Group Project for EDC 5370

Both Elise and I have been in previous classes together and knew we could collaborate effectively. She is graduating in a year from now and I will graduate this summer. I am working next year as a tier 2 and 3 reading teacher and will also serve the dyslexic population on campus.  We are both interested in learning disabilities and educating those around us. We thought we would target one learning disability in particular so we chose dyslexia. We searched the internet and couldn’t find a person documenting their personal journey with dyslexia. As a result, we decided to make one ourselves. We were excited about interviewing someone and digitally telling their story through sound, voice, pictures and music. We met with a friend who has had dyslexia since she was 9, but is now about to graduate from Baylor. The actual interview was about 11 minutes long, and we used GarageBand to initially create the podcast. Our friend had an interesting story but their were several things we needed to edit. After a meeting with our teacher, we decided to rerecord her story with a different voice to help with the editing process. We were able to go from 11 minutes of recorded story telling to 3 minutes and 20 seconds by only concentrating on the highlights of her journey. We used Garageband and iMovie to create the digital story. We inserted the podcast into iMovie, then used images and transitions to make the story come alive. The editing of the digital story took the longest time to create and edit. We only used six pictures to illustrate her story. The pictures were taken from flickr and google images.

After finding a template for our Webquest, plugging in the information was fairly easy. We used Dreamweaver to create our site, editing each page of the quest using this software. We wanted to create a place for parents to learn more about dyslexia. The Webquest allows the viewers to read about our mission to educate others about dyslexia. The viewers are encouraged to watch the digital story, then click on links to learn more about dyslexia. At the end of the webquest, a form, created through GoogleDocs and then embedded, is provided for the parents to fill out. The parents are encouraged to answer questions about our presentation, discuess what they learned from the links, and inform us of whether or not the digital story was relevant to their child’s experiences. This information will provide me with what I needed to know as their student’s teacher, and inform me of any expectations that they have for me. We are both very pleased with the final product. We learned so many new things in the process such as how to used Garageband, iMovie, Dreamweaver, and google docs. We are very proud with what we have accomplished!

Technology Cognate Framework

Data/Computer Technology: On our Webquest, parents can link to a page entitled “Evaluation”. On this page, we inserted a form that was created using GoogleDocs. We personally created this form, inserting questions to create a way to receive feedback from the parents about the helpfulness of our website. As parents respond using this form, the information is sent to Elise’s inbox and organized onto a spreadsheet. The computer will “filter, sort, prioritize, and manage multimedia on our behalf” according to Negroponte, mentioned in the Technology Cognate Framework. We can then evaluate how helpful our website was based on their responses, altering the information presented on our Webquest according to their comments and critiques.

Negroponte, N. (1995). Being Digital. New York: Knopf.

Communication Technology: We designed a Webquest in order to inform parents and teachers about dyslexia, a learning disability that affects many of the students in our classrooms. We wanted parents and teachers to be able to interact with the new material, building upon their previous knowledge with the subject and contributing helpful information to us as well. “In an attempt to make information available to anyone without the usual constraints of time, distance, or location” (Technology Cognate Framework), we developed a Webquest with several pages full of material that discuss dyslexia. In addition, links are included that send parents and teachers to the resources that they may need in order to support their child’s learning.

Video Technology: We embedded a video into one of the pages on our Webquest. According to the Technology Cognate Framework, “visual images also have the power to “move” an audience. Few other media forms, except perhaps music, have greater impact upon the viewer’s affect” (Technology Cognate Framework). Our video includes images, as well as music and audio, in the background. We documented a girl’s personal testimony of her experience with dyslexic. In an attempt to engage our audience, the audio of our digital story was chosen and assembled with the images in order to set a certain mood. We wanted to bring the viewers into the story, making the experience a personal and relevant one for the audience. The video was designed to capture the attention of the parents and teachers, giving them insight into the heart of a student who has experienced both struggles and victories throughout her journey with dyslexia.

Here is the link to our website!

