Assistive Devices Helps All Children Learn

This article is all about how important it is to give students tools so that the students with disabilities don't feel left out or fall behind.  The first thing that they talk about is how many children actual would need these services, and there about about 6 million children between the ages of 3-17  this includes both physical and learning disabilities.  The articles listed many different tools that can help the students get involved and stay in the classroom not in a special education room.  Some of these included Speech Recognition ("Voice Recognition") Systems allow students to control their computer by simply speaking, another is Personal Reading Machines scan a printed page and instantaneously read the page out loud, and a last one Talking Calculators recite numbers, symbols or functions as keys are pressed. They also can read back answers to completed problems.  All three of these tools can be used in the classroom or in a special education room but I think that it would be most beneficial in the classroom where the students can be with their friends and not feel left out.  The technologies I have mentioned are only the "new" ones there are also some older technologies that have been in the classroom for awhile.  One of these is large print/screen magnification hardware and software function like magnifying glasses, automatically moving over a page. That allows visually impaired students to more easily read textbooks, magazines, maps, charts or fine print.  All of these are great tools and can really improve the motivation of a child to want to learn.

Unknown. (2005) Assistive Devices Helps All Children Learn. Education World. Retrieved October 28, 2010 from, http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech220.shtml.

Eight Ways to Use School Wikis

First off I agree with the opening statement of the article that wikis help to increase communication and collaboration among the staff.  The first way was to decrease disruptions of instructional time, this is helpful because the teachers and students don't have to spend 10 minutes every day listening to intercom.  The second way was making meetings more efficient, this is important because it is too easy for teachers and staff to get unorganized when the kids are all around and things might not go as planned.  To be able to have an efficient to the point meeting using a wiki sounds like a great idea.  The third way is to collaborate on important documents.  This is a great tool to get everyone's opinion on a certain activity or education plan. Sometimes the planning process can get difficult so this is very helpful way to get everything critiqued and help in troubling areas.  The fourth way is to enhance professional developement,  this could simply be not having all of those sloppy folder file cabinets.  Next, share and collaborate on curriculum mapping, this can allow other grades and departments in on what going on making it a great communication tool.  My favorite way is to save trees and time, it's important in this day and age to be eco friendly!  The last ways, to store all of you lessons and getting started are great little hints on how easy it is to get your oen wiki.
Author, Unknown. (2009). Eight ways to use wiki in school. Tech & Learning. Retrieved October 19, 2010.

Cellphone Taping a Classroom Threat

The article I read was about how teachers are being taped with camera phones while lecturing in the classroom.  From the article all of the teachers were being taped without their knowledge or consent.  This to me is not acceptable and in the long run could maybe hurt more than just the teacher's ego.  It said that some students spent days taping their teachers and they're putting ellaborate videos together.  This is a huge problem.  In one aspect I think how can the teacher have this going on in his or her classroom for so long and not know.  These teachers need to be more aware of what is going on in their classroom.  It worries me that this is going on because what else is the teacher not aware of, students could be texting or talking on the phone and the teacher has no clue.  I feel that this is not a positive thing in anyway and should be handled by both teachers and administrators.  Some students even went as far as to add sound effects or music to the video to make it funnier and then put that on youtube.  People could see this and then call the school and get the teacher in trouble for something that parents found inappropriate even if they didn't get the whole story.
Honawar, V. (2007) Cellphone taping a classroom threat. Teacher Magazine. Retrieved October 12, 2010 from http://www.edweek.org/login.html?source=http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2007/11/07/ew_videotape_web.h19.html&destination=http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2007/11/07/ew_videotape_web.h19.html&levelId=1000.

Log on to a Blog

This is Brenda Dyck's column on her beginning in the world of blogging. She begins with a comment about how blogging could get kids excited about writing and journaling again which is an amazing thing.  It's so important for kids to be excited about writing because it's something they will have to do for the rest of their lives.  She had her students record their thought on the Elenor Rigby Project.  This explored the issue of homelessness, this is such a rough topic to deal with right now because with the economy it is becoming all to real for a lot of people.  In order to grade her students on their journaling she created a special rubric.  This is a good idea because what they are doing is out there for everyone to see so the likelihood of them stepping up and doing good work is much greater.  She asks that her students use a high level of thing by analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating what they were supposed to write about.  I think holding them to this standard is a great way to get them involved on more then just a need to know level.  Overall, blogging is a great tool to use on projects that require a lot of thinking and can really get a student to dive into a topic and become more aware of what is going on outside their front door.  Blogging is something that is going to stick around for awhile and will soon be in every classroom and even every home I think.
Dyck, Brenda. (1996-2010). Log on to a Blog. Voice of Experience. Retrieved October 5, 2010, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/voice/voice123.shtml.