Week Three

This week has been all about word processing, desktop publishing, and the Revised Bloom's Technology Taxonomy. We have discovered new ways to apply all three to our respective classrooms, even if we, like me, don't have a classroom yet!!

Weekly Questions

- What did you learn this week that you will use immediately in your classroom?  

No classroom yet, remember? :) I really found the most insightful and intriguing part of the lesson this week to be the section on desktop publishing. Of course I have made brochures and newsletters and the like before, but I haven't done it in a while and I actually made a really cool one for one of my favorite short stories. It even gave me an idea about teaching a unit concerning the Southern Gothic tradition in American literature, which I cannot wait to teach! Do you want to see my brochure? Yep? Of course you do.

    
Awesome, right? And, it was so easy to do with one of the downloadable brochure templates within Microsoft Word. I can actually see myself doing this often.

- What steps will you take to implement this in your classroom?

This particular resource will be easy to implement. I will simply make brochures for our readings and/or units and hand them out to my students. Then, in the unit project I have indicated in the brochure, I will add the task of having the students make their own brochure. This will even allow me an opportunity to teach a lesson in technology, as I walk them through the creation of the above brochure or one like it!
 
- What challenge(s) will you face when using this in your classroom?

I live in, and will probably teach in, a small rural area, where access to a large number of computers at one time will be hard to come by. I did go back to my alma mater last semester to observe one of my high school English teachers and was surprised to find that they are using SmartBoard technology, so that will be very helpful in allowing me to show my students how to use the desktop publishing features inherent within Microsoft Word.
 
- What will you do to overcome the challenge(s)?  

There isn't a lot that can be done to change lack of resources; thus, we will just have to learn to compensate and do the best we can with what we have, and aren't those good lessons for life too?!


Tech Explorations 

Tech Exploration 7 - Assistive Technologies

1. Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.

GPAT – My primary take-away from this resource is that there are myriad legal considerations related to providing necessary assistive technologies to students with disabilities who need them; thus, it is not only important to provide assistive technologies so that students with disabilities can reach higher levels of understanding and achievement (though, this is of primary importance, at least to be), but also so that your school may avoid potential legal entanglements. There are multiple assistive devices that may be needed and it is important for educators to understand those devices and their highest and best applications.

Zoho – I learned that Zoho is an online platform that provides users a wide-variety of applications geared toward business, collaboration, and productivity. The site appears to be an all-in-one of sorts that provides businesses with marketing, HR, recruitment, and invoicing tools, just to name a few. Like Google Drive, the collaboration function provides chat, document storage, discussion, and mail services. It also allows for web-conferencing, project management and provides a database for creating and sharing wikis. Then, the productivity function provides a calendar, notebook, spreadsheet, presentation, and document creation tools.

2. How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.

GPAT – The most obvious application of this resource to an educational setting is within the framework of a special education program. However, with the wide variety of disabilities and levels of achievement, students with disabilities are often included in the general education environment so all educators need to understand assistive technology, its uses and its implications.

Zoho – Honestly, the platform is so obviously geared toward businesses that I do not see many educational applications for it. I suppose that, like Google Drive, the collaboration function could be useful for communication and storage and the productivity function could aid in creation of presentations and documents; however, with resources geared toward a wider audience that provide similar functionality, Zoho does not seem like an obvious choice. 

3. Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?

GPAT – I would definitely recommend this resource to other educators. Although it is a Georgia-based resource, written in consideration of the educational climate in Georgia, it also includes links to federal SPED legislation and provides resources for and explanations of assistive technologies. The website provides a lot of information in one place and, as such, could be very useful for educators across the board.

Zoho – I would not recommend this resource to other educators. With the Microsoft Office suite of programs and on-line platforms such as Google Drive, this platform, aimed directly at businesses, seems to have little application to an educational setting.

Tech Exploration 8 - Online Tools for Teachers

1. Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.

PersuadeStar – This resource provides tools to help students in grades 5-12 compose persuasive essays. The site gives students access to sample essays, a planning tool, writing space, spelling feedback, and source information. Teachers are provided with assignment codes, which they give to students so that essays are displayed for the correct assignment and to the correct teacher. The database holds papers for one month after the last modification, but there are instructions for downloading the papers if they need to be saved for a longer time.

Equity – Equity is a resource that provides educators with a searchable database that features links to various programs suitable for the needs of a diverse classroom. There are multiple categories and, under each category is a list of resources most suited to that category, provided through the sites RubiStar, TrackStar, and Web-based applications. There are so many particular conditions and situations that can have an impact on students’ learning styles and contribute to their individual needs that it is important to have access to as many resources as possible so that one can best provide for ALL students.

ThinkTank – ThinkTank allows students to develop a research organizer, which is a list of possible topics and subtopics that they can use for research projects. When assignments are given, students are given suggestions and the program also included a subtopic generator. The theory behind ThinkTank is that it will help students learn how to deal with topics so that they are more wieldy and easier to handle when it comes to research. This program is compatible with another of the company’s products: NoteStart.

