Twitter Post

Twitter Assignment ED 505

The technology in education class has been a unique experience for me to say the least.  It would be easy for me to say how great twitter has been, however, I honestly cannot say that at this time. One being with all the different technology assignments due each week for the class I found it hard to concentrate on searching twitter   Due to old habits I found putting in a search phrase much more relevant  and quicker finding results than the first several people I followed on twitter.

The first week of class I used some of the websites suggested in the syballus to find some educators to follow and picked some local people, however, with this being summer they did not seem to have a lot of significant post.  I mainly experienced a lot of irrelevant chatter initially; therefore, I was turned off to twitter.  I think if I am able to secure a position back in a public classroom I can see where connecting with a couple of educators could be helpful on one subject.  However, during this class I did not find it very useful and my inexperience with twitter was probably the major factor which I can work on in the future.  I did see among our classmates how the hash tags could be helpful for a class or group of students to research the internet thought out the year.  I enjoyed seeing the twitter post among classmates each week and the different web sites relating to the same subject (ex. Digital divide) therefore, a class or group of students could quickly build up a database of references on the internet with twitter.  Consequently, the irrelevance of twitter was due more to be not being confident with the technology than twitter itself.

One hash tag I tried to follow outside of the class was Ed Tech k-12 Magazine @#ow.ly/n1L81, another one was Digital Maverick @ digitalmaverick.   Both had some insightful tweets, however, a lot of chatter also that was not relevant to our assignments.   Another one I followed was Karl Fisch@Karlfisch his blog is thefischbowl.blogspotl.com.  I did not do a good job following them due to they had so many tweets I found it quicker to search the net on my own, however, as stated above in the future once you find someone tweeting about subject you are interested in with practice I am sure you can learn to search tweets more effectively than I did during this class.

In conclusion, I think posting a tweet with a website attached on a particular subject like we did for class is much more helpful for education purposes.  Therefore, our class hash tag was the most useful tweets in my opinion. I can also see where social bookmarking like Delicious can help organize your tweets, websites, and bookmarks now that assignment is finished.

Check out my social bookmarks at
https://www.delicious.com/edwinatc24

Assistive Technology in the Classroom

In this week’s blog we will examine how to use assistive technology with students that have mild, moderate, and severe cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities, sensory disabilities, at-risk behaviors, and gifted students. Roblyer and Doering point out first we must understand what constitute a disability, which is “when an impairment limits an individual from performing an activity in a manner normally expected for human beings (communicating with others, hearing, movement, manipulating objects, and so on)” (p.398).

For students with mild cognitive disability low-tech technology that are usually non-electrical such as highlighting markers, word list, and organizing systems may be helpful (Roblyer & Doering,2013, p.404).  Software products that have text-to-speech products and interactive storybooks could be used for reading, and for writing voice-recognition software has been helpful (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.405).

Roblyer& Doering point out for students with moderate to severe disabilities “effort is devoted to ensuring that they acquire daily living skills such as personal hygiene, shopping, and use of public transportation”(p.408).  An iPad app (Time, Money, and Fractions On-Track) could be used to teach money and time management skills (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 408).  For students with this disability accessing and using a computer can be very difficult, therefore, alternative keyboards (Intellikeys) can enlarge keys, remove keys not needed for particular software program, and have multistep keys that do several functions (print, save, quit) with a single press of the key (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 408).

Physical disabilities usually affect the student’s mobility and agility, therefore, Roblyer & Doering point out technology needs to address ensuring maximum motor function to decrease physical demands by looking at placement of the technology and having good training so that the student can operate independently (p.405).  Assistive technology such as joysticks (one handle moves in all directions) for power wheelchairs and switches for controlling computer systems and environmental systems need to be considered (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.408).

Assistive technology for students with sensory disabilities (loss of hearing or vision) Roblyer & Doering point out can start with a cane with sensor technology for the blind to assist with mobility, to scanners that convert printed information into audio for the blind (p.409).  They point out there are mobile apps like “Text-Grabber” for the visually impaired (p.409).  

