Week 3 Mind Maps, Help for Teachers, Assistive Technology
Week 3 Blog- Mind Map creations, Help for Teachers, Students
with Disabilities
This map above was created at bubbl.us
Wisemapping.com
Questions to answer: why are visuals and pictures
important? How have you used visuals
before?
Pictures and visuals are so important! They keep people interested and reinforce
ideas. Most people know how to
read. Reading to people or showing
multiple slides of text will bore your audience to death! I used to teach basic life saving skills to
non-medical personnel in the Army. We
always used a slide show with lots of pictures.
For example, most people have never given their skin much thought. When I would discuss the different types of
burns, I had to show diagrams of human skin so my soldiers would understand the
damage from a burn. After the lecture,
we would hand out actual medical supplies so that people could practice what
they learned. People can learn by
hearing but they remember by doing. I
showed and explained to several people what a Combat Application Tourniquet
was. Amazingly, few soldiers
demonstrated proper use only after listening.
Most soldiers have to practice several times to get it right.
WEBSITES TO HELP TEACHERS
Zoho describes itself as “With Zoho, you focus on your
business while we take care of the rest with apps that help you get more sales,
get paid, support your customers and make your business more productive.” It is geared toward businesses. It is privately owned and for profit. Where’s the free stuff? You have to create an account to do
anything. Here is a list of applications
members can use for free: email, workspace to upload documents, create documents,
spreadsheets, and presentations, create a group with other Zoho members, chat
online, and web conferencing. The Zoho
notebook application is Intuitive user interface to create, aggregate and
share multiple types of content
- Drawing tools to draw & add shapes along with the
content
- Integration with other Zoho Applications like Zoho Writer,
Sheet, Show and Chat
- Record video and audio directly within notebook
- Sharing Notebooks, Pages and even objects (pieces of
content)
- Versioning Control and commenting
- Collaborative/simultaneous editing and sharing of content
- Firefox plug-ins for instant web clipping
- Skype integration for instant chat and IP telephony.
This could be used for communication and classwork between students
and teachers. Students are able to
collaborate with each other as well.
I don’t recommend this site because it’s very advanced. There are so many tech features. It would take one class period to teach the
students to use one application. This
site does too much. I don’t like the
idea of teaching students Microsoft programs, Apple programs, and then Zoho’s
programs. It’s redundant. If you need a high-tech all-in-one website,
then Zoho is it.
This website is geared toward strengthening English and Math
skills. Members can use this site for
free to construct quizzes with multimedia elements, create rubrics, play
educational games, provide tools for argument papers, design a floor plan for
your classroom, view lessons or create your own, post a class calendar, post
notes for the students, post project requirements/checklists, create a class
webpage, assist students with collecting group notes and citations for papers,
create videos, and help students create videos.
All these applications are available in Spanish.
There are different types of writing and math. I could still use this for my science
classes. I definitely love posting
calendars so I would use the Assign-A-Day app for sure. Students often write persuasive papers using
scientific research to support their views.
My students could use the Persuade Star app. For help citing their research, we could use
the Note Star app. The Quiz Star app
allows you to create, administer, and grade quizzes online. My only question is where are students going
to be when they access their quizzes.
You can do take home quizzes.
Send sick students the link for a quiz.
If you wanted to create a quiz for class, then you could reserve a
computer lab. You could also project the
electronic version on a screen and the students could answer on paper. The PBL Checklists app develops a schedule to
help keep students on track when working on projects. I would definitely use that to help my
students. Time management is a skill
that students have to continuously refine because of the various course load
demands. The rubric app is a given. Students always want to know how they are
graded. I recommend this website based
on its ease of use and versatility.
ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND DEVICES
dimio.altervista.org/eng/
This website offers free software for many purposes, including
assistive technology. All programs are
available in different languages and nothing is written into the registry of
the computer. The first download you see
on the page is for voice recognition software called DSpeech. The second program, DShutdown, is for safe
shut down of one or multiple computers on a network. The third program, DSynchronization, is for synchronization
of files across Hard Disk, Floppy Disk, LAN, USB Key, CD-DVD (with packet
writing software) and FTP server. The
fourth download is DTaskManager- a task manager program that allows you to
execute different kinds of shut downs. I
don’t really understand this. The fifth
program allows someone to restore information on a computer that has been
deleted to due a system upgrade or glitch- if I understand it correctly. This program is called HDHacker. The sixth download is DClearsystem which
defragments the hard drive to open up disk space.
