Project 16 - Final iBook - Sparta Group

This iBook was out final project for the semester in EDM310. It is a compilation of all of our work that we have done in the class. It includes videos, blog posts, photos, and other projects we completed during the semester. It is also now published and available for free download in iTunes.

C4T #4

C4T #4

Comment #1 - 4/15/14

Jabiz,

I am an education major at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL in EDM310 taught by Dr. Strange. I enjoyed this post because I believe that some teachers and parents are out of touch with what their students and children are learning and reading about. The simple remedy is to “read the books your students are reading.” In high school I really felt this was the case with my teachers, but here at USA, all of my professors read the books that they have assigned to us. I think this is a great approach and makes the class run smoothly. Thanks for the informative post!

Mitchell

Comment #2 - 4/29/14

Jabiz,

I really like this post, especially the third story that you told. I remember doing projects like this at my high school with younger students and how rewarding it was for me and I can only imagine what it meant for the younger kids to be able to work with upperclassmen. It was also great to be able to get a different point of view from them as well. I bet that they really enjoyed that project.

Mitchell Lane

C4K Sumamry for April

C4K #9

Lanzie – Pt. England School, Auckland, New Zealand

Hello Lanzie,

My name is Mitchell Lane and I am an education major in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I really liked this post because we also do reflections, a lot of them. I think it is great that you relate well with others and that you are caring. It is also cool that you like to help others. Great post!

Mitchell Lane

Lanzie had posted a reflection on his competencies which included being caring, relating well with others, and helping those in need. I commended him for possessing these values and that he should continue to practice at them.

C4K #10

Lotu – Pt. England School, Auckland, New Zealand

Lotu,

I am a education major at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL in Dr. Strange's EDM310 class. We use a blog as well. I like how you put the link in your post for the Cops and Robbers game. I played it and it took me 7 guesses to find the robbers. I agree that you are an expert for finding the robbers in only 2 guesses! Great post and keep up the good work!

Mitchell

Lotu’s post contained a picture of a game and a link that took you to the website so that you could play the game yourself. She found the robbers in only 2 guesses and it took me 7. I commended her for using a hyperlink in her post that directed me to the game and she also included a picture of the game as well.

Blog Post #12

What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher? Select a few and discuss how they may be useful to you.

Assistive technology comes in many shapes and forms. Last semester I did a site visit to the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind for EDU400 and I got to see and actually use some of these tools. My guide that day was a man named Stephen Sullivan and he has been legally blind his entire life and has worked at the institute for 20 years. He uses a lot of the technology there to help him with his daily tasks. In my research for this blog post, I stumbled across a great website called EnableMart. It is kind of like an Amazon for assistive technology. It has things as simple as large print keyboards and magnifiers for computer screens as well as more advanced tools. The large print keyboard and magnifier would be very helpful in a classroom that has a student with vision problems. An example is the Headmouse Extreme, which “provides precise and efficient head-controlled access to computers” (EnableMart.com). This particular tool would be extremely valuable with a student with sensory and motor disabilities. This website provides assistive tools for people with a wide range of deficits and disabilities. It has tabs for speech and communication, learning and instruction, vision, hearing, sensory and motor skills, and even assistive technology for the elderly. I would encourage everyone to take a look at this site just to see how much technology is out there that can be used in the classroom or even at home. Some of these tools can make a huge difference in a child’s education and all teachers need to at least be aware of them. – Mitchell Lane

There exist plenty of assistive technology for blind students. There exist Portable Notetakers. They’re lightweight devices that use a speech output rather than a visual one. They can be connected to printers and computers and are usually equipped with a special, braille keyboard. However, there do exist QWERTY keyboards for those who prefer that style of keyboard. There also exist screen readers which reads aloud everything that is on a computer screen. This includes text, icons, and even drop-down menus. There are also digital book readers which are sort-of like audiobooks and there are also various magnification devices that help those who may not be blind, but are still considered visually impaired. Here's a link to all those devices mentioned as well a list of well-known products that are commonly used by the blind. - Jeffrey Brazeal

