Final ED 505 Blog and Merry Christmas!

This is a BIG day...one that I thought about six weeks ago would never get here. It's the day all my ED 505 assignments are submitted! It all seemed overwhelming in the beginning and the more I worked on the assignments the more I felt like I didn't have a clue what I was doing! It reminded me of when I began learning sign language many years ago. I would learn, go to classes, make good grades, and then get in a conversation with a person who used sign language and realize I knew almost nothing! But with this blog it will all be done, at least until January when I have to figure out what must be done for ED 508...Technology Portfolio.

Until January, I am going to enjoy my family, my classroom and students, and my friends. I am going to work on my iPads. I am going to get ready for the State Department of Education to visit my school the week before Christmas break (what great timing...and we don't get out of school this year until Dec. 21st!). I will make the most of this break for all the parts of my life that get pushed to the side during grad classes. Today that means I took the day off work and I am going shopping in Fairhope with my husband, son and daughter-in-law (who happen to be in town from Dallas) and I am going to eat a yummy Panini Pete's panini for lunch! And since this break happens to be in December, I will reflect on what Christmas really is for me as we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Merry Christmas to all!

Google Reader

Establishing a Google Reader account to subscribe to blogs was one of the best experiences of this class. It was one of those things that I had no idea existed! This is one of those assignments that has now become a habit of checking out what is new so I plan to continue. I now have found a few other blogs for teaching and personal that I would like to subscribe to when this class is completed.

One negative to this experience has been the lack of time to truly investigate links, apps, materials, etc. that are recommended. With all the other assignments, just reading through the blogs took time. I would love to be able to truly learn more about what I was introduced to by the bloggers that have so much knowledge of technology.

Here is a list of the required blogs I followed....

Cool Cat Teacher Blog
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/

Will Richardson
http://willrichardson.com/

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

Free Technology for Teachers
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet
http://mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com/

These are the additional blogs I subscribed to...

Dr. Jean and Friends
http://drjeanandfriends.blogspot.com/

The Faces of Autism
http://www.autism-blog.net/

Reality 101:  CEC's Blog for New Teachers
http://www.cecreality101.org/

Teaching All Students
http://teachingall.blogspot.com/

The Special Educator's Friend
http://www.specialeducationteacher.me/

The Pioneer Woman:  Ree Drummond
http://thepioneerwoman.com/

My favorite....

would have to be Cool Cat Teacher's blog. Until I read  one of her posts during Thanksgiving, I would not have been sure which blog was my favorite. But after reading the particular one I will share below, my decision was made. As I have read through her posts, she seems real...like the teacher down the hall who happens to really love her family and tries to keep work and home in perspective. The things she shares have been applicable to my classroom. 

However, it was really hard not to choose Dr. Jean and Friends! I went to her workshop this past summer and was inspired to have fun while teaching. Her blog gives really simple things I can do through art and music with my students that they need.

Of all the blogs, the ones I "starred" the most are those I really need to go back and apply to my classroom...especially my three new iPads! They are Larry Ferlazzo, Teaching All Students, and Free Technology.

My favorite blog post...

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2011/11/ripped-game-pants-and-school.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoolCatTeacherBlog+%28Cool+Cat+Teacher+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

This post is titled "Ripped Game Pants and School Improvement Dance." She begins with describing her dilemma with her son's ripped football pants that he doesn't want her to fix before the state championship game.  As a mom, she is thinking from the stands as she sees his ripped pants, "What is everyone going to say about his mama, not fixing his pants like that?" That reminded me of my own son's high school football days and just how I think as a mother sometimes...how is it going to make me look? She then related this story of what she sees happening in the education world with us trying to fix things that don't really need fixing. I love one of her quotes: "The classroom isn't abut making copies, it is about making originals."

Social Bookmarks

This is one of my favorite projects for this class. It is truly one I will use often and share with my co-workers. For years I have kept a list of "favorites" on my computer and would often wonder why I had saved a link in my favorites!! For this assignment I was able to go back through my links I had saved on three different computers between home and school and combine them into Social Bookmarks. What a grand idea! For many, I still wondered why I had saved them while on others I rediscovered some valuable helps for my classroom and my graduate classes.

One thing I learned was about the tagging. As I created the tag cloud, I realized I should have been more exact in my tagging. For example, I used things like "coloring, coloring sheets, color pages." I didn't realize the importance of my categories. Maybe during Christmas break when I get to sit down and actually watch a movie or TV I will go back and change the tags to be more consistent.

