Day 11

Today we had our final class in the Elluminate Live classroom.  It’s really an amazing way to have class and should be incorporated by universities all over!  Overall, the blogs that were presented were absolutely amazing.  People clearly spent a lot of time and effort researching and putting together some excellent work. 

Stephanie and Angela put together a really great blog, and I really enjoyed the video at the beginning of their blog who talked about students with sensory processing disorders.  They also had really good information on lower level planning for writers.  Very well organized blog. 

Julie and Krista had an awesome ‘experience first-hand’ demo.  I had come across that demo and talked about it in a much earlier post, but it really is a great way for people to get a glimpse into the various disorders that are out there.  I loved the way they had the widgets on their blog, the text to speech tool at the top was very good.  The story builder app they presented on was interesting and could be used for so many different types of students.  I also thought the organizational capabilities of istudiez pro would be very beneficial. 

The trio of Joelle, Meggie, and Janna also had an extremely well organized blog.  I was very impressed by the capability of the program ghotit – what a great tool.  I also liked the section they had on the different tools to help get students with proprioception.  The 3-holed pencil grip was very cool.

I liked the symwriters that Barb presented on.  She also had a very well organized blog as well. 

I really enjoyed working with Catherine and Shelley on our blog.  They both uncovered some amazing information and tools to use for supporting the writing process.  I of course loved Catherine’s xtranormal video that she created!  I’ve already thought about how I can incorporate that into my classes this fall! 

I will certainly make sure I keep all of the blog sites handy to utilize in the future and to pass on to colleagues. 

Thanks to all!

Day 11

Today we had our final class in the Elluminate Live classroom.  It’s really an amazing way to have class and should be incorporated by universities all over!  Overall, the blogs that were presented were absolutely amazing.  People clearly spent a lot of time and effort researching and putting together some excellent work. 

Stephanie and Angela put together a really great blog, and I really enjoyed the video at the beginning of their blog who talked about students with sensory processing disorders.  They also had really good information on lower level planning for writers.  Very well organized blog. 

Julie and Krista had an awesome ‘experience first-hand’ demo.  I had come across that demo and talked about it in a much earlier post, but it really is a great way for people to get a glimpse into the various disorders that are out there.  I loved the way they had the widgets on their blog, the text to speech tool at the top was very good.  The story builder app they presented on was interesting and could be used for so many different types of students.  I also thought the organizational capabilities of istudiez pro would be very beneficial. 

The trio of Joelle, Meggie, and Janna also had an extremely well organized blog.  I was very impressed by the capability of the program ghotit – what a great tool.  I also liked the section they had on the different tools to help get students with proprioception.  The 3-holed pencil grip was very cool.

I liked the symwriters that Barb presented on.  She also had a very well organized blog as well. 

I really enjoyed working with Catherine and Shelley on our blog.  They both uncovered some amazing information and tools to use for supporting the writing process.  I of course loved Catherine’s xtranormal video that she created!  I’ve already thought about how I can incorporate that into my classes this fall! 

I will certainly make sure I keep all of the blog sites handy to utilize in the future and to pass on to colleagues. 

Thanks to all!

Day 10

As we are nearing the end of our writing process blog, i've realized how much I have taken in over the past 2 and a half weeks in this course.  Teaching high school science I didn't often think about either the reading or writing process of students; however, I will be making a concerted effort to be more cognizant of some of my students needs in the future.  Although I already own an ipod touch, I think I'm going to save some pennies to splurge on an ipad 2.  There is a ton of upside to the increased size of the interface.  I have also looked into some things for my biology classes that I teach. 

I have found an app that is FREE called the lab timer that is going to be so beneficial!  I always struggle to have the kids focused on timing as they’re focused on the task at hand.  So this app allows me to keep track of 4 groups at once. 

Another app I have come across is called the plant names and flash cards app.  It is 1.99 but I will be able to use it for both my gr. 11 and 12 classes.  I can use it in the photosynthesis section of the course as it has leaf pictures where you are to label different structures, and also a plant science section of the course as well.  I’m really excited about having this as a unit summary tool, or mid-class quiz, etc.  I can also incorporate it into a kinesthetic quiz.

Another great app I’ve found is called The Chemical Touch.  I will be suggest
ing this app to the chemistry teachers and general science teachers.  It has every piece of information you would need about the elements but it also has a great section on amino acids that I will be using. 

I know I should be focused on what we learned in this course but I feel as though I’ve had my eyes opened for simple ways to incorporate great technology into class.  We have a well established learning differences centre at our school and I will be sure to pass on information (especially the writing task blog) to the people that work there as well as the rest of the faculty.   I am keen to be able to help support certain students in my classes through information that I’ve learned. 

