double entry 7

How might technology be used to support students in your future classroom who have learning differences like Dyslexia? There are several new technological advances that could aid in the teaching of students with learning disabilities. One of the first devices that comes to mind is a tablet. Tablets can range from the LeapFrog LeapPad, InnoTab Interactive, all the way up to Kindles and iPads. Children's books and reading applications are available on all of these devices. The LeapFrog LeapPad comes with a stylus that allows the reader to highlight a word to be read aloud. I think that schools should invest in these types of tables for the simple fact that they can be used for a wide range of of activities. Students would enjoy using the digital technology while learning at the same time. In the article by Philip Schultz, Words Failed, Then Saved Me, he described how he taught himself to read by reenacting the words his mother read to him from the comic books.

"I’d lie in bed silently imitating the words my mother read, imagining the taste, heft and ring of each sound as if it were coming out of my mouth. I imagined being able to sound out the words by putting the letters together into units of rhythmic sound and the words into sentences that made sense."

Using the stylus to highlight a word to be sounded out by the tablet may help the learning disabled child to get the feel for the word. Since there is interaction from the reading material itself, the child may be less likely to get frustrated.LeapFrog LeapPad


Schultz, P. (2011, September 03). Words failed, then saved me. The New York Times. Retrieved from   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/with-dyslexia-words-failed-me-and-then-saved-me.html?_r=2


Rock, A. (2012). LeapFrog LeapPad explorer review. A Learning Tablet Designed with Children in Mind. About.com. http://preschoolers.about.com/od/technologyentertainment/fr/Leapfrog-Leappad-Explorer-Tablet-Review.htm

teacher of the year

voki2

voki

unnecessary words

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Really 0
Just - 0

1. What is the difference between Media in Education vs Media Literacy Education
2. What social bargain is at the heart of Fair use?
3. Why is Fair Use more important today? Fair use is more important today because more technology is being used in the classroom for educational purposes than before. Digital media is more acceptable to us than it has ever been.
4. What are the two key questions judges use to determine Fair Use? Does is change the content? Is it for an educational use?
5. A teacher shows a movie of The Lion King and asks student to notice how the animals in the movie reflect racial stereotypes? Is this Fair Use? Why? Yes, because this is being used to teach children. They are using something they are interrested in to relate to a lesson they are learning.
6. Which principle relates most strongly to the digital story you created in class? Explain. Fair use. We are using the potentially copyrighted music and photos to tell an educational story.
7. Are there limitations to the amount of pictures, length of music, or video that can be used in a multimedia project? It is to be a small portion.
8. Do you need to request permission from the original creator in order to use copyrighted material in multimedia project for school related assignment? You should not have to if it fits in the confines of Fair Use.
9. Should educators try to change the policies in their school in they are not in line with Fair Use doctrine? Yes, the students and teachers deserve to be able to use all the technological advances that they can. If administrators educated themselves on the laws, they should have no problem in letting the educator teach a lesson as long as it complies with Fair Use.
10. What common myth about Fair Use surprised you the most? I did not know that you were allowed to use copyrighted material as long as it was for educational use. I thought that it was just always off limits with out permission, no matter what.

PhotoStory12

Double Journal #4

"If digital stories are going to survive in education, they need to be tied to the curriculum and used to strengthen students' critcal thinking, report writing, and media literacy skills."

I LOVE that this instructor is using technology, via digital stories, to enhance her students' literacy along with so many other critical skills. He makes it a point to say that he is not using these digital media narratives to replace the skills needed for the traditional pen and paper report, but to ultimately make the student a better writer. He makes it a point in his classroom to make sure that the story is the main focus of the digital narrative, not the flashy, loud, distracting techonology. His goal is to enhance the story by adding a digital element, not distract from it. Students are to use critical thinking to engage not only the audience, but the writers themselves.

Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

Ohler, J. "The world of digital storytelling." Educational Leadership. Volume 63 No 4. December 2005/January 2006.

