The course reflection

In the spring, I had to choose to take this course or another during the summer. I had taken EDUC 5173 last summer and kind of knew what to expect. I expected the course to be fast paced, hands on, engaging, challenging, and full of technology. You are immersed in the course for the two weeks or so. EDUC 5163 lived up to my expectations for sure. Looking back at all of the things I expected, I did want a course that I would be immersed in. I learn best when I am engaged and am able to get my hands on equipment and try things out (a visual, kinesthetic learner); most of my students learn this way too. EDUC 5163 has been a great learning experience for me and now I have more tools and resources I can use in my daily life and more importantly in my teaching position. Now that I know, I can share this new knowledge with my own students. The information gained from EDUC 5163 is practical and useful to my teaching position; just as I expected and why I made that choice in the beginning. I wish more people were able to learn this information and we might see more changes in AT use in our classes.

I even learned about wordle in these last minutes (though having trouble pasting the created end result). Hopefully one of these will link you to see my wordle of this post.
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3862723/5163

or

title="Wordle: 5163"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/3862723/5163"
alt="Wordle: 5163"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">



Have an awesome summer!

The Writing Blogs

Today's class was to view the writing blogs that everyone has been busy working on. They each look terrific. It always amazes me at how creative and unique each end product is. Even after all of this work, there were only a few repeats and there were lots of new things that I want to go back and check out. All of the reading and writing blogs for this course will be great future references! Thanks for all of the good resources everyone. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Writing Blog Preparation

Today the class was a buzz with activity; people working diligently on creating their writing blogs. I have to say there is massive information to find or include in such a blog. I am a bit anxious to present though just as excited to see others.

A slow week

Unfortunately for about the last week I have been dealing with a kidney stone. The specialist said on Monday to continue with the meds & wait 2 more days. AHHHH! Anyway I have not felt much like researching or blogging. I have caught some TV between naps. I reflected about the last few days and when I was up to doing errands and made a realization. There are many more people using itouches or iphones than I originally thought. The people out & about were of most adult ages ranging probably from 18-65. My "informal TV marketing research" I saw some commercials that both technology and other products. Technology marketed iphones primarily. It was interseting to see another product being marketed but the actors in the commercial was using itouches. I wish I could remember what the commercial was about.

Considering the options you have with one of these devices (iphone, ipad or itouch) I wonder if at some point one of these devices would be accessible to everyone, especially in the school system.

20 Apps Slideshow

Here's my masterpiece (I hope). I put together the image information for the apps and put that into my account on slide.com, that I had mentioned earlier, and created a specific slideshow for my apps.Please see the "20 apps - assignment 2" page on the sidebar inorder to find all of the app details and my opinions.

A home video

Over the last couple of days my dog and family have realized we have some guests staying with us. It starts off by looking like a regular boxwood shrub until....


They are pretty small, not sure what kind, not a robin. A dark chickadee of some sort.

Live class

Today was actually not bad! I participated in the live elluminate class from home. In the end, my partner and I were both at our homes and could not access Kurzweil! Luckily Barb let us use her sharing application. She gave one of us moderator rights so we could manipulate the software and document. It really blows my mind when I think about it. 3 different people,in 3 different places, looking at the same thing, able to talk with each other through typing or mics and be able to effectively and collaboratively complete a task. I thought the reading task anylsis was big. THE TECHNOLOGY being created is big! I think it's all pretty AMAZING!

Pre recorded classes & web sites

The prerecorded classes were cool. It was nice to view them at your convenience. I liked that the apps were sorted for us. I'm thinking this will be handy for later use when thinking about apps that are applicable to individual students and their needs, as long as I can get itouch in the school. After watching all classes, it is obvious which apps are multi purpose and favorites by the specialists.
The Kurzweil webinars were really helpful for today's work!

The sites Barb listed: I think I'm lucky that I have had a chance to use most of these sites so far.
Earobics - I really like the Earabics. I have the 1 & 2 disks though have to be honest that disk 1 is lost!and you need the disk in order to use it. Anyway - the students really liked the activities, they could check on their progress, I could find detailed information about their usage and progress and I could preset the settings depending on the student and their strengths and challenges. This is a great feature, I think. Plus you can have up to 13 users. The students could accomplish many practice trials in a short time frame.

Starfall & Tumblebooks - Many of my resource students use these regularly either in their classroom or in the resource room. Students can be given a specific activity depending on the task/goal. They also enjoy "playing" around with it. There are endless stories to listen to or activities to do.
ZacBrowser - I have 1 student that uses this site (profoundly autistic, nonverbal student). Though he uses it, he prefers to go to the PBS kids site or one you haven't mentioned - Jacob's lessons. I have to investigate further why he doesn't like it.

