Twitter Reflection

                When we were first instructed to use Twitter, I was extremely skeptical about it. I tried getting involved in Twitter a few years ago, and I quickly gave up. It wasn’t very user-friendly to me. I still had the same problem this time around. For some reason, it wasn’t easy for me to navigate around Twitter, and I always had more to say on my tweets than what was allowed. Tweets are text-based posts that can be up to 140 characters that are posted within a person’s profile page (Robyler & Doering, p. 221).

                I teach third grade, and I do not think that Twitter would be useful in my classroom. Students between the ages of 12 and 17 do not use Twitter in large numbers (Robyler & Doering, p. 221). I don’t think that third grade students would be able to navigate Twitter very easily. However, I do think that it is useful for an educator. I did manage to follow a few educators that were very helpful. These educators include @Edudemic, @ChrisBiffle, @MMEGrinder26, @mrsjpearson, and @21stcenturyTch. I found these people very helpful because they posted about things that actually pertain to me and my classroom. Chris Biffle is my favorite. He is the person that started the Whole Brain Teaching. The hashtags that I found most useful are #teachers, #commoncore, and #edchat. These hastags were very helpful in getting me to other tweeters that were tweeting things that could help me in my classroom.

                Overall, I wasn’t too crazy about my Twitter experience. I’m not sure if I will continue to use it or not. I know that I probably won’t use it too frequently if I do use it. I’m not sure how much this will help my classroom. It might be more for an upper grade or high school. Researchers know that social networking sites are popular, but they jury is still out on the impact and the value of them in education (Robyler & Doering, p. 225).

Sharing some Symbaloo ♥: Ms. Ingram's Class Webmix http://t.co/HHClaehvAY via @Symbaloo

— Heather Ingram (@Hingram3) July 22, 2013

Symbaloo

Assistive Technologies

Technology can be used to enhance learning in students that have special needs.

Mild Cognitive Disabilities
Students with mild disabilities are often not able to read at grade level. They are usually low performing students. A tool that I like to use in my own classroom for students that are not reading at grade level are that are in my intensive reading group is an app on the iPad called Super Reader. As the text is being read, the words are highlighted for the student to follow along. I also like to use the website www.Starfall.com. A tool that some students can use is a specialized calculator called the Coin-U-Lator that assists students that are having a hard time counting coins and making change (Robyler & Doering, p. 408).

Moderate and Severe Cognitive Disabilities
For most students with moderate to severe disabilities, effort needs to be made to make sure that they get daily living skills and functional skills. Students could use the iPad app Time, Money, and Fractions On-Track to acquire skills for managing money and time (Robyler & Doering, p. 408).The BIG Baby Button by RJ Cooper and Associates is a large switch that a person can slightly touch that works as a mouse. It is used for students that have limited mobility. I would definitely take advantage of any apps that were offered on the iPad for any students that need to acquire functional skills.

Physical Disabilities
These disabilities usually affect a person’s mobility and agility (Robyler & Doering, p. 408). Students could use a wheelchair equipped with a joystick. There are also speech recognition software that will allow students to control a computer by talking to it. Speech-to-text programs are also a good resource. Programs such as ViaVoice, Voice Express, and Free Speech are good for this. I think a speech-to-text program would be extremely beneficial in my classroom. Sensory Disabilities Students with sensory disabilities usually have hearing or vision impairments. Students with a hearing impairment with most likely be wearing a type of hearing aid. A teacher can wear an amplification system everyday that syncs to that student’s hearing device. I have actually done this in my classroom two years ago. It worked very well. Along with wearing that, I also had to be very careful to not talk with my back to the class. The amplification system was very effective. Students that are partially sighted can use a closed-circuit television (CCTV) magnification system (Robyler & Doering, p.409). Students can use the magnification on the computer to make the screen bigger. They would most likely need a bigger keyboard also. Certain keyboards are made with bigger and bold text for these purposes.

At-Risk Students
These students aren’t considered disabled. However, their lack of success in school often parallels the low performance of students with disabilities (Robyler & Doering, p.409). These at-risk students include students that have difficulty with sequence tasks, students not reading at grade level, students that have difficulty writing, with math, and a lack of motivation to engage in school work (Robyler & Doering, p. 411, table 15.2) Students that are having difficulty reading at grade level can use a variety of reading apps. I like to use StarFall, and my students really enjoy it a well. Students that are having problems in math can use www.xtramath.com. This program jeeps track of what students are mastering. As they master a concept, it allows them to move on to another skill.