Blog for: July 28th

Our class discussion took place in the most interesting of environments. I woke up at 7:30, got out of bed, put my hair in a ponytail, and set my computer up on my coffee table. After putting a pot of coffee on, I gathered my books, then took a seat on my couch. As 8 am rolled around, my classmates and I began class…from the comforts of our own individual living rooms. Thanks to Dimdim, a web conferencing software, I sipped coffee as I exchanged information with classmates from my Technology course. We participated in a Webquest-type activity online, filling in a Copyright worksheet and staying in conversation with one another via a chat room. As if that wasn’t enough, we then proceeded to engage in a face-to-face discussion on a video conferencing software known as Tokbox. Unlike Skype, a video conferencing software with which I had previously been familiar, Tokbox allows up to 20 people to “be in” on one conversation. There were 7 screenshots pulled up on my computer, and all of us had the opportunity and capability of seeing AND hearing EVERYONE participating at the same time. Skype and Tokbox meet the following criterion of the Technology Cognate Framework‘s Video Technology section.

Expertise, previously limited by physical constraints of time and travel, can be available to wider numbers through an electronically transmitted “presence”.

We were able to meet and exchange information without having to worry about traveling to one another. Imagine the possibilities that this could open up for our classrooms…the ability to engage with people from different place, different cultures, different backgrounds! With video conferencing, students have access to information that may otherwise not have been accessible to them.

To go along with the worksheet that we filled out in regards to copyright, we used Tokbox to discuss Chapter 7 from Web 2.0 New tools, new schools. One of my favorite quotes from this chapter is the following statement:

Teenagers too might come to the conclusion that availability equals permission. They need to learn that just because they can do something doesn’t mean they should.

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 New tools, new schools. Washington, D.C. International Society for Technology in Education.

While the enormous amount of information and new technology is now so quickly and easily available to students, we, as teachers, need to properly equip the students with the sense and tools needed to use these resources with caution and care. Copyright ensures that people’s property stays their own, an idea that seems to directly contradict our generations growing appreciation for collaboration and sharing.

File sharing evolves not of a sudden criminality among today’s youth but rather in their pervasive belief that information is something meant to be shared.

Downes, S. (2006). E-learning 2.0. National Research Council of Canada Elearn Magazine. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1

I think that the aim of copyright licenses is to create a boundary…give us some type of guideline within which we should operate…give credit where credit is due. Some good news: there are websites available that offer images and files that we can download for free that are safe!! For example, curriki.org and creativecommons.org provide us with lesson plans and images to use at our own discretion. Seriously. Both offer a wealth of information! Use them! You won’t be sorry that you did!!

Because of some technical difficulties that occurred while initially setting up Dimdim and Tokbox, we were not able to complete our discussion about the following article by Seymour Papert, entitled Why School Reform Is Impossible. Below is a quote that I found most interesting:

Complex systems are not made. They evolve. Where I part company from Tyack and Cuban is when they turn from the book’s historical theme of showing that reform will not work to give advice to reformers about how to do it better. My own view is that education activists can be effective in fostering radical change by rejecting the concept of a planned reform and concentrating on creating the obvious conditions for Darwinian evolution: Allow rich diversity to play itself out. Of course, neither of us can prove the other is wrong. That’s what I mean by diversity.

My take from this excerpt: we all bring something different into the system. It’s complicated. My needs are not going to be the same as your needs. Maybe some of them, but a “one size fits all” mentality in order to come to a certain goal set by leaders, who are oftentimes removed from the system, will just not work. Students in our classroom come from such diverse backgrounds. Reform, therefore, is complicated. How do we access and accommodate everyone? We can’t just accept everything new as helpful information/technology. Everyone brings in something unique, contributes thoughts that may contradict our own, and because of that, offer insights that our necessary to the growth of our culture. Trying to give an equal education to everyone but making it look the same, just won’t do. What do you think? What should reform look like? Do we need something entirely different?

Here is a TokBox Lesson Plan in which I incorporated the use of this video conferencing software in my classroom’s unit about Our Community. Before using this plan, review the steps of how to use this program with the students. You may even want to have a day where you simply go over what it looks like to communicate with someone who is on a screen and not actually physically present in your classroom.

image citations:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2378/1757766639_3f6ae4a5cb.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1084/1169919575_60c56cc2bb.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3504/3782576645_4d8b6aea45.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3219/2516648940_ab432e08e9.jpg

Context/Critique: Technopoly

Technopoly by Neil Postman

1. What is the one major point from this work that you would like to

remember? Please identify a page reference in the text and write a brief

statement about its significance

I found Postman’s caution regarding our reliance on computers as our source of truth and data as being the end-all be-all indicator of intelligence to be fascinating. As those around me so quickly accept information given to them in an attempt to “get ahead”, it is important for me to realize that the quality of knowledge of which I am informed is more valuable than the quantity of information that I possess.

