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!   

Day 6

I had to play a bit of catch up today as I needed to watch the Kurzweil videos.  I was really impressed with how it works.  I have never used Kurzweil, in fact, I had never heard of it before last week.  There are a huge number of features that seem to make it user friendly.  Firstly, the interaction between the student and the reading document is so important.  If you’re dealing with a reluctant reader there is a lot of different options that you and he/she can look at using within the program. 

I thought the translation function was interesting, would be great for ESL students.  When I initially heard about having to pre-set the document with the image links I thought that it was a whole lot of extra work.  I soon realized that anything you do as a teacher requires a whole lot of work to begin with – be it a lesson plan, classroom activity; however, after you’ve done it once you have the document and can then use it again, or alter it slightly. 

An excellent feature of Kurzweil is the definition option.  If a word is not understood you can click on the word and get the meaning right away.  I can imagine that a huge turn-off for reluctant readers is the fact that they may not understand a lot of what they’re actually reading.  This seems like a great tool where they can simply click a button to get a definition, as opposed to the big hulking dictionary!

Some of the features, like the ability to drag text reminded me of Notebook software.  I use that program fairly regularly for quick little classroom activities, that connects word with definitions, or main points and topics, etc. 

I didn’t use my ipod too much today.  I did have it docked and the music going for a while.  The main usage was to use  Webmd, to try and figure out what’s wrong with my young fella.  He’s not feeling well.  No luck, hopefully he feels better tomorrow!

Sunday July 10th

I just got back from coaching in PEI and should watch another webinar but I’m toast!  I did find a really cool link that isn’t necessarily about apps, but is a google app.  The website is dedicated to technology for teachers, it’s a great website. 

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/04/google-apps-k-12-lesson-plan-selector.html

Ipod was used for 4 hours of music on the ride home today!  In hindsight I should have scanned some articles I have to read for another course and uploaded them to the ipod and then used the text to speech app on the car ride home! 

