So much interaction!

This week we did a lot with reaching out to parents and other teachers or students via the internet. We created event sign ups with the website SignUpGenius.com, and we used MS Publisher to create a fake newsletter to send out to parents. I really think Parent-Teacher interaction is incredibly important and completely imperative for a child's proper education (learning doesn't just take place in school!). These different tools we've been introduced too seem excellent to me, I'm 100% sure I would utilize them and/or tools like them with my future students and their parents. I think it's a very well organized and creative way to interact. We also discussed the app EduCreations, which is a sort of white-board video app which allows a teacher to record their voice and their drawing on the screen like a white board. This can be used by students outside of class to watch the videos and review or learn material as if they are right there with the teacher. And finally, even more interaction went on with our use of Dropbox to send each other our newsletters and comment on each other's work as well. I think these are all great ways to interact with our students, their parents, and our peers. I will definitely be utilizing them when I have my own classroom!

The Use of Social Stories

Social Stories are a short story that delivers social instruction. They "take complex skills and break them into smaller components that are more easily understandable" (More, 2008). As a teacher, I think this is a great tool to use to teach a specific lesson. It uses visuals, text, and audio so it hits almost ever base for the different spectrum of learners. One of the most important things that stuck out for me in the article we were to read, was that when making a social story you need to take the child's perspective into account. You need to be on their level with vocabulary and sentence structure and the topic at hand. This is great to use for behavior intervention, and because the stories are individualized, you can tailor the story at hand to find any student.

For my own social story, I kept it broad so it could fit most any student. I chose a simple idea: keeping calm and figuring out what to do when a you (a child/student) are mad. I've embedded it below. I felt like making a social story about keeping calm was a really good choice because, as a teacher aide in special education classrooms I feel like the things I'm saying constantly are 'use nice hands', 'we use our words', and 'do not hit your friends'. Many students, especially students with disabilities who may have trouble communicating their feelings and needs, get angry very easily. The idea of making my social story on staying calm was an instantaneous decision for me. As far as troubleshooting the program went, I wasn't very impressed with PhotoStory. It was primitive and lacked an easy flow. I think I would have been much better over simply using photo editing software and working it into a movie maker program (two things I am more familiar with anyway). Otherwise, making this social story was a great experience and I will definitely do it again in the future.

Adventures in WebQuests and learning about Assistive Technology

In terms of how the WebQuest we had to complete for class went, I’m a little unsure. I enjoyed it, sure, and I certainly learned a lot from it, but part of me is walking away uneasy for I am not 100% certain I completely it properly. Setting that fear aside, and focusing solely on the walk-through of the WebQuest and information learned, I think it was an excellent resource. It ultimately seemed like a scavenger hunt, but we just needed to find all the information needed on the website provided. It was frustrating that many of the links didn’t work or that the sites we were linked to were down due to the government shut down, but other than that I think it ran rather smoothly. I may use something like this in my future classroom for it is not that challenging of an assignment but it requires thought and interest to provide good answers. If I were to set up a WebQuest like this for my future classroom I would set it up similarly to this one (though of course links would be up-to-date and accessible, something uncontrollable here) so that all the students would need to do is look through this particular website to get their answers, but they’d also need to think thoroughly about the answers they’re going to give.

I felt I learned a lot about AT/AAC but mostly from the perspective of how it works legally. I have some knowledge of AT from previous classes as well as my current job as a teacher aide in special education classrooms, so more so I was just learning of different specific devices that exist (like the one-handed keyboard). But legally, I wasn’t really aware of any of those mandates or laws (like the Assistive Technology Act which provides funds to states to establish AT centers, provide protection and advocacy, and establish low interest loan programs for AT) or the rules required by employers. I was aware of the anti-discriminatory laws that disallowed discrimination against a student or possible employee because of their disability, but I was unaware of how much responsibility falls on an employer to provide resources for their employees. Being aware of this could certainly help me with future students who are ready to transition into the working world. 

Facebook in the Classroom?

I’ve already discussed how I think using the internet is going to be a pivotal part of our job as future educators – the uses and necessities of it are only going to grow over time (though, as mentioned in many of the articles we read, of course we need to be capable of wading through the trash and finding the treasure). But when I looked at our current topic of the use of Facebook I paused.

