EDUC 5173- July 8, 2015

       

                           Ban The Average

Requires Adjustable Seats

Designing Fighter Jets

"The Myth of Average" is a Ted Talk about how we need to design our classrooms for those who have Special Needs, not just for those students, but because it benefits everyone. This is the Universal Design model.  Just like the many dimensions of an aircraft, there are many dimensions of learners. If we design for the average, and many students are not average in all areas, we are doing them a disservice.
            Watching the videos and images of Tyler and Zach, who have Cerebral Palsy and have a device that is used to communicate, that can be accessed with the tongue, reminds me of how much we need to expand our minds in order to think of the solutions that will help children.  We need to look for the things that will motivate them, and realize that the pencil and paper is often their greatest barrier.
                   There are Lego apps and Tap Tap Baby, Garage Band, Baby Piano, and many other apps that allow students to be actively engaged from anywhere they go. Technology can make it easy to engage students, if we have the right attitude and know-how.

"For me it is my feeling of ineffectiveness with the use of technology, that prevents me from being as excited as I should be."

              We have been given the opportunity to explore a lot of different Apps, and I know that my comfort level will increase as I have more exposure to it. Already I have learned the handy trick of double tapping a button in order to view multiple windows simultaneously on the I-pad. 
            POLL-EV is an app that can be used to take a poll to see what people think of a certain topic. In class we used Wordle to display our results.  It may be useful to;

1.  use a poll to find out what students know about a topic that you are introducing, like in a KWL
2.  Brainstorm ideas, it could be used in Math for Data collection 
3.  Secret Santa, or anything else that requires anonymity. 
4. When discussing Sexual Education, it could be a great way to encourage people to ask questions.  
5. If your entire school has a choice to make, about the Spring Fair or a Sock Hop, etc. you could poll your whole school and have a decision made before Recess.

Today we used: Book Creator: Which we can use for creating Social stories.  It allows us to make Journals, books, PDFs, and then export them to iBook.

I-pads have accessibility options that can be used anywhere, for all apps.  Zoom is great for students who have visual impairments.  Invert color can be used for students with ADHD.  Grayscale can make it less distracting, because it removes the colors from the screen.  You can also use subtitles and captioning for the visually impaired.  Guided Access allows parents and teachers to control how much the students are able to control on their own.