Gifts and Talents
The approach for assisting gifted students in the regular education classroom is called Pyrut’s P’s. It focuses on five P’s: pace, process, passion, product, and peer (Robyler & Doering, p. 411). The pace in the classroom can be accelerated through an online course. Gifted students should be encouraged to use their creative thinking skills. Two good websites for this are http://creativelearning.com and http://destinationimagination.org. I usually have atleast one gifted student every year. They are able to go to gifted classes once a week.

Meeting the needs of all of an educator’s students takes a great deal of preparation and planning. When technology is used to make the curriculum assessable, students with disabilities have the same opportunities to learn as their peers without disabilities (Robyler & Doering, p.406).

Check out this video on what this certain teacher incorporates into her classroom. It's a great video!

#Webinar - Assitive Technology in an Inclusive Classroom http://t.co/1xpv7UUP
— Bill Shackleton (@CRPDisabilities) December 30, 2011

ClassTools Games

I chose to use the fake Twitter resource. I think my students would love doing this! I pretended that my question was "What is the most important thing that you learned about ecosystems?" I would make a slideshow of their posts, and display the slideshow in the hallway along with their ecosystem projects.
Twitter Post

I also chose to have students label their seed. We actually draw and label this same exact seed during our AMSTI Science lessons. The students draw and label it in their science journals. They would really enjoy labeling it on the computer!
Label the Seed

Web 2.0 Resources

I learned a lot of new things this week. Web 2.0 resources are freely available to anyone with an Internet connection and provide users with the powerful capabilities of generating and sharing online content, creating online portfolios, social networking, and tagging or rating other user-generated content (Robyler & Doering, p. 426). I think these tools will really motivate students! It might take a little bit of time for a teacher to get used to using these tools, but the rewards will be worth the time learning how. Educators will use these systems when they see how powerful the capabilities they offer to enhance classroom learning (p. 176). I really enjoyed Animoto. It is such an “attention grabber” to introduce something. I plan on using the Animoto video that I made to motivate my students on making their ecosystem projects this upcoming year. My favorite was Glogster. It wasn’t very user friendly, but I really liked my end result. I’m not sure how much I would actually use it during the school year though. It was very time consuming, and I’m not sure I would have enough time to create one during the year. I am going to use the one that I created about plants during our AMSTI Science plant unit. All of these resources are very motivated and encouraging to students. Students who usually struggle to complete a project will often tackle a hypermedia project enthusiastically (p. 176). I am also going to allow students to make a fake Twitter post. I think they would love doing this! They would be so encouraged to really think about what they learned so that their Tweet would be published for everyone to see. Students who enjoy instruction are more likely to focus more attention on it (p. 178). Overall, I really enjoyed this week! I think these resources are extremely beneficial!
Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Technology meets Education » Glogster in the Cl... | @scoopit http://t.co/VRrgBk5fxB

— Kurt Klynen (@meesterkurt) July 9, 2013

Mobile Technologies

7 Ways To Use Your iPad In The Classroom http://t.co/WjNYDEs9A6
— Edudemic (@Edudemic) June 28, 2013

 I love my iPad! I use it throughout the entire day every single day. I have seen firsthand how an iPad can engage and captivate a student while they are learning. We are now at the point in our society where constant communication and connection to the Internet is simply ubiquitous (Robyler & Doering, 2013, p. 205).  The world of technology is definitely on the rise. Students can spend hours on their own devices at home. So it is absolutely necessary that we incorporate some forms of technology into our own classrooms in order to keep their attention for an 8-hour day. Technology’s visual and interactive qualities can direct students’ attention toward learning tasks (2013, p. 25). There are so many things that you can do with an iPad. My students’ favorite this past year was making their own Wiki after learning about the rainforest. They were able to record a short clip it of something they learned. Students who learn by creating their own products with technologies such as word processing, multimedia, and other technology products report higher engagement in learning and a greater sense of pride in their achievements (2013, p. 25).  My students use the iPad during one of their math rotations. They are at math rotations while I am meeting with a small group at my table. During the iPad rotation, they are usually practicing their multiplication since mastery of their multiplication facts is expected by the end of the year. It is a very quick and easy way to provide reinforcement of the skill. When students need focused practice in order to comprehend and retain the skills they learn , software such as the drill-and-practice type offers the privacy, self-pacing, and immediate feedback that makes practice most effective (2013, p. 25).

