Digital Storytelling

     According to the University of Houston, http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/index.html, digital storytelling is telling a story through the use of computer tools.  The stories can contain digital images, text, recordings or audio narration, video clips and even music.  A story can last however long the author wants, but it's usually between 2 to 10 minutes.  Virtually any subject can be chosen as a topic.  

     I found an example of digital story project put together by a 3rd grader on what they learned about Canada, http://www.schooltechnology.org/2011/02/01/canada-photo-essay-3rd-grade-project/.  The students collected photos to represent different aspects about Canada.  They then presented the images in a slideshow and recorded their own written narration.  The teacher commented how the students were shocked at how professional the stories turned out.

I couldn't figure out how to put the example video in this post, so it's in the following post.

     The "Educause Learning Initiative" explains that by having students create digital stories they foster a sense of individuality and ownership of their creations, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7021.pdf.  Students enjoy using digital media and incorporating learning through digital storytelling excites students.  Critical thinking skills are exercised when students choose which particular visual or audio elements to include in their stories.  Digital storytelling is a great way to have students summarize what they have learned about a topic.

Connecting With Global Education Communities

When I was researching NETS-T 4 for my Glog I came across ePals, www.epals.com.   This a global community that connects classrooms all around the world by providing a safe and collaborative technology for schools to use as a means of connecting.  Students from around the world can communicate through using ePals forms and blogs.  Teachers, parents, districts, and students know that the conversations will be monitored and controlled by the teachers.  There are also focus areas, where students can learn specific concepts thoroughly.  Two focus area topics that ePals has explored have been issues related around black history and biodiversity.  National geographic is a content investor and through that collaborative learning experiences have been created.  Partners can be found from across the world through forums and searchers.  Rich and extensive units have been put together for students to connect through the use of emails and other exchanges.  The structured format allows for students to delve into the topic.  Dynamic and interactive learning has also been created through the use of in2Books, which is an eMentoring program where adults and kids are matched in classrooms.  The mentors and student pen pals read five books together over the course of the year.  Then they exchange online letters about the important issues in the books.  The adult mentors impact students through encouraging them as well as giving students who come from high poverty environments an example of adults using literacy in their lives.  Through using ePals students have become independent curious learners and along with that their standardized test scores have also improved.  

I think that ePals is a great way to connect with global education communities.  There are endless amounts of topics which can be focus points and students would benefit from the use of technology.  I’m not exactly sure if the Anchorage School District or the Mat-Su School District uses ePals, but it looks like it’s well worth pursuing.  Maybe someday we too can be a part of this amazing global community!

Education Blog Follow Up

The scholastic blog that I was following stopped making new posts since June, so I decided to check out the Responsive Blog by Responsive Classroom, http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/blog.  The last three posts were written by Margaret Berry Wilson.  Her most recent post discussed how to create a community in the classroom.  Margaret explains that “a strong foundation of togetherness and community” can create an atmosphere where students will want to come to school, they’ll want to take care of each other, take risks, and it fosters the social skills needed for school and life.   Shared experiences, traditions, stories, and relationships leads to a community.  The author suggests that teachers look to provide the class with “authentic shared experiences.”  Some examples she had were create special traditions or rituals, like “disco clean-up time” at the end of the day; make learning fun and interesting; celebrate together, make a book of celebrations and add things like  great math period; do something memorable; engage in a cause, like raising money for charity; and have a class pet. 

                The second post I read talked about how Elementary educators need to hold on to the vision of “what could be” for their students.  The post talks about how teachers can sometimes get discouraged about students who do not seem to be making improvements, but how we must always look ahead and know that all of the time and effort that teachers have devoted into their students will be worth it.  Every student has incredible potential and facing difficult situations with students is only part of the adventure in being teachers.

                The last post by Margaret talked about decluttering the classroom.  The statement “classrooms are full of stuff that is seldom or never used” is one that I hope to remember in my future teaching years.  Often times teachers hold on to things because of scarcity of resources, thoughts like “someday I’ll use those for…”, because people give them things and they feel bad throwing out the supplies, or teachers inherit things from previous teachers.  Cluttered classrooms are difficult to keep organized and can be obstacles for students to get work done.   Margaret suggests having students help to clean up on the last day of school by sorting markers, crayons, colored pencils.  Throw things out that aren’t necessary, share items with colleagues, and donate whatever else you can.

                These three posts have helped me to look at many different areas of teaching.  The author provided great tips on how to create a community in a classroom and how to deal with moments as an educator that can be stressful.  I’ve taken some great information away from this blog, and will revisit it in the years to come.

Assistive Technology

According to standards.gov (http://standards.gov/standards_gov/assistiveTechnology.cfm) assistive technology is defined as any equipment or product system, whether commercial, modified, or customized, that is used to improve, assist, or increase the functional capabilities of a person with a disability.  When in reference to special education an "assistive technology device" is an assistive technology geared towards helping a child with disabilities, but does not include a surgically implanted medical device (http://www.atp.ne.gov/techassist/def-legal.html).  An assistive technology service has to do with a service which assists a child with a disability in selecting, acquiring, or using an assistive technology device.  The National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (http://nichcy.org/disability/specific/ld) says that 1 out of every 5 people in the U.S. has a learning disability.  Around 1 million children, between the ages of 6 and 21, have some sort of a learning disability.  

http-//www.lssproducts.com/product/4838/talking-calculators

Dyscalculia is a learning disability having to do with math (http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/ld-aamp-language/ld-aamp-math/what-is-dyscalculia).  Students with Dyscalculia have visual-spatial difficulties, which has to do with a person having issues processing what they see.  Students can also have language processing difficulties, which has to do with a person having issues processing what they hear.  Often times these students have trouble learning the meaning of numbers, sorting objects by shape. size, or color, and seeing patterns.  An assistive technology device for children with Dyscalculia is a talking calculator (http://www.ldonline.org/article/Assistive_Technology_for_Kids_with_Learning_Disabilities:_An_Overview).  These types of calculators have a built in speech synthesizer that can read numbers, symbols, or operations out loud.  Other forms of assistive technology for students include electronic math worksheets, software which can help students to organize their work on a computer screen.  Other forms of assistive technology tools include graph paper or even math manipulative (http://www.ehow.com/about_7219521_assistive-technology-dyscalculia.html). 

In my future teaching career I will keep in mind that there are endless amount of tools which can help students to learn.  When I have a student with a learning disability in my classroom I will work with the supporting staff at my school to look for and gain access to assistive technology.  A way to keep up with the technology is to talk with other educators and research the assistive technologies.  It's exciting to know that there are so many different devices and tools to help students achieve their learning goals.