The concept of teaching mathematics to the blind seems a little far fetched, but is something that should not be overlooked. As teachers, we may encounter students with special needs and we will have to figure out how to handle that. In the video (How to teach math to blind students) they explain how that even numbers have their own braille symbols and all it takes is just a little extra mileage to help the students understand the concepts. This is more true with Trigonometry than anything else, as having to feel the shapes takes a little longer than simply looking at the object. Texas is one of the leading areas in the teaching math to the blind thanks the efforts of Susan Osterhaus, a Secondary Math Teacher at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Susan brought this to the attention of the 10th International Congress on Mathematical Education, which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark on July 4-11, 2004. As we can see, this is something that became a huge deal in the teaching community and is something that needs to continue to be looked after. The end of video, however, had a statement that affects children of all kinds. The statement is that when a student has positive feedback and encouragement, then the student will do better in school. - Gregory Olsen

In the Video “Teaching a Mother What Her Deaf/Blind Child is Learning on the iPad” was an interesting view, and rather hilarious. It is a teacher, I assume, teaching a person, a mother I assume, how their child uses the iPad. First off, it is interesting to watch a normal person trying to figure out how to use it for the first time even when it is just sliding to the next screen. The difficulty that she was experiencing is only increased drastically by the fact that the student is blind or deaf. I remember when I first got my HTC One, I had no clue how to handle any of the devices or even get it to sign into the internet. Turning it on was a chore, I couldn’t find the button for 30 minutes. It is amazing that there are students out there that are figuring out how to not only navigate an iPad simply by touch and sound alone, but also can figure out how to type on the device. - Gregory Olsen

There are a lot of assistive technologies out there for use in the classroom as a teacher. I have found a program called word talk that I think would be useful when using Microsoft word in the classroom. This software can help students with reading and writing difficulties. Some of the features of this software is that it reads the text in the document as well as highlighting the text as it reads allowing for the student to follow along. There are numerous options that allow for customization. For access to this software go here: http://www.wordtalk.org.uk/Home/. - John McPeek

Another interesting assistive technology that I found is called speedtype. Speedtype is software that is used to make typing easier for those that struggle with it. Speedtype is an abbreviation expanders otherwise known as shorthand. With this software those who have difficulty with typing or those that are slow can increase their output of word processing. By decreasing the time in which it take them to put a word document together this program could potentially help self-esteem and give them time for other projects. – John McPeek

Project 12 Part B

Blog Post #11

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From These Teachers?

A Collaborative Blog Post

1. I watched the 1st one, and it has some awesome stuff discussed. To begin with, he talks about how he deals with students that are not high in knowledge, not just because of their grade level (4th) but instead because most of them did not even know what country they lived in. He talks about a weather balloon project that they did in class and the different aspects that went along with it. Not only did it have science and math, but also some language arts and literary aspects. The students were engaged throughout the entire project, and learning became a serious experience to them. Using the web to talk to people, conduct research and even give presentations about the project to other classes across the globe the students had their work cut out for them.

2. Paul Andersen teaches AP Biology at a high school in Bozeman, Montana. His video may only be ten minutes long, but it is packed with valuable information. He introduces his style of teaching as a blended learning cycle. He combines blended learning and its three components: online, classroom, and mobile with a learning cycle that aims to engage, explore, expand, explain, and evaluate. He created a mnemonic device to remember the steps of his blended learning cycle. He uses the word quiver. First he presents a question. Second, he encourages inquiry/investigation. Third, he uses video to further explain his topic. Fourth, he elaborates upon the material. This step involves reading and being able to pull valuable, relevant material from text. Next, he reviews his students in small groups so that he can verify that they fully understand the material covered. Finally, once all other steps are reached, he tests his students with a summary quiz over a few units. This was a very helpful video that I'm sure I will be looking back to for inspiration in the future.