Dimio – This site seems to be geared toward voice-over technology and technology that allows the user to deal more simply with various issues such as system shutdown, task management, file/folder synchronization, file restoration, and system cleaning.

2. How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.


PersuadeStar – This is the first resource that I have seen that seems especially useful for high school English classes, which I find very exciting! This resource would be great for giving students an assignment code and then providing lab time for them to work on the assignment. It provides a great method for teachers to keep up with progress without them having to hound students for drafts and etc.

Equity – Given the diversity of different situations that contribute to an individual student’s needs and abilities, it is important to understand as much about a variety of conditions and tools as possible. This resource provides the educator with the ability to search a large database of materials grouped according to various categories, so that one doesn’t have to examine every resource individually.

ThinkTank – I can see this program being most useful for early high school students as they begin thinking more independently through assignments like research papers. The subject that it seems to most readily lend itself to is history, but research forms the basis of exploration in many other important areas as well, so the number of possible applications is fairly large.

Dimio – I believe that the only Dimio program that would be even remotely helpful in an educational setting is DSpeech, which is a TTS program which provides automatic speech recognition functionality. Even that, I do not see to be particularly useful, honestly.

3. Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?

PersuadeStar – I would actually have to use the resource first in order to determine ease of use and functionality, but as it is free I would be very willing to try it. If the application were to actually be useful in doing what it says it does, then I think that it would be an excellent resource and I would certainly recommend it to other educators.

Equity – The idea behind the resource is good and, as it is free, I would recommend that other educators at least try it, in order to see if it meets their needs or not. There are so many ways in which this site could be helpful that an educator could find at least one good application for it and, if that is true, it is worth it.

ThinkTank – I would recommend this to other educator as it is so very important for students to understand the purpose of and fundamentals behind research. If students have not developed the critical thinking skills that they need to solve the types of problems dealt with by research projects, then we have failed in our role as educators.

Dimio – I would not recommend this resource to other educators. The website is so simplistic so as to be suspicious and, as it seems to be a foreign-based program, I would find it too suspicious to utilize anyway. Also, and I know this has no bearing on whether the resource is worthwhile or not, the picture of the guy and his cat at the bottom of the page, asking for donations, is extremely creepy.

Tech Exploration 9 - Full Measure

1. Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.

FullMeasure – FullMeasure is a resource that is compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint – it speaks the text of a PowerPoint presentation and, unlike other Text to Speech resources, it speaks text as it appears and can include hidden text attached to images. There are options for controlling speech – even the speed of narration can be changed.

2. How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.

FullMeasure – I believe that this resource would be most useful for use with students who have reading disabilities, visual impairments, or with speakers who have difficulties with articulation. Given that the incidences of students with impairments seems to be increasing, there are many situations in which I can educator will encounter situations such as these and will need a quick line of defense in order to best educate these children.
 
3. Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?


FullMeasure – I would certainly recommend this resource to other educators, especially those who deal with children with visual, speech, or learning impairments on a daily basis. This is a free program with introductions that are clear and concise, making them easy to understand. Most computers today fit within the realm of the system requirements listed.


Tech Exploration 10 - WebQuest and ReadTheWords

1. Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.
 

WebQuest – I had never heard of a WebQuest before, but I am fascinated by the fact that it appears to be an actual lesson format that fits well within the pedagogical framework of the use of technology in education. In a WebQuest, the majority of information used is Internet sourced. The model was developed 17 years ago during the relatively early days of the web, but I am sure that it has grown and progressed exponentially since then.

ReadTheWords – ReadTheWords is a text conversion program that allows the user to convert any text document to speech. Interestingly, this is the only program that I have seen which converts a variety of document types, such as plain text documents, files, web pages, and even RSS feeds. There is also a video creator within the program and the capability to embed recordings in web pages, emails, and even to share them on social media.

2. How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.

WebQuest – A WebQuest seems a good way to allow older students experience in a more independent learning environment, where they are responsible for finding, cataloguing, and refining information within a specified framework. With younger students, a WebQuest could be a way for an educator to introduce the Internet as a safe and controlled environment into the discussion. For teachers, there are WebQuests available, so that we can find resources related to specific lessons and concepts.

ReadTheWords – ReadTheWords seems like a particularly good resource for anyone who is trying to teach articulation whether it be to young children or people with speaking disorders. I also think that it could be useful in a foreign language classroom, so that the teacher could indicate the actual word to the students in print and then the program would articulate it correctly in the language in question.
 
3. Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?

WebQuest – I would recommend WebQuest to other educators. We need as many educational models available to us as possible, so that we can discover and implement the best possible resources in every educational environment we encounter. Every class that we teach is a different learning environment and what works in one class may well not work with another. Also, the resource is free, so there’s no harm in trying it out!

ReadTheWords – I don’t think that I would recommend ReadTheWords to other educators. I was put off by the number of wholly un-related advertisements in the banner on the right side of the page. Also, the resource has an annual fee, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t seem as though it would  be useful enough in the day-to-day operations of a classroom to justify the expense.