In case you are wondering if my tags would be helpful for you, most are related to special education, worksheets or activities that are on preschool to 2nd grade level, early literacy, games, and reading. I like doing lots of hands-on activities and arts/crafts type things but really need some worksheets for documentation. These links provide all those things and more.

Link to my bookmarks:

Donette's Social Bookmarks

Digital Citizenship...an eye opening assignment

I thought the research for the Digital Citizenship project was well worth the time and effort. In my opinion, it should be one of the first requirements of every online student. I learned so much I had never known and I have been using a computer for 15+ years. Some of the things I learned or was reminded about....

How do you make a great password?
What does that green bar mean at the URL?
How do copyright laws work for stuff on the Internet?
What is Fair Use?
What in the world is a Trojan horse and worm?
How do I keep my computer safe?

I think the Golden Rule applies to what we do with the Internet materials we have access to....paraphrased it would be something like this...Do with what others have put on the Internet the same as what you want others to do with what you put on the Internet. We have great resources on the Internet available because it is some one's job to put it there in many cases. It is their way to make a living and to make it look like ours is taking what is not ours...it's stealing.

The one thing I do wish about the use of Internet material is that it would be in simple, plain English what you can do with the material. Trying to find out what is OK and not OK can sometimes be confusing and hard to find. Personally, I just need them to say  "Use whatever you want" or "Don't use anything here!" Quick and easy. Time saving.

I found a few really good websites as I researched this topic.  Several have tutorials or quizzes that could be used in the classroom. I took them and learned.

Cyberbee

Citing Quiz at Monash.edu

Plagiarism Tutorial at Lycoming College

Thinkport Technology...simulations

This assignment instructed me to go to http://www.thinkport.org/Technology/simulations.tp to investigate some of the simulations. This particular link would not connect but noted there was an error. However, when I went to http://www.thinkport.org/ I was able to type "simulations" into the search bar and get results.

This was a frustrating assignment for me due to the particular special education students I teach. I looked at SO many links and finally chose two that I might be able to use.

The first simulation was Low Life Labs at http://www.robotsandus.org/. This is a site of the Science Museum of Minnesota.  There are different games to play that show robots and bugs that I think my students might be interested in watching. Although they could not truly play most of the activities, I could use this to help them learn to move the mouse and learn how to click on a specific area of the screen.

The second simulation is Lemonade Stand. This can be found at http://www.4webgames.com/lemonade/.  In this activity a student can learn to be an entrepreneur as he tries to make money from selling lemonade. The price, buying of supplies, weather, and other components figure into the profit.  I have two 3rd grade students who are learning disabled that could be introduced to this game. Although it might be really difficult for them to understand the whole concept, the aspect of money is one we could work on as they played the game.

Software Reviews Sites

For this assignment in my education and technology class I reviewed the following four sites:

http://www.evalutech.sreb.org/

This address given did not give access but I did reach the EvaluTech page by searching. However, I could not go to any other information other than the general overview of this site.  The purpose of this site is to suggest instructional materials recommended by the various state departments of education represented by the Southern Regional Education Board. These materials would include computer software, CD-Roms, videos, and books.

http://www.clrn.org/home/

This site of the California Learning Resource Network gives reviews of software that is correlated to the California educational standards. Specific grade levels are given with the listed electronic learning resources.  I found quite a few links to software that will be helpful for teaching my elementary special education students.

http://www.superkids.com

By far this was the "most fun" of the four sites! Although there are reviews for educational software on this site, there are also interactive games that I will introduce to my students tomorrow! There is a math worksheets area to create specific activities for students. In addition to the software and educational tools, there are articles and a marketplace.

http://www.educationworld.com/

Education World covers about every area of teaching imaginable from lesson plans and activities to professional development and templates.  There are also links to state standards.  The technology section is worth going back to search for information such as the article "Tech Solutions for Special Kids" and the suggestions on using technology in the classroom.



Which sites evaluate the largest number of titles?
The California Learning Resource Network seemed to have the most to me.

Which sites are most recently updated?
The California Learning Resource Network had updates in October 2011. SREB returned an answer to me in an email and said they updated daily, but this is the site that was difficult to access so I did not see that it was updated daily.

Which sites include reviews submitted by site visitors?
Education World and California Learning Resource Network

Which sites would you use to learn about software you were considering for your students?
I would check all sites but especially California Learning Resources Network.  For more practical daily uses I would go to SuperKids, and for a variety of educational needs I would use Education World.