3. This video by Mark Church is a promotion for his book Making Thinking Visible. In this video Mark has put his students into groups and encourages them to talk about what they have learned up to this point. While they are discussing the topic the students are to come up with a headline about what they have learned. Mark then states that after a couple of weeks they will revisit the headlines and see what headline they would now come up with. This was a very interesting way of getting students involved in a project. I believe that this would be a good way to get the students interested at the very beginning of a project to see how time and a little more learning about a subject can change their outlook on things.

4. Sam Pane is a 5th grade teacher at Wilson Focus School in Nebraska, Tennessee. In the video, Sam Pane is teaching his students on how to be good “digital natives”, denizens, or, frequent users of the internet. To teach his students how to be good digital natives, he has his students create their own webcomic that stars a superhero that they themselves create via a online program that allows you to create a superhero. I think that is perhaps the best idea for a lesson EVER. Seriously, I wish I could have done neat stuff like that when I was in elementary school. Shoot, I make my own superheroes every now and again already, it’d be something I’m already awesome at, heh. The hard part though is coming up with a good name for your hero or heroine. This just further reinforces the fact that if you make lessons fun, it’ll make children become much more engaged and passionate about whatever it is they’re learning, mostly because it won’t really feel like learning. Also, by having your students create something, it instills a sense of ownership, a sense of pride in whatever it is they’re creating.

5. In a video called Project Based Learning by Dean Shareski, we get to see yet another classroom that is fully utilizing Project-Based Learning. In this classroom, multiple subjects are actually combined. So, students aren’t participating in a class that is divided up into “periods” or “blocks”. It’s all one classroom that is being taught by three or so teachers. It’s a very interesting system, though the teachers do talk about how difficult it was to put such a system in place. But, it was worth it. This video further proves just how effective Project-Based Learning is (as though you really needed more proof, heh).

6. In this video Roosevelt Elementry highlights their Project Based Learning teachers and students. They talk about all the aspects of PBL that help the children grow. One of these aspects that they highlight is that of public speaking. PBL really helps in these lower level classrooms to get children comfortable speaking to groups. Another thing that is highlighted in this video is collaborative work. This skill is a great thing to teach at this early level of learning because it’s what most adults have to do at work anyhow and to learn how to do it effectively and efficiently at this age can only help the students as they grow and learn. The last thing that is highlighted is how much the students enjoy it. The video has parents of children that are in the class tell of how it is helping their child and how much their child is learning using this method as well as how much they enjoy PBL. The aspect that children are loving PBL is what has brought me to believing how powerful a learning tool it can be.

#1: Gregory Olsen #2: Mitchell Lane #3 and #6: John McPeek #4 and #5: Jeffrey Brazeal

C4K Summary for March

C4K #7

Jarreka – Pt. England School, Auckland, New Zealand

I had commented on Jarreka’s post when it was assigned but for some reason my comment never showed up so I just commented again. She had shared a video that her class had made. They named things and attributes that they felt coincided with the Pt. England Way. I said that I greed with all of the things that her and her classmates named and that if they did all of them to the best of their abilities, they would be well on their way to becoming model students.

C4K #8

Mohammed – Pt. England School, Auckland, New Zealand

Mohammed had most recently posted on his blog about a game he played while on holiday. It was called Base Wars and you control a tank against other tanks and infantry. I told him that I liked the background of his blog as well as the game that he played. I asked if he was on the green or yellow team.

C4T #3

Steve Wheeler

3/16/14

The first blog post of Mr. Wheeler’s that I commented on was from March 16, 2014 and the title was Taking up Residence. This post was particularly interesting because he was discussing Marc Prensky’s Natives and Immigrants. He was comparing this view of technology to another one held by David White of Oxford University. White refers to these same people as Digital Residents and Visitors. This theory is much easier for me to relate to and to understand. I commented about this and received a response from Mr. Wheeler.

4/6/14

The most recent post that I commented on was about a recent keynote speech that Mr. Wheeler gave in Barcelona, Spain. One of his key points was that future education would be “both richly social and intensely personal.” What he means is that technology allows us to connect with people all over the world and at the same time it allows us to personalize things to fit our needs and tasks at hand. I told Mr. Wheeler that I could not agree more and that I hope this happens sooner rather than later.