Postman states that “to a man with a computer, everything looks like data. And to a man with a grade sheet, everything looks like a number” (14). When we are consumed in a world that makes sense of itself through the use of technology, it is often hard to separate oneself from it in order to analyze its positive and negative effects. While technology provides endless conveniences and comforts, does it control us? Do we understand enough about how to use it, ensuring that our actions are evidence of our thoughtful reflections? According to Postman, we need to become “loving resistance fighters” who combat our culture’s fall to technology.

2. What are the educational implications of the work?

Because we live in a world that has assigned numbers to represent the value of human thought, teachers seem to have the power to deem a student a “winner” or a “loser” in the eyes of the world. The way that data drives instruction assumes that these numbers accurately reflect human intelligence. The system is supposedly designed to benefit all who take part in a public education. If the curriculum is, in fact, supposed to change in order for our culture to be saved, a great responsibility falls on my shoulders as an educator. In addition, the pursuit after more information seems to characterize the current and upcoming generation. How do I cultivate a learning environment that preserves the values of our culture while instilling a passion for appreciate more truth and quality information? I would assume that Postman’s expectations for teachers now be much higher and of differing characteristics of which I am currently aware, having been brought up in this “system” that apparently “takes its orders from technology” (71). Who am I supposed to take my orders from then?

3. What are the personal implications of the work?

I think that, despite his attempt to communicate that technology is neither good nor bad, Postman portrayed technology as evil. He tried not to be a ‘one-eyes prophet’, aiming to convey his argument from all angles. However, his argument seemed to leave me feeling like I needed to stay as far away from technology as possible, Despite the above feelings, I do feel more aware of how careful I need to be before accepting any and all forms of technology into my world. Technology does have the power to alter a society, determining the way people communicate with one another.

As an educator, I am overwhelmed by his idea that schools need to be the instrument that fixes our cultures problems, that a new curriculum will in and of itself be the solution to our every need. If this in fact is true, I would like to see this curriculum, “in which all subjects are presented as a stage in humanity’s historical development” (198), one that goes “back to the basics” (199). In our ever-changing society, is it really this simple? I want my students to be able to weed through what is not true in science and in math. I must expose them to what is true. But is that always subjective? I am definitely open to a change in our education system, a shift in focus from test scores and meaningless data to evidence of personal growth and relevant instruction. My understanding of Postman’s work is that he demands that we stop taking in all of the information available as accurate and, instead, take a step backwards and evaluate what is true, what aligns with our culture.

4. What questions does this work raise for you in your present situation?

- If “information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems” (p.69)”, how do we sort through it effectively?

- How would I begin to model to my students how to use information correctly without substituting cultural values for convenience?

- Even with the medical advances made possible by technology, are we giving up too much privacy in the process? Is the exchange for personal safety and/or privacy less than the overall benefit of technology?

5. If the author were available for dialogue, what question(s) would you

ask?

-       In what ways have you incorporated technology into your personal life? In what ways have you found yourself resisting it?

-       Which of the three cultures would you prefer to be a part of: tool-using cultures, technocracies, or technopolies?

Context/Critique: Born Digital

Born Digital by John Palfrey & Urs Gasser

1. What is the one major point from this work that you would like to

remember? Please identify a page reference in the text and write a brief

statement about its significance.

After reading Born Digital, I found it refreshing that the authors’ solutions to the problems facing today’s society lie in the hands of our community. It was empowering to hear of the ways that he provided teachers and parents with ideas of how to engage and foster traits of responsibility and ownership over their lives and personal information. “The purpose of this book is to separate what we need to worry about from what’s not so scary, what we ought to resist from what we ought to embrace…The hard problem […] is how to balance caution with encouragement” (p.9). The authors’ solutions: “engaged parenting, a good education, and common sense” (p.10). We have to take “control over the data that abounds about, or we have to come to trust the companies that we deal with-more than we should have to” (p.69). As we, teachers and parents, become more knowledgeable of this digital environment, we can be “credible guides to young people” (p.100), who desperately need someone to navigate with them through life’s challenges both on and offline. Without knowing who has access and who is in charge of the information that we place on the cloud, we need to act with caution and evaluate with good sense before placing our identities in someone else’s hands.