Wiki. (2012). http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=digital storytelling in the classroom&view=detail&id=664217b0237e9423889fa24b1a509e3c4b403b00

A cooperative grouping strategy

In this activity, fifth graders are using global positioning devices (GPS) to analyze Lewis and Clark's journey. In the first part of the assignment, the students used the web to look up old maps, diary entires, and texts to help them understand the journey. The teacher, Cal Washburn, decided that the web just wasn't enough. He wanted the students to go on their own Lewis and Clark expedition. He found a map of archeologist's findings and turned the school's campus into that land. He placed his own artifacts int he same places that others were found from the Lewis and Clark era.

I think this strategy of "geo-caching" works because what kid wouldnt' want to go on a treasure hunt? Fifth graders are old enough to do much of the work on their own, but still young enough to have that little hint of imagination left to make their journey worth while. I'd love to try something like this with students in my own future class.

Learning styles and preferences

Do learning styles exist?

"Thus, learning styles are not really concerned with what learners learn, but rather how they prefer to learn."

I think the above statement tells us that, yes learning styles do in fact exist, but that we may have the incorrect perception of what they are.

 

 

 

Are they useful for classroom instruction?

"..it is far more important to match the presentation with the nature of the subject, such as providing correct learning methods, strategies, and context; rather than matching individual preferences" (Coffield, et. al., 2004).

 

Coffield believes that it si less important to cater to a student's learning style than to effectivly teach the subject at hand. I think this means that instead of teaching a lesson, such as volcanos, three different ways, the educator should provide the information to the best of her abilities to get the information out to all students instead of just one group at a time.

 

What is the best philosophy for using learning styles?

"Perhaps David Merrill (2000) has the best philosophy for using learning styles—instructional strategies should first be determined on the basis of the type of content to be taught or the goals of the instruction (the content-by-strategy interactions) and secondarily, learner styles and preferences are then used to adjust or fine-tune these fundamental learning strategies. Finally, content-by-strategy interactions take precedence over learning-style-by-strategy interactions regardless of the instructional style or philosophy of the instructional situation."

I think that Merrill is just telling us that people can learn in just about any method of teaching. The reason learning styles exist is because people may learn better one way than another. Learning styles are not exactly requirements, but preferences instead.

Double Entry 3

Quote:
"In a study of college students' text messaging, my colleague Rich Ling and I found a few more lexical shortenings; yet the grand total of clear abbreviations was only 47 out of 1,473 words, which is hardly overwhelming." (Baron 2009)

Response:
I was able to relate to this excerpt. I almost always use proper grammar and punctuation in text messages, however, with only being allowed the allotted amount of 150 characters per text message sometimes it is tough to get all you need to say in just one. If I'm really crunched for space, I admit I will sometimes convert a "you" to a "u" or a "to" to a "2." However, I kind of wonder who thinks that text messages should be in the form of a term-paper. (And why?) If it gets the point across, what's the big deal? I mean, I would never, ever turn in a report to a professor with the abbreviation "u."

Quote:
" He added that there is very little that is new about most of the abbreviations and lexical shortenings that make texting so maddening to so many. In fact, he said, with the exception of a few recent coinages like LOL, “virtually all the commonly used ones can be found in English a century ago.” For example, bn (been), btwn (between) and wd (would) can all be found in a 1942 dictionary of abbreviations." (Shea 2010)
Response:
I thought this was an awesome fact! I was so surprised when reading it, that I actually looked for the dictionary of abbreviations. All I found were a couple of card catalogue entries, but I did come across this website that has several of today's SMS abbreviations and how they were derived.

Shea, A. (2010, January 22). The keypad solution. The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24FOB-onlanguage-t.html

Baron, N. (2009). Are digital media changing language?. Educational Leadership, 66(6), 42-46. Retrieved from https://online.fairmontstate.edu/webct/urw/lc15057011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

Jampard, J. (2010, November 8). Ok, so the more things change the more they stay the same. Dissociated, Retrieved from http://www.disassociated.com/tag/abbreviations/