Blog Post 13

Create an assignment for a Blog Post I should have created in your area of speciality (math, history, elementary ed, special ed, whatever). Write the instructions that I should have put here. Then do it.


Whole Brain Learning
Watch the videos below, and write a quality post on what you think of Whole Brain Teaching.
1. How to Begin Whole Brain Teaching: 1
2. Whole Brain Teaching, First Grade Classroom

Whole Brain Teaching is a method that integrates an effective classroom management system with learning approaches that tap the way your brain learns best. This approach is amazingly effective, and fun for both the teacher and students.I think whole brain teaching is a wonderful concept to incorporate into the classroom. It works well with any subjects! It seems to help manage the classroom better than any management tips I have ever heard or ever observed. It might have seemed a little absurd when I was first introduced to this concept, but I quickly realized it was a must to incorporate into the classroom.

C4K April

This week's C4K, I read Quinlan's post, "Plastic Fantastic". She made a slide show using google slides, to tell everyone about the good and bad things that come from plastic bags. She tells us how they are good for carrying food, but bad because it takes 500 years to break down.

My Reply:
Quinlan, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama, in the USA. I enjoyed your slide show on the good and bad things that come from plastic bags. I didn't know most of that until I read your slides. This is a great and helpful post. Keep up the good work!

This weeks C4K, I read Adrienne's post, All about Haiti. Adrienne talks about Haiti's poverty and the island location. She talks about the earthquake and the tragedy it caused. In her post she says, "It was sad because many people died - over 200 000! Many of the houses got destroyed and fell down and people had no food to eat at all. People were crying and the babies were crying too."

My Reply:
Hello Adrienne, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama in the USA. This is a great post to inform those who don't know what happened in Haiti. It was very sad, indeed.

Blog Post 12

By: Amber Harris:

What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher?

After watching, "Assistive Technologies for Vision and Hearing Impaired Children", the video clearly shows educators that if they utilize the technologies available they can actually change a learning experience for a child with either a visual or hearing impairment. I agree that more awareness should be given to professionals to incorporate these types of technologies for children who not only suffer from sensory impairments,but for some teachers there is a resistance to incorporating new media in their daily teaching for the benefit of all students. More teachers need to be equipped with the skills to use these technologies. As with all professional learning surrounding the use of technology, teachers cannot expect to be handed a 'how to' manual on how to use and implement these technologies.
With some research on my own, I asl found the webpage "Computer Based Assistive Technology." This webiste gives 10 assistive technologies, such as Speech Synthsis Software. "Speech synthesizers are basically screen readers. They read text that is displayed on the computer monitor, allowing students to gain independent access to assignments, books, and research. Teachers or students do, however, need to pre-scan material before they can use it. Speech synthesis allows them to access the print in textbooks, and thereby the curriculum, in a way that would otherwise be more difficult, if not impossible. It may even increase student motivation to read." (Montali & Lewandowski, 1996)
How students can use speech synthesis software:
1. Where text is available in digital form (i.e., on the computer or diskette), students can have text read to them.
2. Some screen readers can read in a variety of applications, including the Internet.
3. Some Internet sites have collections of textbooks available to be read by screen readers.
4. Students can control the pace of the reading and the reading selection, through having the computer read only the words they are having difficulty decoding or a whole paragraph or passage.
5. Students can manipulate the rate of read-back to allow for variations in the speed they process auditory information.


By: Mallory Harris

The driving question for this post was, "What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher?"

For this assignment, I Googled assistive technology in the classroom. There were some pretty interesting results. The first resource that I cam across was Bookshare. It is a website with a free online library for people with print disabilities. The website help people who have trouble reading.
This website seemed like it could be very useful for me in the future because I am going to be an english teacher and some of my students may be able to get some use out of the site.

The next resource that I found was Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology. This is a website that offers information in its resources section as well as access to the QIAT list serv. The list serv is an excellent forum to keep current with new developments in AT and the latest websites and other resources.

This would be an imprtant website when working with assistive technology because it could keep me up to date with the standards.

I also watched the video assigned by Dr.Strange called Assistive Technologies for Vision and Hearing Impaired Children. The video was about the different types of assistive technologies that can be found in the classroom and listed some of the reasons why it is important to know about these technologies.


By Sheridan Jones

For this weeks blog assignment, the driving question is, "What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher?". To be honest, I have not thought about what technological tools that could be out there to help with special needs students. When I received this topic, I was actually able to put myself in a current teachers shoes and began to think "what if" I have a student that is blind or deaf. The videos that were assigned for us to watch were very useful and relating to what questions I had about this topic.