The webmaster, Dimio, does provide his email address. I am skeptical of anything that is free like
this. He might provide tech support
should you have any issues. I agree that
software should be free and shared. I
don’t recommend this site unless you have a thorough knowledge of software and
programming. Then you use it with
discretion and caution.
The Georgia Project for Assistive Technology (GPAT), a unit of
the Georgia Department of Education, supports local school systems in their
efforts to provide assistive technology devices and services to students with
disabilities. This site has a wealth of
information on the process of determining your student’s need, asking for
assistive devices, and evaluating the effectiveness of said devices.
I would love to use these kinds of devices in my
classroom. I believe in challenging
every student to learn to the best of his or her ability. My aunt suffered a complicated birth. The doctor that delivered her used
instruments to force her into cephalic presentation. The doctor pressed her soft skull so much
that he bruised her brain. She ended up
with brain damage to her motor cortex.
She grew up without motor function.
The rest of her brain was fine. My
aunt learned to read. She liked watching
cable and movies. She liked “talking” to
my grandma even though she had to spell out her words one letter at time. A lot of people thought my aunt had mental
retardation. She didn’t. My aunt showed me that people are often
labeled “unable to learn” when they really can learn. Maybe they can’t or don’t articulate their
learning but they still want to learn.
Often, tools are needed to aid those with disabilities.
If you are in Georgia, I recommend you use this site as a
guide. If not, then the site is still a
useful reference if you need to implement assistive devices in your classroom.
readthewords.com
This website uses text to speech technology. Readthewords.com allows members to create
audio files up to 30 seconds in length, select from 15 voices, use three different
languages, has 2 customizable Avatars, unlimited emailing of speaking Avatars, 8
podcasts, 8 embedded readings, and 8 saved readings for free. You can upgrade your membership for a fee and
receive more Avatars and larger files. You
do this by typing text or copying text from another file and pasting it into
the site’s text box. They also have a file upload section, where you can upload
any Microsoft office document, Adobe PDF, txt, and HTML document. You can also paste
a website address or RSS feed URL, and the TTS program can read that as well.
I am not sure how I could use this technology for myself. I could definitely use it for a student that
has a visual impairment. I have gone to
class with a female that had Glaucoma and another female was completely
blind. The Glaucoma student had really
thick glasses but I’m not sure how much they helped. The blind student had an aide that typed
everything for the day in Braille. Both
students would benefit from text to speech technologies.
I recommend this free, assistive technology. It also comes with tech support.
fullmeasure.co.uk/powertalk/
I like this website much better than Dimio’s. PowerTalk, a talk to text program, was
created in response to an open letter calling for help from a person with
Asphasia. This appeared in Ability magazine, 'Campaigning for Accessible IT'
published by John Lamb Media for the British Computer Society Disability Group
in association with AbilityNet. The
OATSoft website is home to PowerTalk and many other Open Source Assistive
Technology Software (OATS) projects.
I could use this in my classroom. I see the obvious purpose- use as an
assistive technology. I’m thinking about
days that teachers can’t be in the class.
Essentially, you could set up a lesson using this software and a power
point presentation. Then the substitute
could just hit play. Then maybe set up a
quiz on 4Teachers.org. The students
could do this too. If a student knows he
or she will be absent, they could use the same software for a
speech/presentation. The teacher could
play “Bobby’s” presentation while Bobby is competing in another town.
I recommend this software.
It’s free and helpful. The
website does offer tech support. It’s a
win-win.
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most
or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. EDOL 533 is a series of webquests. Here is how a webquest is set up. Learners are given a topic. They have to research that topic entirely
online. Then the learners have to come
back together and discuss what they learned. Here is one example Webquest.org gives:
student teachers examine a list of websites for schools. The class then discusses what they liked or
didn’t about the websites. From this
exercise, students grasped what a school website needs to function and be
effective.
Webquest.org also contains a database of webquests. These webquests are written as lessons. For example, I searched for webquests about
animal cells. I clicked on the first
link from my results. I was directed to
a website that was constructed by a science teacher for her class. The site had instructions about the student
project, a rubric for the project, and required students to use the internet
for all their research. The project was
to make a 3-D cell model using edible materials. Users can also add webquests to this
database.
I definitely could use this to plan lessons. My students could use this database for
research. They could design their own
webquests. I liked all the creative
ideas I saw. This is a great resource to
make classes interesting. We can all use
inspiration to teach the same concept to different classes and different
generations of students
I totally recommend it.
It’s free, creative, and easy to use.
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