C4T

Ms. Sharon Davison has a very well known blog called Kindergarten Life. In her latest blog post she reminds people of the importance of simple conversations. She states that a simple smile and a gentle hug can go a long way and mean a lot more than most think. She also shows a way her and her students stay connected with students in South Korea through Padlet. In this students share books and other things they are learning in their Kindergarten class.

Blog Post 12

Assistive technologies are very helpful in many ways. A few ways could be:

1) enhance learning

2)remove barriers

3) push boundaries

4)give hope

5)challenge the way we think

1 in every 2500 children in Australia have a vision impairment. This a very high number, about 1 child a day received the news that they have a hearing impairment. There are many new ways technology is helping these impairments, such as text to speech devices, talking calculators, screen magnifiers and also note takers. Although these advancements do not cure the problems they help impaired children on a daily basis.

iPad usage for the blind-Voice over is an enhancement on the iPad for the blind. When voice over is turned on, your options on the iPad are read to you as you scan your finger over them. This is very helpful teachers of the impaired. I think this would be a very helpful tip to use in my future as a special education teacher. I look forward to learning much more about many more advancements in technology when I become a teacher.

Teaching Mom What Her Deaf/Blind Child Is Learning On the iPad. In the next video I chose was a mother learning what her blind child does on the iPad at school. This is an eye opening experience for her. The same as the top video they are using voice over. In this example the teacher is showing the mother notes. This is a very well used application. In this app there are many different typing modes available for notes. This would help in the classroom as no child's condition is the same. There are also applications you can down load free on and iPad that may be of help such as, voice amplifiers and a translator from English to American sign language. These and many other applications are very helpful for he blind and hearing impaired.

C4T's

Hadley J F, from Matrix Middle School. Middle School Matrix is the name of his blog. His last post was entitled "Just Laugh." This was a story from the week his class came back from Christmas break. They were all laughing and giggling and he was getting very frustrated. In the chaos, he remembered to let it go and enjoy his class.

Mr. Hadley and his 7th grade students were very anxious to get out of school for the holidays. The only things that stood between him and the Christmas holidays were a 70 minute class and then the Holiday Assembly. While he was searching for something to keep them focused he ran across a map of Africa. HE then presented the class with a project to keep them busy. this included making the "best" map of Africa. They had to determine the guidelines for what he considered the best. The kids enjoyed it and helped pass the time much quicker.

Ms. Sharon Davison has a very well known blog called Kindergarten Life. In her latest blog post she reminds people of the importance of simple conversations. She states that a simple smile and a gentle hug can go a long way and mean a lot more than most think. She also shows a way her and her students stay connected with students in South Korea through Padlet. In this students share books and other things they are learning in their Kindergarten class.

C4K

A Collaborate Story of Visy Recycling Centre by: Faauiagi, Lomio-lee,Judah and Angelo

These chosen students are going on a field trip to see how recycling really works. The students note that there are many big trucks on this sunny day. They also note that everything is not so nice and clean at this place. The students watched a video that they really enjoyed about the recycling process. Below is the picture the students creating showing their experience at the Visy Recycling Centre.

Paula from New Zealand, was my next student assigned to me. She has a very interesting blog post about "Ice Man." She is describing a man caught in an ice storm and ends up in a cave frozen. He then realized he was all alone and had no help. Seals came toward the cave with a mad scientist. The scientist came and busted the frozen block of ice with John in it frozen. He lived and went back home to his family.

Cezar, from England School Auchland, N.Z., is going to visit Camp Kawau Island the next week. At camp he was really excited to go kayaking and also do some sailing. Needless to say he was very excited about his upcoming trip to Camp Kawau Island.

Roimata's, from England School Auchland, N.Z., asiignment for her blog post on Monday was to find a picture of and animal and explain how she found it. She found a picture of a dog and stated that she went to images and searched for the specific dog.

Blog Post 11

Brian Crosby- Back to the Future-each class is full of different students. Not only different students in each class but different classes in each grade. No class is the same. Mr. Crosby’s class is a very low income class or live in poverty. Most students could not answer simple questions regarding their home state, address and country. As their teacher Mr. Crosby did not want his students to have a different curriculum than than other students. Mr. Crosby’s classroom is much like any other class room today. He has many technological devices such as laptops, smartboards and video cameras. The class takes part in many different projects and they really seem to enjoy them and it also helps keep them engaged in the material they are learning. After the projects are completed the students use their own working blog to upload the videos of the projects they have just taken part in. The students are also instructed to write a quick summary about what happens in each video. Students in Mr. Crosby’s and also other 4th grade classes at his school also have wiki pages and flickr accounts. This helps the students show what they have learned on a specific topic. after using these softwares online they cut and paste them into their blogs. When the students realized that other people are reading their stuff it makes them feel accomplished and makes them strive to work harder and do better. In this, they also added personal goals. The students were assigned to write a “high hope.” What this is something positive that the students hope to happen in the school, community and also around the world. After doing this the students sent out a plea for people all around the world to add their high hopes in the students comments to send out into outer space along with Mr. Crosby’s classes. This spread around the globe quickly and the students got a great response, in which they had all hoped for. After this project was added to their blogs students from all around the world wanted to take place in this and teachers wanted to know how to complete the project. The students not only used blogs and writing but also video skype to show and teach other students around the world so they could learn and take part in this same activity.

Learning Blended Cycle- Basically all blended learning is doing is taking the parts of an online, mobile and classroom learning and blending them into one classroom setting. There are 5 e’s in the learning cycle, engage, explore, expand, explain and evaluate. This is a great way to present material and material that is to be learned. By putting those two formulas together you get the blended learning cycle. In his blended learning cycle he has 6 steps: 1-it starts with a really great question. hook in learning. students are given data and asked a specific question. 2-investigate and experiment. using given material students try different experiments and are timed at doing so. 3-use a video to help them understand. this is a form of direct instruction. 4-elaboration. reading and research. 5-review. making sure students have a clear understanding of the material discussed. 6-summary quiz.

This video is done by Mark Church, Making thinking Visible. The main idea behind this video is how Mark makes his classroom think aloud. By doing this all the brainstorming is out in the open rather than just sitting quietly in their head. Each group has a couple of minutes to brainstorm a headline of their new lesson. Once the time is up they have to write it down. Later in the lesson Mark will have each group do it again so they can see how their thinking has evolved. This PBL does a great job covering collaboration and self reflectivity.

In this video Building Comics , Sam Pane teaches his kids about internet safety by building their very own superhero. After making the hero the students have to build a comic book strip where the main character is doing something that is not safe on the internet. Then their hero comes in and stops them before it is too late. Before they do all this they have to discuss at their table what are things that are dangerous to do on the internet. I like this PBL because it includes so many things that are important. Discussion of the dangerous actions is a great collaboration method, building their own comic and hero is a great way to build up creativity, and then reviewing each other work is a good reflection method.

Project Based Learning This video is about a school in Canada who combined History, English, and Technology into one class. The students work on individual, group, and class projects that incorporate all three subjects. What we can learn from these teachers is if you really believe in something, don’t give up. When they first started this they hit a couple roadblocks. The program was not compatible in a regular school setting. They worked through the kinks and now the program is up and running.

Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program Roosevelt Elementary takes a Project Based Learning approach to teaching. What I learned is that Project Based Learning can help bring the community together. It encourages community participation and it encourages teachers to work together. PBL helps the students stay more interested in what they are learning. The students become self motivated, interactive, and critical thinkers. PBL helps students be more prepared the future.