The first video, The Mountbatten created by The Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, was relating to a device that uses audio/feedback. It can save files, transfer files to a computer, and receive files from a computer. This device is great for a student and/or teacher who does not know brail. Blind students are now not limited to what they can do not but rather be included in projects and be held to a responsibility of doing their part of the work.

The second video, Teaching Math to the Blind by Professor Art Karshmer University of San Francisco, informs us how they have created a touch-pad that blind students will be able to use to learn mathematics. Students will be able to use special (braille engraved) blocks and align math problems in a 2-dimensional way so they may learn as normal students learn. The touch-pad will keep track of the coordinates of each block students can keep up with where they have laid previous blocks. It is a foundation for blind students so that they may learn the basics of mathematics. The picture below is a touch-screen display of graphical mathematics for blind students.

This last video, iPad usage for the blind, I found the most amazing and intriguing. Apple has developed a voice-over for the iPad that enables the blind to use the iPad just as a normal person with normal vision can. Wesley (who is blind) demonstrates this in the video by using the voice-over on the iPad and telling/showing us what all he can do with it. It is amazing technology that expands the blinds capability so far. I love how Apple has created such an amazing tool that not only helps for learning purposes, but also, to help create the feeling of normality to blind students/people. 

By:Tyler Mills

The driving question for this blog post is, "What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher?" The video that I found interesting in the blog instructions was ipad usage for the blind. It showed a man named Wesley Majerus who was blind fully operate a stock ipad. He was giving lessons and tips of how to use the ipad as a vision impaired student. Wesley demonstrated how to operate using Voice Over. The system works by simply dragging your finger over items that appear on the screen. The Voice Over systems reads out whatever your finger comes across and makes a ticking noise when your finger is over a blank area. This is extremely helpful for a vision impaired student and helps them keep up with the rest of the class.

Through my own research I came across an ability to dictate what you want your apple product to type. The process is called dictation which is available on apple products. While viewing the video Dictation on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, by Steve Dotto I got an idea of how dictation works. Dictation works by saying anything aloud and your device typing the words out for you. This may help out a student that is born with no arms or hands to type. The system can be used to type papers in microsoft word and other systems. Mentioned in the video by Mr. Dotto, the dictation can not be used in google drive. I still believe this can be a big help to a handicap person.

C4T 4

This weeks C4T, I read Henrietta Miller's blog post, "Collaborative Meetings". Miller talks about how she often has collaborative meetings with fellow teachers, but she questions what collaboration really is? Here is what Miller had to say about it: "A collaborative meeting will be one which is not about agreement but about creation. From this I am realising that it is no use to anyone if during a planning meeting we all sit around agreeing with each other. As it is only through listening to each other and recognising our differences of opinions, that we will truly create something new. We are not there just to cooperate. We need to grapple with dissent. This is hard for teachers. We are accomplished and experienced, masters of our classroom practice. Secondly collaboration is not about communication. We are not meeting to exchange ideas but to create new ones. We are meeting to share a process and create a shared product. My meetings have a purpose to them. So this purpose needs to be clearly defined with shared protocols and clear goals." To read more from her, visit the link above.

My Reply:
Hello, I am a student at the University of South Alabama in EDM310. I will be following your blog for the next couple of weeks. I really enjoyed your post. I have never though that much into collaboration before. In our EDM310 class, we are required to work collaboratively for some projects. This information will be very helpful. Thanks so much! You can visit my blog, harrisamberedm310.blogspot.com or our class blog at, edm310.blogspot.com if you'd like.


For my final C4T post, I am reading and responding to Henrietta Miller's post, "No Hands Up", and It was an eye opener. She talks about having a specific time for questions, where students names will be drawn at random to answer instead of having the students who know the answer to raise their hand. In her post she says, "I have tried really hard to find other ways of encouraging student participation besides ‘hands up’ including a pack of cards with students names on, that I hold in my hands and use to randomly select names. As well as named popsicle sticks which I can draw from a mug that sits on my desk. Again I have had mixed success with these methods. After my PD with Dylan Wiliam though I have been reflecting on this. With determination to get it right this year."

My Reply:
Mrs. Miller, I very much enjoyed your post, but as a student and not yet a teacher, I must say that I like the Hands up for questions. I agree that it is good to have "question time" to see if the students are listening, but hands up for answers allows the eager students to answer. I think having a student who knows the answer, say it aloud can help the students who don't know it. I will be sure to think more of your idea and perhaps use it in my future classroom.