Individuals who are hearing impaired Roblyer & Doering point out can use most technologies without many adaptations; however problems can occur with products like computers due to the “reliance on sound in multimedia software” such as error messages (p.409).  Therefore, it has been advocated for designers to produce information in multiple formats (error messages with sound and on-screen instructions) (p.409).  In the classroom FM amplifications systems (Lewis, 2010) are being used with the hearing impaired, it allows the teachers voice to be amplified through a head-set to the students to help them focus their attention (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 409).

The At-Risk student is not disable from the federal definition of disability; however, their low performance often correlates with students who have a disability (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.209).  Consequently, software programs and websites need to be engaging and motivating to the student, such as electronic quizzes that provide immediate feedback on performance.  An example of this would be Brain Pop (www.brainpop.com) (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 405).

The last student we will examine is the gifted and talented student. Roblyer and Doering point out the primary issue with these students is identifying “students who merit special services or activities that they would normally not receive in school” (p.411).  Roblyer and Doering point out five areas to focus assistive technology on with the gifted student; they include pace of learning, process, passion, products, and peer relationships (p.412).  Assistive technology should focus on products such as “multimedia presentations, web page design, and electronic portfolios to document learning experiences” (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.405).  The internet can be very useful with gifted students allowing them to follow their passion, showcase their products through podcasts, and work on peer relationships through social networking, email, and wiki pages to name a few (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.412).

Assistive Technolgy

#ED50591413UWA You Tube video on Assistive Technology http://t.co/86yk5l8we2
— Edwin Harris (@EdwinATC24) July 16, 2013

twitter 2.0

Check out this site for web 2.0 resources;https://t.co/rdlspzSHmW #ED50591413UWA
— Edwin Harris (@EdwinATC24) July 9, 2013

Glogster Nutrition Food Pyramid

Web 2.0 Resources in the Classroom

As I pointed out in my last blog (7/2/2013) physical education and health has been put on time restraints in many school systems due to increase academic pressure in core subjects to reach benchmarks on standardized testing, therefore, learning to use resources like web 2.0 to increase online content could be very helpful.  My own child will be entering high school this year where they are teaching an integrated class call LIFE PE that students take the entire year and receive state credit requirements for health, driver’s education, and physical education (Nivada Spurlock, Chairman Physical Education, Homewood School System).  To accomplish this the school system is using a combination of “hybrid learning where the course is a mixture of online and face-to-face delivery” (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 207).  For example, the health component is taught entirely through on-line modules.

According to “keeping pace”, hybrid learning is the “fastest growing segment of k-12 online learning (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p.212).  As distance learning increases education systems must keep in mind characteristics of successful distance learners such as responsibility and self-organization ability of students.  Furthermore characteristics of  effective distance learning instructors such as course planning, verbal and non-verbal presentation skills, ability to use strategies, and ability to coordinate several internet sites for student activities need to be kept in mind.(Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p.213).

Using web 2.0 resources embrace the technology world students of today are growing up in; therefore, instructors must keep pace.  Interacting with files online in recent years has expanded with tools such as icloud and drop box (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p.220) which makes sharing much easier for students and instructors in online learning.  Sending instructions or assignments through email was the only option a few years ago in online instruction.  However, now instructors can use blogs as their main communication points with links to web 2.0 resources like in this week’s assignments (glogster, animoto, blabberize), websites, tweets, wiki lesson plans, Prezi presentations and many other internet options (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p.222).    The web 2.0 resources like glogster (1 page), and short videos (30 seconds) like animoto, blabberize with animals talking are good examples of tools that can be embedded into a blog.  These presentations are short which I think helps keep students attention and can be used to introduce an entire unit of study or simple lesson plan in a fun way.

Try our video maker at Animoto.