and numeracy skills using proven visual learning principles. In reading and writing, Kidspiration strengthens word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension and written expression."  It is a researched based program and research has shown that "visual learning" is one of the best methods to teach thinking skills.  To learn more about Kidspiration and Inspiration, please refer to the links below.

            The example above is a Venn diagram lesson that can be used to help improve reading comprehension skills.  Venn diagrams are used to compare and contrast subjects, characters, or stories that students have just read about.  This Venn diagram template in Kidspiration allows you to incorporate both picture symbols and text to further help students remember and associate pictures with what they learned.  This visual learning technique allows students to "strengthen their reading and writing skills as they express their ideas, compare stories, and communicate their understanding of concepts and vocabulary visually."  A great way to use this Venn diagram tool would be not only after reading, but before reading to increase reading comprehension.  Students can come up with ideas and pictures about what they already know about the topic and share with a partner to increase their background knowledge.  During the reading, the teacher can pause a few times so that students can add to their Venn diagram.  After the reading is complete, the students can make any corrections or additions.

http://readingcomprehensiondisabilities.blogspot.com/p/inspiration-kidspiration.html

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Integrating Technology and Literacy



                                                      Tar River Reading Council Workshop
          The Tar Valley Reading Council Workshop for October was about ways that computer technology and literacy can be integrated in the classroom. The workshop contained many ideas in using ipad applications for students and teachers. The workshop was located at South Greenville Elementary in Greenville, North Carolina. The speaker was Lauren Boucher.
          One application that was discussed was Nearpod which is a computer application in which teachers and students can create presentations with pdf files and mp4 video files. You can insert a draw it in which the teacher can have the students draw out a diagram to practice handwriting, if the students have a paragraph in which the teacher wants the students to pick adjectives  this can be done. If there is one student that shows excellent work, the teacher can share the work with the entire class as an example for the other students to follow. The student’s identity will not be known and up to 10 presentations can be stored.
          Educreations is a white board application which allows teachers to build lessons. The teacher can record his or herself by annotating documents. For a word family lesson the teacher would talk to the students about a picture word that comes up on the screen.  Students can be called up to the screen to tell what the first letter for each picture word that is showing. The teacher can have another lesson on the ipad where students can write the words. Pictures can be brought in from a camera roll that is straight from the teacher’s drop box account. Pictures can be accessed from the web by clicking on the picture and it pops up on the screen. Students can use this to do their own video tutorials and it can be sent to their teacher’s website for students to view when they are absent from school.
          Storylines for schools is an application in which several students could play a game by telling a story. One person makes a title or a phrase, the next person illustrates what the title or phrase is about then, the next person has to guess what the title or phrase is by the illustration.  This game would be great to run home a study of idioms during a literature block. In this way the children are not only learning, but they are having fun while learning.
          Scribble Press is an application that will allow students and teachers to create their own books. Templates are available in which the student can just fill in the blank or they can create their own story from scratch. They can insert pictures. It can be added to ibook on the ipad. It can be inserted as a pdf and printed or the book can be emailed which will generate a link. Students can write their own caption to their books. Teachers could write their own stories at their student’s level for the reading groups to go along with the topic of study.         
          Another application that can be facilitated on the ipad for students is called Sparkle Fish. Students pick a story and the application reads the story to them. There are about five stories that are free. The rest have to be paid in advance in order to access them. This application could be used to teach the different parts of speech. Students can pick a story to record, and then record the missing words. The application then tells the story out loud with the words added that the student recorded. The student could be asked to write their own fairy tale with this application.
          Last, interactive E Books are a great tool for students to work on their reading. There are some books that are free, and the rest of the books can be accessed for a fee. One E Book is called Magic Town which is an application that students can earn free books by visiting the site often. The students can also earn new characters by entering the site often. Once the lion is met in magic town, the lion will bring free books in Magic Town. The E Books are interactive to grab the children’s interest and help them acquire a love for reading. 
          Links that can be made to the reading course is that teachers can find these technological tools useful during center time to teach the students their sight words. Students can learn to write sentences in a fun way by making a game out of learning, and become more proficient readers through interactive play.

If you would like to attend these workshops,you may find information in the link below for the locations and times:

http://tarriverreadingcouncil.wordpress.com/
         What Makes a Great Teacher Website?

          As I was thinking what would make a great teacher website, I thought about what I would want on the site as a student, a mother, and a teacher. The teacher should state his or her philosophy of teaching and give a little personal and professional information about his or herself. It would be good for the parents to be able to relate to the teacher on a personal level, so they can feel comfortable discussing their child with the teacher. The parents and teacher will need to be a team that is looking out for the best interest of the child. I know I would want a calendar and a schedule of school events, a homework page with assignments that are kept up-to-date, a menu in case I need to make my child's lunch, a class page to display the students projects and events with pictures, and a page for students to go to for games and fun sites for learning. The Common Core Standards and the Essential Standards should be a part of the site, because this is what the children are expected to accomplished during the year. Parents should be able to look at the standards and know what goals their child is expected to meet by the end of the year. The website should not be cluttered,so the students,parents, and others visiting the website can easily navigate through the site. 

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Live Binders

"LIVE BINDERS" FREE TECHNOLOGY FOR TEACHERS

Live Binders - Online Binders of Webpages and Images

Live Binders is allows you to create online binders of webpages, images, and documents. Live Binders displays your collected content in a tabbed, book-like format. You can create binders for as many topics as you like. Adding content to your Live Binder can be done by manually typing in the url of a webpage, upload files from your computer to your Live Binder, or add content through the Live Binders bookmarklet for Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Applications For Education:
Live Binders could be an excellent tool for students to use to create online booklets of resources they find online combined with content that they have created, or students could build Live Binders to showcase the work that they have  done.

Here is the url for my live binders:

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=580684&backurl=/shelf/my

Compare & Contrast Diigo & Delicious

                            Diigo Versus Delicious
Feature               Diigo               Delicious
      
Organize bookmarks automatically with tags                  X                    X
Popular bookmarks                  X                    X
Anytime, anywhere access to bookmarks                  X                    X
Share bookmarks with others                  X                    X
Powerful, customizable, search tools                  X                    X
Groups post to blog automatically                  X                              X
Tools & browser extensions to make bookmarking easier                  X                    X
Lists                  X                                     X
Free iphone & android apps for bookmarking from mobile device                  X              3rd party
Ipad Safari browser bookmarketlet                  X                            
Highlight & annotate web pages                  X              
Capture, markup.& share images & text                  X
Archive web pages just as you see them                  X
Sync bookmarks between Diigo & Delicious                  X
Educator Tools                  X
Open ID Compatible                  X
          I opened up a Diigo account, but I think I like Delicious better simply because it does not have all the extras. I think I just like things simple. It seems that I do not need all the highlighting and archive extras. The best part is the bookmarking, so that I do not have to take up the bookmark space on my computer when I want to find a lesson plan or great resources for teachers and students.