Classroom Door Decoration Ideas

It has been a long time since I made a post on this blog. Since the last time I have began teaching Pre-K at Northington Elementary in Tuscaloosa, Al. Here is a picture of my classroom:

As of right now I only have 14 students but I am anticipating more before the year is over.

Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology are devices that extend the abilities of an individual in ways that provide physical access (i.e. wheelchairs, braces) and sensory access (i.e., Braille, closed captioning).

TYPES OF DISABILITIES AND HOW A TEACHER WOULD USE ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY:


Mild Disabilities- Students with mild disabilities have the following characteristics: cognitive, academic, and social-emotional. The main issues for these students are not physical access to assistive technology but reading, writing, memory, and retention of information. In educational planning the teacher will need to use productivity software and other online resources.

Moderate and Severe Disabilities- Students with moderate to severe disabilities need considerable time devoted to teaching them daily living skills such as personal hygiene, shopping, and use of public transportation. Teachers need to be familiar with an array of devices that provide an alternative means for assessing the computer since the typical keyboard may be problematic for many students.

Physical Disabilities- Physical disabilities affect a person's mobility and agility. Assistive technology for individuals with severe physical disabilities may take a form of a power wheelchair operated by a joystick with a handle that moves in all directions. The goal is to identify appropriate tools for access and control that will allow the individual to function across environments.

Sensory Disabilities- Sensory disabilities involve impairments associated with the loss of hearing or vision. For an individual with loss of vision, a teacher could use three types of assistive technology: (1) Canes and sensory technology- Provides the student with mobility and orientation information when navigating various environments. (2) Tools to convert printed information- The teacher can use Optical Character Recognition software to scan, translate, covert to a word-processed file, and speech synthesis. (3) Screen readers- Work as utility software for the computer and reads any text that appears on the screen.
For an individual with loss of hearing can use most technologies without significant modifications.

At Risk Behaviors/Situations- Students who are at risk for school failure are not considered disabled. The use of assistive technology with students with disabilities has helped teachers to understand the types of academic challenges that students face.

Gifts and Talents- Gifted and talented students are those possessing demonstrated or potential abilities that give evidence of high performance capabilities. The primary issue is how to identify the students with these capabilities. Teachers can work with these children by using three strategies: (1) Electronic Communities- Students will communicate with people from different places, languages, and cultures. (2) Research - The students will use global resources to research topics and allow gifted students to explore ideas, events, or tasks in greater depth. (3) Interactive and Multimedia Presentations - This allows students to develop presentations based on their research.

I really enjoyed doing this assignment. There is so much that you can do with a history lesson. I enjoyed the different uses of technology.

I am posting a link to a glog that was created about the Travels of Marco Polo. The glog includes a video about Marco Polo along with an activity. Check it out!! http://nuchie.edu.glogster.com/glog-1616/

Here is the link to a video created through animato that goes along with the assignment. http://animoto.com/play/DHutdaowNoZzphiDUG74zQ#

I think that voice thread was my favorite. I created a voice thread to go along with a presentation on Marco Polo. I hope you enjoy it http://voicethread.com/share/3012941/.

In the classroom this would be an example for me to show to the students. When looking in a textbook they mention many explorers but they do not go into great depths about their lives. I can see this being a hard task for teachers, especially those who have a passion for history. I would use this as a way for each student to do a project about a different explorer. This can be done individually depending on class size or as group projects. The students will have to create a glog using glogster and present it to the classroom. Another great tool to use with an assignment like this is wikispaces and classmarker.

I have found the articles or posts on google reader to be very interesting. Many of the articles gave me information that I feel will be very beneficial to me when I begin teaching in my own classroom. Many of the things that I worry about are classroom management, teaching strategies, and motivating students. I have been able to find many posts that address these concerns. One sight is titled Guided Reading which is a strategy for teaching reading. During guided reading the teacher selects and introduces texts to readers, supports them while reading the text, engage the student in discussion, and performs mini-lessons before, during, and after reading. I found two interesting posts from Teachers At Risk. The first one was about a teacher method called the flipped classroom strategy. I absolutely loved reading how you can flip the classroom by doing homework in school and watching lectures via internet at home. It is very interesting. The next article was dealing with handling stress and avoiding burning out in class. Can anger cause teacher burnout is the name of the article. This post is written by a teacher about her experience but it makes you think about how easy we let things that are beyond our control get us to the point where we are stressed out. I think that this post was my favorite. It was titled 20 Fun free apps to promote student centered learning and literacy. The post have lesson ideas along with the free apps and a description of the apps and how it can be applied in the classroom. The last post was from a site titled Math is not a four letter word. In this post it compared numeracy to literacy. This article just talked about how much we use math, even when we are not even thinking about it. I thought it was quite interesting.

Simulations in the Classroom

Simulation software are computerized models of a real or imaginary system that is designed to teach how the system works. There are two types of simulations: those that teach about something and those that teach how to do something. One simulations activity I found was a story mapping activity from ReadWriteThink. This activity allows students to use several graphic organizers to map out key elements of a story. Here is a video that discusses using simulation software in the classroom.

Classroom Response System (Clickers)

Classroom Response System clickers are a great tool for the classroom. As with any use of technologies, there are challenges that come along with using these in the classroom. From the research that I have read I think that the pros out weigh the cons. To me the use of CRS will allow the teacher more time to spend on a subject or an topic. I think that it would be great in math when teaching students the difference between different types of graphs. Using the clickers along with a PowerPoint presentation will allow students and the teacher the ability to collect the data needed for the graph. By doing that the students will be engaged and they will be able to use data that they are interesting in. Follow the links below to find further information about Classroom Response Systems.
http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/technology/clickers/
http://www.iclicker.com/community/casestudies/

Check out this video!!