2. What are the educational implications of the work?

In an age where so much appealing information is accessible at a quick rate, students need to be able to sort it all and determine whether or not the material is fit for use (p.164). With technology at their fingertips, Digital Natives have the power, resources, and drive to create and contribute to the wealth of information that surrounds them. “Digital technology gives everyone the means to express themselves, and it empowers them to speak- and to be hear by others, including those in power, in ways that previous generations could only have imagined” (p.125). The authors carefully outline how this freedom can be used either for the common good or to the detriment of our students’ safety and privacy.

Because this generation is so active, creative, and always on the brink of discovery, teachers and parents must work to foster and facilitate their growth, while still creating boundaries within which the students can invent.

In addition, “we need to provide them with the skills and tools they need to avoid information overload” (p.194). Just because more technology is available doesn’t mean we can just throw it all out there and expect the students to use it all. We need to create a digital learning environment where we use technology effectively, linking its use across all disciplines and encouraging collaboration. Hopefully, with this new community mindset in place, students will work together in the classroom to augment human thinking.

3. What are the personal implications of the work?

Personally, I was challenged as an educator to make myself knowledgeable of new technology resources available and in use among our kids. With a broader knowledge base of the material, my hope is to encourage students to passionately, but cautiously and intelligently, pursue an interest in various software. I want to foster a sense of collaboration inside of my classroom, implementing a classroom that values integrity, honor, and justice of highest priority both on and offline. I will take on the responsibility of modeling for my students how to properly use the tools available, and work to ensure that the safety and privacy of my students are my highest concern.

4. What questions does this work raise for you in your present situation?

- How would I begin to impress upon my students the magnitude to which each of their actions, both on and offline, affects their future?

- How will I be able to monitor student interactions, such as cyberbullying?

- How can we, as teachers, influence/be the ‘setters’ of social norms, which seem to overwrite legal norms (p.174)?

- Does reading websites, instead of books/newspapers, actually change the way people process information?

- Is there a way for me to educate parents about the safety and privacy issues that are prevalent in our society? Are there resources available to make this happen?

5. If the author were available for dialogue, what question(s) would you

ask?

-       When do you think we will start to see the effects of our dependence on the web?

-       Have there been schools that have successfully integrated technology into the classroom while preserving privacy and ensuring safety? If so, did they follow certain benchmarks to do so?

Blog for: July 27th

After class today, I feel as though I’ve been exposed to an even greater world of possible implications that technology could have on our culture. Culture…that is something that Illich seemed to question actually still exists among us. In his book, Deschooling Society, he challenges the validity, reliability, and our degree of dependence upon the systems that seem to form the backbone of our culture. In Chapter 7, he is greatly concerned that learning is not simply tied to the classroom, but can be done at any point in time from anywhere.

The alternative to dependence on schools is not the use of public resources for some new device which “makes” people learn; rather it is the creation of a new style of educational relationship between man and his environment. To foster this style, attitudes toward growing up, the tools available for learning, and the quality and structure of daily life will have to change concurrently.

What will this change look like? And why does Illich seem to be so radical about these changes? After viewing the Youtube clip entitled “Scary School Nightmare”, I was left with the posing question from the creator ‘Since when were we born needy? In need of education?’ Furthermore, our class discussion posed the following questions to be answered: Has education and schooling stripped us of the desire to question information around us? Illich speaks of this “invisible curriculum” from which our instruction is derived. Do we need this information? He seems to think that our environment offers more to us than what teachers seem to deem “important” to be taught within the walls of a classroom.

But that’s what we’ve always done! Wake up, get ready, go to school. Learn, pack up, come home. Repeat. But what if we weren’t used to going to school in a building every day? What if we grew up already connected to the web, depending on the internet like we now depend on what goes on within the four brick walls of a classroom?

Now, with video technology available, information can be accessed from wherever, whenever. Will there be sacrifices involved in technological advances such as Skype, Tokbox, and other video conferencing software? Now that students are able to access information being taught inside of the classroom without having to be physically present, will there be a need for traditional buildings in which students meet? We now have the capabilities to engage in conversation with people that are not in the same location as we are, but can still dialogue and express themselves in a manner that facilitates communication.

As with all things, there are costs and benefits to video technology. What about the importance of face-to-face interactions? But these technologies could allow for education at home. Information is now so easily accessible…but is this perk limited to those who can afford it? Would changes to education widen the already existing gaps between those of opportunity and those without?