Web 2.0 Resources

Weather (video)

I am happy to think that I am ALMOST finished with this assignment...if I can get all of the stuff to link to this post! That is still a VERY VERY BIG "if!"

For this assignment I worked on resources I could use to help teach various aspects of weather to one of my 3rd grade students who will be taking the Alabama Alternate Assessment (AAA) this year. Now that it is all done, I think he will enjoy the things I created. I think he will especially enjoy the weather links and the games on ClassTools.net.

This has all been a big stretch for me although I have managed to impress my engineer son with the concept map I created and my 17 year old with the other resources! I feel a tiny bit successful! :) The hardest part for all of it was getting started and then figuring out how to link it all to this blog.  For the particular students I teach, I will most likely use the games resource (ClassTools) and maybe Animoto again.


Concept Map: Weather Responses
Weather Responses (glogster poster)
http://classtools.net/widgets/fishbone_6/xHhqG.htm
http://classtools.net/widgets/quiz_2/lxO6A.htm
Weather (video)

Week 2...embedding a video

Wow! All this technology is challenging me!! I am finding lots of information on the internet to help me and one of the topics I am interested in right now for my job is autism.  Since I am a special education teacher, I know more about autism than the general public. However, when it comes to dealing with specific children and how to educate them, I feel very inadaquate. I found this video that highlights developmental materials that can be used to teach children with autism or developmental delays.  Since I like hands-on activities, these Shoebox Tasks appealed to me. I would be interested to know what you think.

Have you ever used these materials?
If so, what kind of success have you had?
Tell me about the students who used them.
How do these fit into the mandates to teach to general education standards?


Children with Autism: Learning How to Learn

Introduction for ED 505 Class

As a first grade child I remember coming home to my four year old brother after school and telling him to sit in front of the chalkboard in our utility room so I could teach him. I'm not sure why he listened to me, but he did. Back in the day(1965)...there were only private kindergartens in Alabama so first grade was my first school experience. My first teacher, Mrs. Blakeney, made learning so much fun that I wanted to come home and teach Terry everything I learned! Maybe he thought my teaching was fun and that's why he listened to me. But from that year on, I wanted to be a teacher for young children like Mrs. Blakeney. That has never changed, although during my college years I worked at Camp ASCCA and realized I wanted to focus on young children who needed special education.

In 1981, I graduated from Auburn University with a degree in Early Childhood Special Education.  I landed a job in the "perfect" classroom in Phenix City, AL.  I had 13 students from kindergarten through third grade with various disabilities such as visually impaired, deaf, physically disabled, intellectually disabled, and more! I had two aides to  help me.  I felt like I didn't have a clue what to do except love these little students and begin to learn sign language! Sometime during that challenging first year, a friend cross stitched this verse for me:  "A wise teacher makes learning a joy." (Proverbs 15:2)  This became my motto for teaching and later for parenting.  I am sure I have not always lived up to these words but they are still my aim. I have never minded doing the messy projects that my students and own children loved.

I taught for nine years and then stayed home with my three children for 14 years. I went back to teaching 4K at my church part-time for five years. This inspired me to renew my teaching certificate to teach special education. I began taking online classes to renew the certificate in 2008 and then decided to complete my Master's degree. I plan to finish in July 2012. I am not sure who will be the most excited about me finishing...my husband and family or me! 

In August of 2010, I went back to teaching special education in the public schools for the first time in 19 years! WOW! Things had changed so much that I felt lost most of the time about what I should be doing. Now there was inclusion to deal with, IEPs on SETS, and AAA!  My graduate classes and co-workers have helped me so much. I am now in my second year and still constantly learning what I should be doing with these precious lives I am responsible for teaching.

Along with teaching, my faith in Jesus and my family and friends are most important to me. As a family we have loved going on annual mission trips to Nicaragua where I have the opportunity to teach Bible school with my best friend.  We also love Auburn football since my husband, son, and I are all Auburn graduates. Our daughter currently attends Auburn. Our youngest son is still home with us and in high school. I also have a precious new daughter-in-law. We all like to get in the kitchen and cook together.  Personally, I love to read and scrapbook when there is time.

I am looking forward to this class to learn LOTS that I don't know about technology. I especially want to know what to do with these three ipads I just got for my classroom. Please send me your ideas!!

And P.S.---My brother that I taught in the utility room grew up to be the valedictorian of his high school class. I like to think I gave him a really good early start!