Assignment: As a Special Education teacher in the Elementary setting you will encounter challenges very different than those of teacher in a regular classroom. Read the article
"Video Game to Get Blind Children Up and Moving." Summerize. Explore ways you would both use THIS technology in your classroom and come up with an innovative way you would alter "regular kid" activities for children with physical or mental disabilities. Use this website for possible inspiration.
For our assignment this week we were to watch the learning techniques of Ms. Kathy Cassidy.
If you don't have time to watch the video, it basically overviews the teaching style of Ms. Cassidy. She teaches first graders in a school that has a large amount of access to technology and she appears to take advantage of it, in the best way possible. She allows(and I'm sure does quite a bit of assisting for) her first graders to have their own personal blogs. She also does technology based centers in which the children are given access to websites they may never have otherwise visited. They also use wikis as learning tools, where they pick topics to learn about and both ask and answer questions. They make videos and use social networking skills to make friends and learn from people in other locations. They also(my personal favorite!) use the Nintendo DS to play games focused on word choice and from this they learn to use problem solving techniques.
We also watched a Skype interview between her and Dr. Strange where we learned the "whys" behind her use of technology in such a young group. It was very inspiring to hear that she was not really encouraged to do this, although she had support, she accomplished so much of this on her own. I also liked seeing that the different administrators, were if not supportive at least tolerant of these procedures.
I am not under any stretch of the imagination a big "technology-with-young-kids" advocate; however I LOVED this assignment. I loved seeing the way she made it personalized for the kids, how she incorporated so many different lessons, subjects, and techniques in. Judging from the reactions of the kids in the video they were learning and enjoying every minute of it!!
The main technique that I would hope to incorporate into my classroom is the use of the gaming systems(whether it be DS, PSP, or even Ipod Touches) they are something the kids are familiar with and see as a source of enjoyment. To make something like this into a learning tool is GENIUS because it teaches the kids from a young age that learning and fun can exist on the same plane. I also really loved the concept of "reading buddies." Having older students "tutor" the kids remotely would be so good for both reading skills, social skills, and technological skills. It would also I believe be very beneficial to the older children.
I think that being a teacher in southern Alabama some of the problems I may encounter that she wouldn't would be less access and less assistance on the parental side. In Canada technology has been more readily available and is more common than down south.
The teacher I was assigned to for the month of October was VERY useful. In one of her posts that I read, she overviews reasons of why kids should care about the election.
What made her different from most blogging teachers was instead of just complaining or listing reasons, she also gave a method of solution. She listed questions to get the kids thinking and methods you can use to discuss it in a way that non voters will care and become educated in the future.
In the month of October I had two different kids I commented on the first was Marie. She is 7th Grader in an English class. In her first blog, I enjoyed a bio listing things that she enjoyed and I commented telling her that I loved learning so much about her and that I thought it was great of her to be interested in so many types of literature because so many girls her age were not. The second one was about her love of running, I commented and told her that it was great to see someone her age so dedicated to any one activity.
The second one was a boy named Austin, he only has one post in his blog. It is about his favorite national monument, The Liberty Bell. He talks about its history and how he wants to see it. I told him that I too had never seen a National Monument, but that I had seen a few battlefields and I loved them. I asked(to make him think) if he had ever seen a battlefield and what was his favorite war.
John T. Spencer is a blogger. He is a fan of maintaining some classic mediums of education such as pencils paper and chalkboards vs printer ink, Ipads, and smartboards. In this post he does(or at least displays) a comic made as a spoof on the old pc/mac commercials.
I am not sure that I truly understand the connection, but in my not-so-educated opinion, I believe he is trying to get the point across that all pencils are alike and just like computers they will try to trick you into thinking they are different when in reality they are all flawed.
We were assigned to read a second blog from the same website called "Why Were Your Kids Playing Games" . In the blog the man is a teacher in a Junior High school and is called to the principals office. While in the office the principal attacks the man for the use of a game that he fears the parents may find inappropriate. The teacher attempts to defend himself by saying that the children are doing this because it helps them to learn. In response the principal fires back with the complaint of if it isn't going to help them pass the standardize test coming up soon, it's unimportant. My favorite part of this satirist post is where the man makes the comparison of the children only learning enough to pass a test to the teachers onbly paying attention to the "buzzwords" on next weeks BINGO game and as a result, not actually retaining anything discussed in the meeting.
We were told to read over the rest of the posts, and I found so many of them humorous. The writers allegorical and satirist sense of humor is 'right up my alley. The next post I chose to focus on was called "10 Points on Pencils", it mainly focuses on different ridiculous arguments the above mentioned fictional principal has against pencils and our sarcastic authors response to them. Give it a read, its worth it, and it good for a laugh!
As the last part of our assignment we were to read a blog called "Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff Please?". This post was written by a man named Scott Mcleod, he is an associate professor at a University in Kentucky. This post is very snarky, and sarcastic. He uses those two forms of entertainment to keep you interested and makes a long list of technology items: HTML, RSS, Emailing, Cell phones, etc etc. He then says reasons why they are all "bad", and discourages you teaching them. At the end he admits that the only reason he doesn't want you teaching these is because he wants his kids to have a leg up. It is very well written and gets the point across well; however, I do think that one downfall was that a lot of the funny downfalls of these items that he listed are VERY good reasons for not making many of these items easily accessible to younger children(sexting, porn, cyber bullies.) That being said, I think whatever form learning takes, its still education and should be valued, Its as simple as that!
