Week 13 - Prezi

Here is my prezi about our course...

               

Keystone Project

Here are the dropbox links to my Keystone Project pieces...

ELA Teacher Interview

Keystone Lesson Plan

Student Alphabet Chart

Implementation Report

Reflection of New Literacies

   

 Starfall                                          Game Goo

Week 12 - Affordances of Glogster

Glogster!!

Week 12 - Glogster

Here is my Glogster (such a funny word) :)

I've been working on research with the kids in the computer lab and chose exotic/endangered animals to keep them interested. I adapted a worksheet to guide them through the research and my end goal was for them to create a PowerPoint (based on a template I'll make). I think I'm still going to do that but when we start our next mini-research project I think I'm going to have them play around with Glogster because they would definitely love it!

Enjoy learning about the --->Okapi <---

Week 9 - Initial Keystone Draft

Initial Keystone Draft

Subject: Literacy using Game Goo and Starfall to develop students' phonics skills, letter recognition skills, and reading skills. In this unit students focus on practicing their phonics skills through listening and answering questions through game form using Game Goo. Using Starfall students will focus on mastering their letter recognition and letter-sound association. Students will also practice their reading comprehension skills and work on their reading fluency through fiction and non-fiction stories on Starfall.

Grade level: Kindergarten in a non-graded, non-profit school designed for students on the autism spectrum.

Standards addressed: 
Reading:

• (1) With prompting and support, ask and nswer questions about key details in a text
• (3) With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story
• (4) Ask and answe questions about unknown words in a text

Foundational Skills:

• (3a.) Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-tone letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound of many of the most freqeunt sounds for each consonant.
• (3c.) Read common high-frequency words by sights (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
• (3d.) Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
• (4) Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding
  
  Intended results of the proposed technology integration: The intended results of this technology integration is to introduce the teacher to the two technology resources that can be used to introduce, teach, and support letter and sound recognition and association. It is to provide variety in the instructional methods used in the classroom to keep the students engaged during repetition of topics which are necessary for mastery.

Support and format of training needed: I will meet with the teacher and the classroom team to guide them through the Game Goo and Starfall website and highlight the sections that will be the focus of the unit. I will answer any questions the team has and will be available to assist them during any classroom implementation during prep periods, before school hours, and after school hours.

Requirements: Most of the the technology integration will be completed in the computer lab during computer class which consist of 2 - 30 minute periods a week. Additional optional integration is encouraged in the classroom as well as extension into the student's home.

Evaluation plan: I will evaluate the unit based on teacher observation (myself and the assistants) to see how successful the students have become in the Game Goo games and how much of the alphabet the students have completed on the Starfall. I will also attempt to observe and rate any increase in reading fluency through Starfall stories. 

Week 11 - Voice Thread

Here's my Voice Thread...

It's the first I've ever created so don't mind the simplicity. It's obviously targeted towards some of the students I work with but I hope you enjoy guessing too!

-----> Voice Thread - Karma's Adventure <-----

Week 10 - New Literacies

A bit late but finally done...

Jing seems like an awesome tool, unfortunately it kept freezing up my (older) laptop so I used it to capture the images of my PowerPoint slides and add some highlighting features and then put it together in Windows Movie Maker and uploaded it to YouTube. Here it is...

-----> New Literacies <-----

Week 11 - Reflection on Voice Thread Article

     I found the DiAL-e framework very interesting and useful to educators after reading this article. I think it can be really overwhelming for educators who are new to incorporating technology into their curriculum and especially for those teachers who may not consider themselves technology savvy. Just in the past two years in this program I have been introduced to a multitude of different Web 2.0 tools and haven't been able to either properly implement them into my classroom or to explore them myself to decide on their effectiveness on student learning. Having such a framework that focuses on evaluating a tools effectiveness based on learning design and eventually based on learning spaces.

     I found the analysis of Voice Thread through the DiAL-e framework really useful and really started to see some possibilities of its use in the classroom that hadn't come to mind. Overall I think using this framework in a more consistent manner in education will be very helpful with the amount of Web 2.0 tools out there and the rapid rate that new ones are developed.

Digital Story - International Year of Water Cooperation 2013

Here is my digital story! Sorry for the lateness, I was out of the country and it took me a little while to get readjusted! Hope you enjoy.

Digital Story - International Year of Water Cooperation

Blogging Article Reflection

The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students' Reading Comprehension and Learning Motivation

     I was interested in reading this study to see if the findings were similar to what I observed when I implemented blogs into my own literacy classroom last year. Of course a big difference was that my classroom consisted of 8 middle school students on the autism spectrum while the participants in the study were college students in a teacher education program. Still I found that the increase in motivation and classroom community development were very similar. It was encouraging to read that incorporating the use of blogs as a supplement to the curricula increased peer to peer interaction, created a supportive classroom learning community, potentially increased motivation, and had possibly had a positive effect on the student retention rate. 

     I was a little disappointed to read that there was no real impact on the use of the blogs and the increase of the students' reading comprehension levels. I think as readers we simply expect the results to be significant but sometimes that isn't the case. I think that with more studies researching the impact of blogs in teacher education programs and in the classroom we better understand what aspects of blogs are appealing to learners and aid in learning. I feel that blogs in this course could very much help increase reading comprehension but there was an added challenge of teaching the participating instructors about blogs and how to implement them during implementation rather than prior to implementation. Also the instructors themselves did not feel confident in using the blogs and felt they needed more support which may have had an impact in the manner that the blogs were integrated into the curricula. 

     Overall I think the study showed that blogs had only positive impacts for learners and did not hinder the students' achievement.