Raz Kids - I'm really interested though have not been able to convince other staff to get on board. I was talking about programs with my sister in law and she said she knew about Raz Kids because my nephew's school were subscribers and he had a password and was able to log on and continue to practice his reading with "just right" books over the summer. He has the ability to reread books and do comprehension activities with the books (I think). He also only has access to books that are appropriate for him. I thought that was a terrific feature in itself!The school was providing appropriate support for him even though they weren't present. You can get a a great deal for a small school so all students can have access for a reasonable annual fee, I thought.

I still need to check out the tech tool kit.

5 sites I like and think are good for supporting reading remediation are:
More Starfall -www.morestarfall.com - more stories, phoneme & phonological awareness development with making words, word family work, nursery rhymes and more. You can go to the site and get access to some activities. You have to sign up & pay a fee to have total access. There's even math activities on this site.

Jacob's Lessons -www.jacobslessons.com- It is great for vocabulary, receptive language and sequencing and more. If you have a student using the STAR program, many of the activities follow or reinforce many of the same receptive & pre academic lessons that you might be using the DT procedures for.

Dolch Sight word games - http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/sightword/dolchgames.htm
A variety of games to practice the necessary list of high frequency words your student needs.They have a chance to hear, see and spell these words depending on the activity they are doing.

Lots of info. for teachers about the components of the reading task. Ideas & links for games too at www.K12reader.com

Another site with lots of info for reading remediation is www.readinga-z.com I think it might be somehow connected to Raz Kids developers???.

Hope some of you find these helpful to your work or for your students.

Kind of a funny story & great youtube video

I tend to be forgetful. I often forget my grocery list; so today I thought I'd use the itouch and make my list (use #13). I made the list, remembered the itouch, got to my first stop, checked the list and got the items and proceeded to the checkout only to realize I forgot my wallet! How embarassing! Thank goodness I didn't put down the itouch and forget it along the way.
Other uses I found for itouch today
#14 get directions to a beach down the shore
#15 search and watch some youtube videos, even saved to my favorites. The best one so far is embedded below.

More itouch & blogger research

These 2 days I have stayed busy still looking for "good" apps. I think the search could go on forever. At some point this weekend I will have to stop so I can at least post my 20 apps for assignment 2. I have tried to refine my blog though am having trouble trying to figure out how to do a couple of things. A work in progress. I did view a few other blogs too. It always amazes me at how different we each think and do things. Thank goodness or we would have x amount of identical blogs.
More uses I have found for the itouch
# 10 trying the apps
#11 deleting some apps I didn't think worthy
#12 rearranging them on the screen.

Becoming hooked & app shopping!

I think I am starting to get hooked on the itouch. I had to run an errand with my daughter this evening and threw it (gently) in my bag. While I waited for her I found 3 more ways to use the itouch.
#7 search for a variety of poppy I`ve been trying to find it`s name & color by google images of poppies
#8 test out some of the apps I found for the assignment.
#9 fill in time, productfully & without lugging my laptop!



The app shopping today was fun, boy can you stumble across some neat things. I was looking for the irelax app and after I typed in i, the itouch gave me choices; one was icee maker. It was pretty fun for a hot day like today. You can pick your own cup, lid, straw and flavor and even hear yourself slurping it. I`m starting to think there`s an app for just about anything! Though from trying some of the apps I did install I have found not all are created equally. Stay tuned for the 20 I found worth mentioning.

Use #10 - I found out how to insert a picture I took on the itouch to my blog by connecting the two. See the picture I've added to Day 1 post.

Inspiration experience & the end result

Today's adventure was using Inspiration to create a task analysis of reading. It was pretty neat. It seemed easy to use, to express your ideas. It took some playing around with it to get bubbles, arrows and such to be just where you wanted it so that things looked "right". I would easily spend a ton of time fiddling around with the features since I am a visual learner.


I thought this would be a great tool even for the little students I work with. I am thinking of a particular non fiction project some of p/1 classes create. All students, especially those that find the fine motor task of writing difficult, would like making an end product using inspiration or kidspiration to show what they have learned about their animal. Something I will suggest to those teachers.







Todays's uses for my itouch.
#5 - I tried the itouch flashlight - wow is that lite bright! I will see if I can keep track our black dog in the dark as it gets darker out tonight.
#6 - searched and downloaded some free apps.

A start to my 50 uses of the itouch.

I am relatively new to using the itouch. I don't have 1 of my own. I couldn't believe it, it only took about 1/2 hour to try a few the features on the itouch.
#1 I actually did a short blogger post with it. I have to say writing any amount of text would be tricky.I clicked on safari.
#2 I posted some important dates for class on the calendar.
#3 I checked out the weather #3 and found that in my community it was 22 degrees out and I found that the monument in the town is the second oldest military monument in N.S. Who knew?
#4 I even took a photo with the camera. I haven't figured out how to insert it to the post. I'll work on it.

Day 1- Getting started

I did it! I made this post from the itouch!