Weekend # 2

I went to New Glasgow this weekend to see my grandparents.  My visit was fine, BUT, I forgot my ipod touch AND there was no internet…..a shockingly un-technological weekend. 

I returned home this evening and have been gathering apps that will help support reluctant writers.  I finally watched the final webinar on reluctant writers and learned about some great apps.  I have all of them plus many others listed on our blog site. 

I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of technological things tomorrow!

Day 9

Today was our first day working on our final assignment.  We began the class by continuing our discussion on the writing task.  Sitting down and discussing the number of different functions that need to happen in order for someone to write makes me wonder how anyone can write.  It’s truly an amazing feat to be able to verbalize our thoughts and comments in word form. 

After our discussion we split into groups to begin our final assignment which is to create a blog dedicated to the writing task.  I am working with Catherine and Shelley and we had a great day today in getting things organized.  We discussed what the skeleton of our blog will look like, such as features we will incorporate, gadgets we can use, articles to reference, etc.  I don’t want to give anything away just yet but I will say that Miami Vice fans are in for a treat!

I am looking forward to getting some work done on the blog this weekend and then meeting again next week to start getting things together. 

After I got home today I took my son outside to play.  He found an old bottle of bubbles and so we blew some bubbles.  As I watched him chase them and scream with laughter when he popped them the Bubbles app that was presented yesterday popped into my head!  When we came in I put it on the touch to see if he’d like popping virtual bubbles…..it grabbed his attention for at least 1 nanosecond!  Well, I enjoyed it at least!

Well, I am making an executive decision to go to bed before midnight tonight, so I’m signing off! 

Day 8

Today everyone in the class presented their top 3 apps.  What an amazingly diverse groups of applications available!  There were apps for pre-readers, early readers, reluctant readers, and established readers.  Obviously, in a collection of best app presentations there are going to be a number of great apps, but I would like to sum up a few of my favorite apps that were presented today.

Meggie presented an app called The Lettermen Books.  An app like this is so engaging for a child learning to form words and meaning of words.

Catherine presented the One Rainy Day app.  This is a great app for engaging a child with an extremely interactive story.  I will definitely be trying this app with my son, I’m sure he will be interested in the movement and sounds for the time being!  Check the vid:

It was hard not to be excited by the apps Joelle presented!  She was very enthusiastic and convinced me to get the Composure Zen Garden app!  I used it at lunch time before I had to do a presentation in my other class!  Love it.  In fact, I’ve decided to share a picture of me in a deep state of Zen while using the app!  I think Joelle would be proud!

Not only did I enjoy the comic stylings of Mark Toomey during his presentation, I also thought the iwrite words app was quite cool as well.  I’m going to try that one out at some point. 

There were a lot of other apps that were excellent, and that I am going to grab for my touch.  Apologies, but I forget who presented Memory Block; super addictive!  High score of 12 so far!!

I think Barb’s words after the presentation were very interesting when she was talking about a few of the huge bonuses of working with assistive technology in general.  For example, the ability to save money through conferencing and how research gained through technology is viewed in academic circles. 

I used the built in maps application on my ipod tonight.  I had a soccer game in New Ross and I wanted to figure out how far away a friend’s cottage was near the field, so I pulled out the map application and found out it was 37 km away! 

Day 7

Today was our Elluminate Live session.  I decided not to go into Acadia and carry out the session at home.  Initially, I thought I made a mistake in not going to Acadia since it would be hard to coordinate the group activity; however, in the end it worked out great, being at home.  As mentioned in my post yesterday, Kurzweil is a very powerful program that can really open up reading for many young people (and older for that matter) who are reluctant readers, or afflicted with other reading disabilities. 

Our task today was to select a document and utilize the features of Kurzweil to help tailor the document to the specific needs of a child with a particular learning disability.

I worked with Catherine and Shelley for this assignment.  What was great about our arrangement is that we had to utilize the virtual classroom as I was at home while they were in Acadia.  The virtual classroom provided a great experience for all of us to work in.  It’s not the regular way of meeting about an assignment and by enabling the application sharing feature we were able to see what the other group was working on in real time, really neat stuff. 

While Catherine created the description of the learning disability, Shelley and I looked at ways to use Kurzweil’s features to help our student.  We were able to create pre-reading assignments, post-reading assignments, and obviously, apply features of Kurzweil to the actual document.  We will present our work tomorrow, but it is a pretty neat program.

I’m still surprised Barbara refused my request to relinquish control of her computer to me though! 

Ipod was docked a lot tonight with music going as I prepared some work for another class.  I have checked weather, sports updates, email.  I did use it with my son at bedtime tonight.  We looked at the ABC app by Dr. Seuss on the ipod and then looked at the book as well – he seemed quite stunned to see the same thing in a book and on the touch!