Using the Presentation Program

I used the coin activity that I designed using Empressr in my class yesterday (described in my last entry). While the students seemed to enjoy the activity, I could tell that they were wanting to be a more integral part of the presentation. They are definitely habituated to the interactive nature of most SMARTBoard activities, so while this activity met its objectives, I continue to feel as though there are better presentation programs to meet the needs of my students.

Presentation Programs

I used Empressr to create this presentation on coins. While the application looked practical and easy to use from the site description, I found it to be extremely frustrating to use and not very user-friendly. I would not use it again! (Note: The graphics occasionally do not show up even though they are visible in the editing mode.) Text size could only be changed one line at a time when in the bullet function. Additionally, it took extremely long to load images and then load the presentation on the web. I found Google Docs to be much more user-friendly and possibly accessible to my students. I use SMARTTech's SMARTNotebook in my classroom on a daily basis. This program is a free download, is rather easy to use, and is very accessible to my students. It's like Power Point with many more bells and whistles (and a lot easier to use!). I much prefer SMARTNotebook to any of the sites which we explored in class.

Graphics Assignment

I created this graphic using Mr. Picassohead. I used the resize, rotate, and color tools as well as the drag and drop features to portray the emotion of furious. As a K-2 special ed teacher, I could see using this graphics program to teach or reinforce social skills lessons on emotion recognition and identification. I like this particular program because it is accessible for my students. I explored ArtPad as well. ArtPad would not be accessible to my students unless we used it on the SMARTBoard or a touch screen due to the fine motor challenges that they possess. The playback feature would be a nice option for teaching drawing skills; however, it would need to be more of a demonstration mechanism than an option for allowing students to access technology.

Activities incorporating graphic design and visuals is usually a highly effective instructional strategy with my students as it taps into the visual-spatial intelligence, eliminates or reduces language demands, and is a highly motivating process for them.

Reflections on CED523

Coming into this class, I truly felt like I had a good basic understanding of the Internet and World Wide Web. I knew how to do advanced searches, find decent instructional resources, and even use some software to put together a web page. Really, how much more could there be to learn? Within the first hour of class, my (suddenly) naive understanding of the web was being pushed to new limits. I was completely amazed at the plethora of resources which were easy to use and available for free!

As a resource teacher with very young children, many of the applications explored in class posed little relevance for my students. However, I challenged myself to find other practical applications to be used in my interactions with colleagues and parents. The most powerful time-management strategies I saw were Google Calendar and Google Docs. Calendar could allow us to schedule IEPs, the computer lab, field trips, and conference rooms. Docs could be used to keep collaborative documentation on students' progress towards goals, exchange ideas, and even more without the hassle of e-mailing files back and forth. Additionally, a Wiki could be used to share much of the same information but in a more public way. For instance, a Wiki could be used for us to share our Professional Learning Community (PLC) data and goals with everyone in our building or district. In this way, PLCs could group together collaboratively over the Internet, thus breaking group or building barriers typically put upon us by the constraints of the school day and meeting arrangement.

I also challenged myself to see the idea of a blog in a new light. Blogging could provide a medium through which I could post exceptional educational websites, share successful reinforcement strategies, and discuss other pertinent topics to parents of children with disabilities. This medium could provide a method of sharing the somewhat random ideas that often pop into my head and may be relevant but do not typically belong in an e-mail or notebook.

While this course was relatively short in duration, I felt like my knowledge of practical applications for the Internet grew immensely, constantly challenging me to see the Internet in a new light and find new ways to use an existing resource to extend my abilities as a teacher and collaborator.