Reflections about... Reflections!

What an impressive semester! This semester has gone by so quickly! While in TPTE 486, I have learned about flipcharts, inspiration software, blogs, class websites, and iMovies. This has been a busy semester!

Inspiration software was something that I found to be easy to use, and I feel that it will be applicable

in many contexts in my future classroom. One way that I used the software this semester was with a web to identify emotions.The web that I made showed different emotions that students may feel with branches of synonyms stemming from the emotions happy, sad, angry, and scared. Visuals were included for students to see how these emotions may look. I believe that when students with disabilities need to work on learning their emotions, this will be a great activity to use.

One of my favorite things to learn about was movie editing using iMovie. Watching the student examples was very helpful and I learned so much about movie editing. I enjoyed making a movie about Independence Day to use in my classroom. The movie will be useful for social studies lessons and also as a social story. When using this movie as a social story, students will view it to grasp an understanding of why Americans observe the holiday, the history behind the event, and how people observe it today. Example of families celebrating are shown to demonstrate what the event may look like to students. Fireworks are depicted towards the end of the movie to prepare students for the explosions being set off, and that this is a happy event, not something to be fearful of.


Overall, I have become more proficient with technology and learning how to troubleshoot when issues arise. Taking this class helped me to learn new ways to integrate technology when teaching in the future.

Critique of University of Houston Digital Story Website

The digital storytelling website by the University Houston contains a wealth of information. The "About Digital Storytelling" page explains the background of digital storytelling, which began in the 1990s! This page describes digital storytelling as similar to traditional storytelling but may also include computer-based images, text, videos, and music.

When creating a digital story to use in education, there are 10 elements outlined on the website that are considered essential. These are: the overall purpose of the story,the narrator’s point of view, a dramatic question or questions, the choice of content, clarity of voice, pacing of the narrative, use of a meaningful audio soundtrack, quality of the images, video & other multimedia elements, economy of the story detail, and good grammar and language usage. Knowing these elements and keeping them in mind as you make a digital story are important.

The "educational uses" page gave great ideas for ways that teachers may incorporate digital stories to enhance lessons. It has ideas for students to create their own digital stories as well, which I think is a great idea.

Exploring this website gave me lots of great ideas to use in my own digital story!

iBook - Engaging Learners with Interactive Whiteboards

In the first chapter of the iBook, the most important thing that I learned about Interactive White Boards (IWBs) is that they can get students actively involved in learning. However, simply installing an ActivBoard in a classroom will not magically increase student achievement. Therefore it is crucial to learn how IWBs are best used in the classroom.
The first chapter of the iBook provides a list of strategies and features that research has found to have a positive effect on student learning. These include: highlighting important content, matching items, and importing pictures,
According to this iBook, there are three features that raise student achievement by 26% or more. These are: student response systems, graphics and videos, and reinforcer properties.

When using IWBs, there are challenges to consider as well. For example, in my placement classroom, the teacher has been unable to use her ActivBoard this year because a necessary cable is missing. While someone has come to fix this, the wrong part was ordered, and now she is waiting for the replacement part to arrive. Other challenges to consider according to the iBook are teacher confidence and school culture.

Midterm Checkpoint

As this is the middle of the semester, I feel more at ease in a technology class. So far, we have posted blogs, created wikis, and taken digital pictures for a scavenger hunt. I have enjoyed applying the materials and technology at my high school field placement. My favorite aspect of this class is taking what we have learned and implementing the technology in the classroom. The students in my classes have seemed to enjoy the technology I have integrated into my lessons.

For the rest of the semester, I am excited to use more technology in new ways. I am especially excited to learn how to create and edit movies, as this is something I have not attempted before. It will be great to learn more ways to use technology effectively!

WWT - Wiki Walk Through!

The Wiki Walk Through was an informative website about the wiki world. After completing the Wiki Walk Through, I feel that I have a much better understanding of what a wiki is. Before reading about wikis, I was confused about the differences between wikis and blogs, and why one would be better than the other. Now that I know more about wikis, I realize that Wikipedia is only one example of a wiki, and that wikis have an open structure that can be edited by many people. They are a great tool for collaboration!
Teachers may use wikis to share ideas about a subject or particular class for their students or other teachers. Wikis also are a great place to store resources, such as lesson plans. This is especially useful for students who have missed class. However, it is important to remember that while student need access to lesson plans and activities, they must not be allowed to access answer keys.
A page that I found interesting in the Wiki Walk Through was the Differentiating page. This page has many resources for differentiating instruction and other resources for special education teachers. As a future special education teacher, I found this information very beneficial. One of the resources I enjoyed reading about discussed ways to address student strengths using multiple intelligences. This page also shared best practices strategies for students with autism, as well as other students with specific needs.
Finding a broad variety of information in this Wiki Walk Through is a good example of what is expect in a wiki. When a group of people work together to present information that they know a great deal about, the collaboration is useful for people on the team and others who are less familiar with the information. This Wiki Walk Through definitely gave me a better big picture perspective on wikis!

Website Evaluation - Khan Academy

In my website evaluation, I reviewed the website khanacademy.com. Khan Academy is a website that provides tutorials for many content areas. There are videos for subjects including: math, history, english, and humanities. 

The website evaluation helped me to understand how to decide whether a website many be helpful in my future classroom. Also, the criteria used to evaluate the website gave me several ideas for when to use this resource. For example, I used this website to understand angle bisectors before I taught the lesson myself. After I used the website to refresh my own understanding, I then used it to introduce the subject to my class. 

After this evaluation, I know the criteria to look for in a website to use in my class. It helped me to find whether a website is reliable and useful. The evaluation also helped me to determine when to use a specific website. Since doing the website evaluation, I feel more confident when selecting websites for educational resources.

Teacher Blog Critique

In this post, I will evaluate a blog written by a special education teacher. The teacher writing this blog is also a father of two boys with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The Life That Chose Me is the name of this blog.

                                   
This blog covers many topics relevant in special education. There is a collection of posts about the IEP process, with details about each part of an IEP, such as present level of performance and parent and goals and objectives.

While I felt that the author was knowledgable on the topics that he posted about, the layout of the blog was very plain. The text and background is black and white without any graphics. However, I felt that the blog was straight forward and concise. The blog posts that stood out were about the author's children and also posts explaining the components of the IEP process. Several posts were links to YouTube videos that applied to the specific posts they were included with. For example:

This blog has archives of categories including: autism, behavior disorders, behavior analysis, educational technology, and parents' involvements. These posts are helpful resources for parents and teachers. There are many resources to understand issues in education, parenting, and disability categories.