C4K March

This week's C4K, I was asked to respond to the blog post, Our Visit to Butterfly Creek by room 6 @Pt England School. This blog post is very special because it is by a second grade class, all the way in New Zealand! Teacher, Ms. She has been special friends of EDM310 for almost 5 years! The class made a video of pictures from their trip to Butterfly Creek! They looked like they were having a blast with all those butterflies.
My Reply:
Hey everyone! My name is Amber Harris, and I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. This video is awesome! It looks like y'all are having the best time! Did you all enjoy the butterflies? Which ones were your favorite?


This week's C4K, I read Shyla Lee's blog post, on her class swimming experience. She talks about her swimming instructor, and their time in the pool. She talks about the type of strokes her class worked on and what she, herself needs to improve on. Shyla ends her post with, "I feel good about swimming. It’s a good and athletic and sports and its good for your health."
My Reply:
Hello Shyla, I really liked your blog post on swimming, because during the summer I am a swimming teacher. Swimming is in fact very good for your body. Did you know it works every muscle in your body? I'm so glad you enjoyed your swimming lesson!


This week's C4K, I read Htawaras's blog post, "Why is the moon upside down?". In this post, he talks about the moons different angles and how sometimes it looks upside down. Also that the moon is different depending on where you are looking at it from.
My Reply:
Htawara, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I want you to know that I really like your post. I never thought the moon as being "upside down", or that people in other parts of the world see it differently. This is a great post!

C4T #3

This week's C4t, I was asked to read Tom Schimmer's post, Accurate Grading with a Standards Based Mindset. In this post, Schimmer talks about schools different approaches to grading. Schimmer has this to say, "While the standards-based grading movement is in full swing, not every school, district, or state is in exactly the same place. The difference is attributable to a variety of factors including the level of the school within which a standards-based approach to grading is being implemented. Elementary school standards-based report cards often look very different from middle or even high school standards-based report cards; that’s not a bad thing as the application of standards-based reporting at each level needs to be suitable for that level. The point is that schools and districts across the country are at various places along the standards-based grading continuum. While some have implemented fully, others are still exploring." Schimmer thinks that a student’s grade should represent their full level of proficiency and not just the average of where they were and where they are now. Schimmer has a great point with this new grading idea and writes, "A standards-based mindset is separate from how we report grades. With a standards-based mindset you can still report traditional grades, it’s just that how you determine grades is significantly different." To read more on Tom Schimmers, please feel free to visit the link posted above.

My Reply:
Hello, I am an undergraduate student at the University of South Alabama. I am following your blog this week for my EDM310 technology class. Growing up with Standard Based Grading, I really relate to the points you have made. All my years in school, grading has always been the same. If you start off bad, you end bad. This type of grading really puts a high stress level on students. I personally believe that grading should not be based on how a students does on things such as, homework, quizzes, and test. Learning goes much further than than just studying material to remember for 1 test. Students need a grading process that individually fits them. Not everyone learns the same. If you would like, you can visit my blog, Amber Harris and my class blog at, edm310.blogspot.com. This is a great post!


This week's C4T, I read another one of Mr. Schimmer's blog posts titled, "Most Recent? Most Frequent? Most Accurate?" . As a student I have always hated being graded on my pace of work. In his post, Schimmer states, "What we have collectively realized is that the speed at which a student achieves has inadvertently become a significant factor in determining a student’s grade, especially when determined within a traditional grading paradigm. When averaging is the main (or sole) method for grade determination, success is contingent upon early success or the average of what was and what is will continue to distort the accuracy of the students’ grades. Never forget that every 40 needs an 80, just to get a 60. That’s pure mathematics; the lower the initial level, the more a student has to outperform his/herself in order to achieve even a minimal level of proficiency." Schimmer's ideas on teaching are absolutely brilliant. I advise everyone to click the link above and read more.
My Reply:

Mr. Schimmer, I am a student at the University of South Alabama enrolled in EDM310. I really enjoyed reading your post. It gave me some great thoughts on becoming a future teacher. I agree that the pace someone works should not be how they are graded. In my freshmen year of college, had a class where we had to come in everyday and spend the first 10 minutes on a given topic and write a 7-10 sentence paragraph. Although to others, it may seem easy, but for me, I felt rushed and couldn't think off the "top" of my head. How can I manage this for the writing part of my future classrooms?

Project 10