Would students be motivated to learn on their own with this different equipment? For example, our class took a look at Second Life, a virtual world with which people engage as avatars, individuals created by the users to act as their counterpart…their identity in this fantasy world. But is it just a fantasy world? With the capabilities of exchanging money, establishing a home and building relationships, this “second life” may come to replace one’s own life without boundaries.

The implications that this software has on education are its ability to bring people from all over the world together. Conferences are accessible regardless of your physical location, and students can enter different worlds, engaging with another culture and immersing themselves with other languages. If its use is promoted in the classroom, however, teachers will have to use great discretion, and acknowledge the Technology Cognate Framework‘s Ethics and Video Technology section.

Curriculum design will be impacted by the ease with which individuals will be able to create video messages, modify them for appropriate audiences, and develop interactions that can take place regardless of time and distance…While technology provides choices, the human operator is accountable for responsible use…Controlling technology [...] requires a more intelligent user-one who is prepared to make decisions that reflect moral, ethical, and legal responsibility.

With the amount of resources available to ensure that students have information accessible to them at all times using a variety of modalities, teachers must equip students with tools to properly use them, modeling how technology can be used for the betterment of society and human thinking.

Please find a Lesson Plan attached that incorporates the use of video conferencing during a unit on Africa for third grade students. Using Skype and a projector, students from Africa will communicate with students from Waco about similarities and differences between their cultures.

Blog fort: July 26th

After reading Chapter 6 of Web 2.0 New tools, new schools, my responsibility as a teacher became clearer to me…to respond to the leaders above me, whose role was outlined in the chapter as well, and to work to create a collaborative atmosphere, both among the teachers at my school and among those around the world! After efforts are made to make informed decisions about technological advances school-wide in light of the financial budget of the school, my goal will be to ensure that I use available technology to facilitate learning both inside and outside of the classroom. Considering that my aim will be to stay in constant communication with my students and parents, I will establish this task via emails, blogs, newsletters, etc. I will graciously train parents to be more dependent and connected to the web as well, not adding this to their chores as parents and students but informing them of how to use the web to augment human thinking, as Doug Engelbart suggested and hoped.

As a teacher looking to respond to the leaders above me, I will depend on them to model, model, model. I rely on their example to guide me in how I will incorporate video technology, communication technology, and data/computer technology into my every day life with my students. I want to get people excited about the many possibilities available through the use of these mediums…get them excited about how it works, how it looks, the endless ways that THEY themselves can use technology to engage their learners and facilitate learning inside of the classroom. We must not follow the familiar saying, as quoted in Web 2.0, “do as I say, not as I do” (p.127).

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 New tools, new schools. Washington, D.C. International Society for Technology in Education.

Instead we must work together, learning from our successes and failures and making it our goal to grow from and with one another to see our students reach their highest potential. In addition to Web 2.0, we discussed an article by Lissa Pijanowski, entitled Teachers Click. The main message that this article presented was that there must be a large scale collaboration,

a blended learning model that incorporates teacher leaders modeling the processes and use of the tools…Because teachers knew that they were going to walk away with immediate access to great content, they were sold on the new system.

A new mindset inside of the schools is deemed of greatest importance to the overall benefit and growth of the community. According to Pijanowski’s article,

a culture that is transformed from a “make and take” to a “design and share”.

We, as teachers, work hard to discover new ways of teaching content to our students, new learning strategies that accommodate student characteristics, and new ways to advocate for our students’ needs. There needs to be a social network created on which information such as lesson plans, curriculum maps, creative tools, and management strategies can be exchanged, brainstormed, edited, critiqued, and applied. This social network must be a reliable resource, not just another task to mindlessly complete, then cross off on your to-do list.  When we are putting our students as first priorities, our aim is to customize their learning experience. We are all working towards this same goal. We need one another. The norms for our generation is no longer a cut-throat attempt to succeed individually. We must learn how to collaborate. What better way than through the use of technology to accomplish such a feat!!

After discussing the above chapter and article, we went through a quick tutorial on how to use Adobe Photoshop, an image editing software. Here is an image that I played around with as I learned how to use tools to crop, resize, change the pixels, and add a filter to the layers. Obviously my creation is the result of experimenting , but this software can be used to promote communication and video technology inside of your classroom. As mentioned in the Technology Cognate Framework,

visual images have the power to “move” an audience…Questioning techniques employed by educators will be designed to “draw out” the learner’s experience…Technology will facilitate this exchange in multiple forms, including text, visual images, sound, and various combinations.