Assignment 2

Name and icon of App	Functionality	Who Would it Benefit?
Pocket Pond	Pocket Pond is an app that can be used for calming and relaxation. The sounds are of a pond (birds, insects, water rippling etc.). When a student glides their fingers over the pond, they can startle the fish, add lily pads and dragon flies…	Students who respond well to outdoor sounds, moving fish, and water rippling. Any age can use this app.
My Teddy Bear	The Teddy Bear needs to get dressed. Follow the directions to dress the bear. Save a picture of the bear and display it on another program or the picture frame.	Very young children or those requiring support learning to follow instructions and attending to a task.
Baby Piano	Play songs, such as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, by following the lit up keyboard. The keyboard can be adjusted to play music with animals sounds.	Very young children or those requiring support learning to follow instructions and attending to a task.
ABA Receptive Language	Another great app from Kindergarten.com that asks the students to respond to specific requests, such as, “Touch the egg”. A quick way to evaluate whether or not the child understands spoken language. Excellent visuals!	Young students or English Language Learners- anyone who might be experiencing challenges with receptive language.
Sound Touch	Tap on an animated picture (dog for example) and a real photo of a dog pops up. For every animated picture, two photos are provided to support recognition of the original object. All pictures include sounds associated with the object.	Any young learner or student with delays in learning names of things (animals, musical instruments, vehicles, etc.).
One Rainy Day	This story is jammed packed with little gems to engage a young child-vocabulary development, following instructions, attending to the story, interaction with the text, and the words are highlighted as the text is read aloud. The student can “play” games by following directions.	Any young learner or those with reading delays who enjoys listening to an interactive story.
Five Little Monkeys	Animated, interactive, rhyming story with music, sound and pop up words to support a struggling reader. The words are highlighted as they are read. Tap on a word to have it reread.	Any student would benefit, especially those who have difficulty recognizing rhyming words.
Baby Memory	Memory and vocabulary development. Great voice, music accompanying the game, and different levels are provided.	Early learners, students with cognitive delays, students who require practice to develop their memory.
Dr Seuss’s ABC	Introduction to the alphabet through, rhyme, music, sound/symbol relationship. Tap on words and objects and words pop out and are narrated.	Great for all students, especially those who require additional support with rhyming words, sound symbol correspondence, and letter recognition.
KidArt	Create pictures of all sorts with stamps and drawing. Practice letters and words would be perfect for this app.	Students who are learning to follow instructions, match pictures to words, and print letters would benefit from this app. (use it in conjunction with Pic My Puzzle)
Pic My Puzzle	Student adds a picture to the app and a puzzle is created. The student can use a picture they have created from another app, such as KidArt. The child can recreate their picture by putting their puzzle back together. Some pictures could include specific words to support reading.	Students who are learning to follow instructions, match pictures to words, and print letters would benefit from this app. (use it in conjunction with KidArt)
Starfall ABC’s	Uppercase and lower case letters are presented in an interactive environment. Sound/symbols, animation, pictures and music make this a great interactive app.	This app is great for any student requiring practice with their letter sound correspondence.
iWriteWords	This app reinforces letter recognition, early sight words and how to print (by tracing letters). Uppercase, lowercase and numbers are included in this app. The student can play the abc song just by tapping on the screen.	This app is for students learning to recognize letters and numbers. The app also supports students who are learning to print letters and numbers.
All-in-one-forKids	Learn about the letters and corresponding sounds with pictures to support learning. Matching game included.	Students learning to recognize letters and numbers would benefit from this app.
Moo, Baa, La La La!	Excellent rhyming story with music and lots of opportunities to interact with the story. The text is read aloud and highlighted. When a word is tapped, it will be reread aloud. Fun!	Students requiring support with vocabulary, reading and rhyming, would benefit from this app.
Just Me and My Mom	Wonderful story, lots of vocabulary, interaction with pictures (pop up text), Text highlighted as it is read. Sound effects and music support the learning.	Students learning to read, as well as those who already recognize words would love to read this story. It is engaging, interesting and the interactive nature make it a lot of fun.
My Word Wall	Excellent app supporting the learning of the alphabet, word families and whole words through a variety of activities (saying, reading and writing). Easy to use!	Students learning to read and spell would definitely benefit from this app. In particular, those students requiring direct instruction in word family patterns, would respond well to the activities.
Montessori Crosswords	Excellent app for reinforcing sound/symbol. Word building and spelling with support from excellent child voice	Students learning to read and spell would definitely benefit from this app. In particular, those students requiring direct instruction in word family patterns, would respond well to the activities.
Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer	Familiar story. Text is highlighted while being narrated. Pop up words to support pictures. Original voices and music from movie are added for effect.	This books is for students who require reading support, but want to read an entertaining Christmas Story.
IT’s Tyrannosaurus Rex	Nonfiction high interest story. Great descriptive vocabulary. Beautiful pictures.Text is highlighted as it is read. Pop up words for specific pictures. Sound effects of tropical area.	For any student learning to read. The supportive highlighted text is excellent for students with LD. High interest nonfiction.
Three Little Pigs	Beautifully animated and narrated book. The text isn’t highlighted, but it is still and excellent book for students. There are so many hidden pop ups and text pop ups the students will be extremely engaged.	Any age of student would thoroughly enjoy this story and  ask to read it again.
Food Fight	Incredible animation and interaction. Text is highlighted as it is read. As well, when touched, a word will be repeated. The story is engaging and the pictures are great.	For any student. The story is engaging and fun!
Diary of a Worm	This story is filled with humour, facts and funny animation. It isn’t interactive, and the text is not highlighted. But the story is still very engaging.	This book is excellent for accompanying a science lesson or for any child interested in worms. It is narrated, but there is no highlighting.
Pictureka	Game that assists with focusing. Students follow instructions to find specific items. It requires, attention and memory. It is an EB game and is a little crazy and has weird sounds.	For attention and memory challenges. Students who like to search for things will like this app.
Twas the Night Before Christmas	This book by Moving Tales, is an outstanding animated, narrated story. Although the text is not highlighted as it is read,, the entire experience is extremely engaging.	For all students. The book will keep the attention of the students and hopefully, they will want to read more stories by the same developer.
Audiobooks	These books are read aloud by read people (not a digital voice). There is no text support.	Students who require support for reading books at a higher reading level. Some of the free titles include books required for high school.
eReading: Greek Myths	Three Greek myths are included in this ebook. The words are highlighted as it is read. It is not interactive. However, there are opportunities to change the settings.	This book would be for older students interested in reading about the myths.
Nancy Drew	Nancy Drew mysteries are available in ebooks. They are not read aloud, but throughout the book, different items and words can be touched to provide more information. The font size can be changed and background adjusted.	These books are for students who are beginning to read independently, who might require some assistance with reading comprehension.
Digital Comics	This app allows the reader to read graphic novels on the iPad and iPod Touch. There is no narration.	For older students interested in reading stories with limited text.