I have over fifty apps on my iPad that are beneficial to student learning. It's hard to pick just four! However, these are the four that I find the most useful, and I think my students would probably pick the same ones.

Smarty Cursive app= <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cursive-touch-and-write/id528183660?mt=8"></a> This app allows students to trace letters and words in cursive. My students use this app during our literacy rotations. They go to this station at least once a week. This is an easy and effective way to get cursive writing into lesson plans.

Kindle app= <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kindle-read-books-ebooks-magazines/id302584613?mt=8"></a>
I use this app daily during our read aloud chapter book time at the end of the day. I also use this app whenever I am reading a story book that my students do not have their own copy of. I use a VGA cord that connects my Promethean board and my iPad together. Whatever is on my iPad will also show on my board. This allows students to read along in the book with me. I don't have enough classroom funds to supply a copy of the chapter book that we are reading to each student. So, this works wonderfully in class! I love this!

Magnetic Alphabet app= <a href="http://www.slapapp.com/magnetic-alphabet-lite-1-0-for-the-ipad-learning-the-abcs-is-now-free/"></a> This app is exactly what it says. It is an alphabet that the students can manipulate and make words. I like to use this app for my struggling or intensive students. I also use this app on my own son that just turned six.

BrainPop= <a href="http://www.brainpop.com/"></a> I really like this app. My students always love it as well. If they ever have free time, they love to watch the videos on here.

Instructional Software

Drill and Practice
During drill and practice, students work problems one at a time. The student will usually get immediate feedback. Types of drill and practice activities include flash card activities, chart activities, branching drills, and extensive feedback activities (Robyler & Doering, p. 81). Since I teach third grade, students are expected to learn their multiplication and division facts very fluently. We do a lot of drill and practice with this. I like to use my SmartBoard and put problems on the board with a multiple choice answer. The students will then use their total group response cards to answer. I also use drill and practice with vocabulary words. I use www.quizlet.com for vocabulary. During math rotations, I allow students to get on www.multiplication.com and use the flash card option.

Tutorial
This is software that is close to the instruction that was given during class from the teacher. My school has purchased a program called SuccessMaker. This program teaches students concepts. It also tracks their progress. In order for students to move to another concept, they must master the first concept. So the concepts being taught are able to build upon each other. Right now my school only purchased enough spots for a certain amount of students to use SuccessMaker. So, it is usually my intensive students that use it. I love this program because I can tell exactly what my students are consistently struggling with. It is a wonderful resource to have! The web address for it is http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZk99

Simulation
This is a program that demonstrates how things work in real-life. There are two main types of simulations: those that teach about something and those that teach how to do something (Robyler & Doering, p. 90). I’ve used www.scholastic.com a few times because they have virtual field trips. My students really enjoy their virtual field trip of the Mayflower around Thanksgiving. I also found another website that looks really interesting. It seems to be a quick and easy way to incorporate interactive technology into the classroom. I’m going to wait until school starts to try the free 30-day trial. The website is www.explorelearning.com.

Instructional Games
Technology based games bridge the worlds of gaming, entertainment, and education in an attempt to deliver fun and effective learning (Robyler & Doering, p. 94). I use many instructional games within the classroom. My students usually get play instructional games on the computer or iPad during a reading or math rotations. I really like www.multiplication.com and www.spellingcity.com. Spelling City is really great because you can set up your own class and enter your own spelling words. Students can log on to your classroom, and they can play several spelling games. My students absolutely love this!

Problem-Solving
Problem-solving software gives opportunities to allow students to practice solving problems in a specific content area. I use this in my room to reinforce what has been taught. Math requires a lot of practice in order to remember the steps in working out a problem. I like for my students to practice as much as they can in order to master the concepts taught. A good website for mathematics problem-solving is www.mathwire.com. Problem solving software can help students in three ways: promotes visualization in mathematics problem solving, improved interest and motivation, and prevents inert knowledge (Robyler & Doering, p. 101).

Integrated Learning Systems
This type of program gives students teaching instruction. It can also track and record the student’s progress. Again, I really like SuccessMaker. This program gives the student instruction, and it also tracks what they are learning. I am able to log on and see what the student is specifically having difficulty with. The program is expensive. So it wouldn’t be something that a teacher would be able to purchase. My school purchased the program, and I love it! http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZk99

Students hard at work on @pearson's #successmaker during Rossford's Community Learning Center at @GlenwoodElem #REVSD pic.twitter.com/fXMAFUX0hS

— Paul Gibbs (@principalgibbs) June 6, 2013