I’m personally a little iffy on which side I am on. I’m still leaning towards I do not think Facebook should be used in a classroom, but much of what I’ve read as well as what Dr. Budin has told us has made me reconsider. As she said, Facebook is the second most used site on the internet. It makes sense that we should want to use and harness Facebook for all of its uses and possibilities. This, of course, is referring to students over the age of 13, for as mentioned in the article ‘5 Best Practices for Educators onFacebook’ by Sarah Kessler. Also used in that article was the excellent idea of using a Facebook group or page to get information to students. A group is an excellent idea for older students because it’s something you can make very private, while a page is also a great idea because you don’t necessarily need a Facebook to go onto a page and keep track of it. The group can work to communicate with students to make sure everyone is on the same page. While the page can be used to get information to all students, like the example used in Kessler’s article was a University of Miami professor’s idea of having a page on his field research to  post about findings, post videos and photos, and post about weekly trips. Though, if a teacher wanted to avoid Facebook, a blog is a very similar way to do all these things listed – the only difference is is that Facebook is one of the most used sites and would be seen by more people.

But, as mentioned, there is some things a teacher needs to keep themselves aware of so the students don’t tread into unwanted territory. The article ‘Risks Involved in Integrating the Internet into the K-12Curriculum’ by Bernie Poole really outlines a lot of these risks. Though, I do think personally this article could have focused a lot more on the solutions than the risks, as many of these risks (such as online predators, cyber-bullying, inaccurate information, etc.) are all issues we’re all very aware of but don’t really have a set solution for. The only real solution we have at this point is to discuss with our students these risks and monitor 100% of what they are doing.

I think, personally, in my future classroom, I would mostly avoid using Facebook. But as it and the internet evolves over time I may change my mind. Because really, there is so much we can do with Facebook. As seen in the article ‘100Ways You Should Be Using Facebook in Your Classroom’ there really is an incredible number of ways you could use Facebook from an educational standpoint. Some really basic ideas were things like to use it to make announcements, to share interesting websites, to post homework, etc. I think if I were to use Facebook in my classroom I would use the above mentioned ideas, as well as perhaps something more involved like what we are going to do eventually  in this class – have a topic and make a page that will need to be kept up-to-date and such. It really is a good idea that require research, time and thought, and especially if my students were older I think this would be a great thing to use. 

Helpful Web 2.0 tools that can make learning both fun and easy for all students:

When reviewing some of the Web 2.0 tools listed on Larry Ferlazzo's blog, I came to the conclusion that though many of them were fantastic and I have bookmarked them to use in the future - Tripline was my favorite. It is a map-making site that allows you to create a journey across the map using photos and music. I find this to be an excellent tool because it can be used in such a wide variety of ways! It of course can be used in geography, but also in history and English class as well. The students can use this to create the historical path of  Paul Revere, or Lewis and Clark, or perhaps something else entirely. It could also be used in English to depict the journey of a character in a book the students are reading. With the tool to upload photos or music, the students could customize each stop on the trail to upload historical photos or folk songs or even photos from the novel, depending on which subject they are working for. This could even be used if the student went on a trip and wanted to share it with their classmates, allowing them to upload photos from their trip with each pinpointed spot on the map.

I think this site is a fantastic site from the standpoint of an educator - especially one in the Special Education field. This site utilizes visual learning, something that many students with disabilities need or rely on. But it also has the audio factor for students who rely on learning by hearing - both amazing changes from the usual text learning. It could not only assist students who need to learn in different, less traditional ways, but it can also make the lesson more fun and engaging - something all students can benefit from.

Playing around on the site myself, I had a lot of fun with it. It's very user friendly and pretty easy to understand right off the bat. The tools are clearly labeled and the directions are clear and concise. This would be incredibly easy for a student to use (especially a student of the Web 2.0 era) even without instruction or help from a teacher. To share an example of my own, I made a basic, quick map of a trip from Buffalo to Disney World - a trip I have taken many a time! You can find that map here. The fact I made this map in just a few minutes shows how easy this tool is and how it could be utilized in our classrooms today (especially when many of us feel rushed to get through material!)

