How To Play Hopscotch (Family & Education: Playground Games)

How To Play Hopscotch (Family & Education: Playground Games)

Reflections Class 6, December 13,2008

Today, each classmate presented their case study to the whole class. I'm thankful to have presented first so I didn't sit long and worry about it. Presenting to a group is not a favorite activity of mine. I was able to relax and enjoy the other presentations.
I was totally impressed by each presentation. It was interesting to see was type of technology was chosen for the student and how the student responded to it.

I learned a great deal throughout this course and more eager than ever to get appropriate technology in place for my students. Along with obtaining or borrowing the technology, I will try to coordinate training for the classroom teachers and support staff.

Thanks Barb for all you taught me.
Best wishes to all in your future endeavours!
Believe it or not my first graduate course is over. How many more courses to go?

Writing is Complex

Reflections Class 5, November 29,2008

We spent this class learning and practicing Clicker 5 as well as creating a cloze activity with Cloze Pro.
Clicker 5 is a form of assistive technology that supports reading and writing and has text to speech . You can customize activities for the students to meet their needs.Creating the activities is relatively easy and it has great graphics. I like the fact that students can write with single words or phrases. I can see the possibilities to support all areas of the curriculum.
This was one of my favorites so far. I have students I would like to try this with. I have a consultation with our assistive technology consultant in December for a student that I think would thrieve with this program. I have already sent an email about the availability of it.
Cloze Pro is also a great tool. The graphics are not as nice but you can input your own pictures.
The tutorial is easy to follow and is worth looking at if you are unsure how to use it. I opened the tutorial and Cloze Pro at the same time. I listened to part of the tutorial and then I tried it before moving on.

graphic organnizer

I cannot find a way to post the web we created using Inspiration. Any suggestions?

The Write Stuff- Michael Guggenheim

Here is the link to the Youtube video that we watched in class.
"The Write Stuff"
Michael Guggenheim-A Boy Empowered ABC Good Morning America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ygzz0V6CmM

Reflections Class 4. Nov. 15,2008

This morning students presented their Kurzweil project. Great presentations everyone! There were some creative and cool things tried.
It was tougher than I thought getting up in front of the class to present. There were several things we had meant to talk about or show and didn't realize it until we sat down. It was just as well, because the process was taking longer than expected and there were many things to cover before the end of class.
The afternoon was spent being introduced to the writing process and various technologies to support it in the classroom. When the process is broken down into integrate details, it is mind boggling. Inspiration, Cloze Pro, Write-Out-Loud, Writing With Symbols, Writer Plus and Draftbuilder are tools recommended to assist struggling writers.
We used Inspiration to graphically organize our understanding of the writing process . I would like to have spent more time with Cloze Pro. It had taken me a while to download the program so I felt I was always a step or two behind. I'll spend some time in the next two weeks to become better acquainted with these assistive technologies.
I will share the web address for downloading Readplease to a few of my parents in school.
The You Tube video on disgraphia(LD), The Write Stuff, was interesting to watch. It is always amazing to see young people make such a significant contribution to the lives of other.