Images are powerful when used to communicate with parents and students. They can be used to extend upon the meaning of topics, or simply add an extra effect to an event or discussion. In addition to Adobe Photoshop being available, there are also free websites designed for student use, such as tuxpaint.org and gimp.org. Here is a lesson plan designed to incorporate the use of tuxpaint.org when summarizing the chapter in the book, Junie B. Jones is a Graduation Girl. This authentic assessment allows students to communicate using visual images to express their thoughts, emotions, and responses to what happens in this particular, fiction novel.

Blog for: July 21st

I LOVE how technology can be used to facilitate learning for students who have both disabilities and exceptionalities. Because

current federal guidelines require that assistive technology must be considered for every student who has an individualized education program (IEP).

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 New tools, new schools. Washington, D.C. International Society for Technology in Education.

Teachers have needed to adapt their instruction to accommodate learning needs inside of the classroom.

With new Web 2.0 technologies, it is possible to imagine that a wide variety of tools might be useful to the student who requires multiple input strategies or alternative methods for expressing what has been learned.

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 New tools, new schools. Washington, D.C. International Society for Technology in Education.

For example, English language learners can benefit from blogging as they immerse themselves in an environment that requires them to use and build upon their English skills. Aligning itself with the Technology Cognate Framework, blogs allow for multi-tasking and linking between two sources.

The expectations of a pluralistic global community require that educators identify and incorporate appropriate methodologies that address the educational enterprise’s diverse constituencies: multicultural (gender, ethnic, socio-economic, multi-generational, physically challenged, and mentally challenged, etc.)

Students can use features such as speech-to-text or word prediction software to help in the drafting of their writing. Instead of being forced to answer in-class writing prompts immediately, students can finish their assignments on a timeline that is conducive in light of their learning disabilities.

In addition, students have the ability to create products that can then be critiqued and commented on from other people. According to Vygotsky, learning is social! We need one another in order to build upon previously acquired knowledge! To ensure privacy and safety among blogs, teachers can set up a filter for the comments to pass through in order to ensure that all feedback is positive.

Engaging in chat rooms with students from other countries also promotes students’ acquisition of language. Students can create a chat window that is monitored on a closed network and take part in conversations that sharpen literacy skills.  Dialoguing and connecting with others can also occur via Skype and Tokbox, softwares that enable participants to see and hear one another.

But what happens if these technologies are not available to students outside of the classroom?

There is an existing tension between families with high-speed access in their homes and those who have limited to no access, and between those who have comfort and experience with using technologies and those who do not.

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 New tools, new schools. Washington, D.C. International Society for Technology in Education.

Our role as a teacher is to value equity among students…to bridge and close the digital divide and to provide all students with the opportunity to experience technology. We must model how to effectively maneuver and manipulate through information on the web, pausing to differentiate between resources of high and low quality.

In addition to software that accommodates students with learning disabilities, software also allows students to engage in authentic assessments.

“Performance assessments call upon the examinee to demonstrate specific skills and competencies, that is, to apply the skills and knowledge they have mastered” (p.34).

Stiggins, R.J. (1987). The design and development of performance assessments. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 6, 33-42.

Here is a link to a Lesson Plan used in my classroom incorporating the use of blogs that accommodate students with learning disabilities. The lesson plan is designed to involve these students in their learning experience, giving them a key role in how they construct knowledge and allowing them to experience success in the meantime. The blog is also a form of an authentic assessment as it allows students to create a product that demonstrates their level of understanding in a meaningful way.

On an entirely different note, or possibly one that really does fit into the idea of communicating via technology in more ways than one can imagine, my tech class and I read Timeframes, an article that used comic strips as a tool for learning. Comic panels and frames can help students organize information, inform the reader of the tone of their product, and bring attention to specific, and key, aspects of their writing. Emphasis can be given to what characters say, and students can use comics to control the way that the reader receives and interprets information. How powerful! Who knew?! This article, again, points to the way that the customization generation can uniquely express itself to the world. Creating a comic strip appeals to the “creator” in all of us, giving the writer the means to develop a story AND the way that he wants it to be read.

Image citations:

london-underground.blogspot.com/2006/01/metro-say-britain…

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/vygotsky/images/index.htm

http://drawn.ca/?s=metafilter