Web 2.0 and What it Means for Educators

After reading the article Web 2.0 A New Generation of Learners and Education by Dina Rosen and Charles Nelson, my opinion that integrating technology and the internet into my teaching is once again solidified. Before we get into what Web 2.0 means for our future students, we should really define what Web 2.0 is exactly. 

Web 1.0 is the idea that the internet is a system used to provide information, that the audience is on a readers-only basis. But Web 2.0 is the world we live in today, an internet where all people can not only read information, but write and post information as well. This website we are using now is an example of that. In Web 1.0, back several years ago, only a few individuals knew how to use HTML or create webpages for their product or business. But today, we live in a society where high school freshman have already mastered the use of HTML during their free time so they they could customize their Tumblr. Adolescents and teenagers, most young adults too, are the digital natives we've discussed. They have grown up with the internet and all these advanced technologies and they know them like the back of their hand. But what does this mean for the educators who have to teach these digital natives?

As discussed, educators need to keep up to date with new technologies and the use of the internet in order to properly. And speaking as a special education major, technology can play an even bigger part in our students' needs. Assistive and educational technologies are tools students use to meet their needs in order to fully grasp the concepts we are trying to teach them. In regards to the internet and Web 2.0, using the internet (blogs, wikis, etc.) to help enhance our students' participation and collaboration is an amazing and up-to-date way to keep our students involved and keep ourselves timely and relevant in our teaching methods. As stated in the article, 

"Education 2.0 emphasizes social constructivist pedagogy. Although constructivism has been popular in education for some time, the term Education 2.0 signals the addition of a new dimension, a 21st century digital dimension rooted in collaborative technologies that enable groups to move past their usual ways of working together and, as a result, to (a) build a collective wisdom that transcends that of the individual, in which the wisdom of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and (b) transform the constructivist classroom into an Education 2.0 classroom (i.e., into an interactive, participatory, adapting, living organism of learning and generating content)."

I've bolded the parts I particularly want to emphasize. Allowing our students to collaborate in such a way causes a community of learning, a "living organism of learning", and in a special education classroom or an inclusive classroom, this is an great tool to utilize. Particularly, an inclusive setting where we have both exceptional and general education students, having the students come together on an even playing field and collaborate as a class is an excellent way to have the students learn and feel like a community. Though, I will admit depending on the severity of a student's disability it could be more difficult for them to participate in the online community. This would call for assistance from a teacher or even perhaps another student to enhance the community feeling even more. But pros and cons aside, it really does not matter what my personal opinion is for technology will continue to progress and we as educators need to keep up to date lest we become obsolete to employers. 

"What is the Internet, Anyway?" Oh, how far we have come.

For class I have watched this video, What is the Internet Anyway?, and I honestly found myself laughing through the whole thing. Not because I thought found anchors' intelligence laughable, but rather because there was a time where people honestly didn’t know what the internet was. And I know that time existed, I remember having the same confusion over the @ symbol and what it represented – when I was about 6 years old (if that). I had my own email address by the time I was 8, and at the time I relied on my parents to tell my what the internet was and how to use it, but when I really think about it I know we were all learning at the same time. None of us knew really what it was or how to use it. But by the time I was 9 or 10 I used the internet constantly, my knowledge of its uses and functions far surpassed my parents', and though I needed to rely on my older sisters some of the time, really the children of the family were the only ones who really under. It is because, as described to the class, we were the ones who grew up with it, we are the ‘digital natives’, while our parents who did not grow up with it are the ‘digital immigrants’. They seem like apt titles for us, seeing as I am constantly aiding my parents in their attempts to check their emails or order something offline. It’s amazing how far the world has come technologically, and I can only wonder: what technology in the future are my children going to need to aid me with? It’s astounding how infinite the possibilities are. And this is exactly the same for my future students. Every single one of our students is going to be growing up in an age where the internet always was. For them, there was never a time where limitless knowledge wasn't available at their fingertips. And as technology continues to develop, they're going to be the ones who understand it as simply as they breathe. As teachers we are going to need to say 100% up-to-date with all new technology. We need to know what our students are using and learn how to utilize it in our teaching environments. This is the only way we are going to be able to be effective teachers in such a technologically advanced world