Reflection for 11/8

Happy Monday!

This week, I’m actually a little digitally speechless (which is very unusual!). I think I’m meeting-ed out this week, so much so, that I am feeling a little passionless about any one particular hot topic. All the PLC, RTI, social studies curriculum, universal design, report card talk has fried my brain!

A few disjointed thoughts… I was glad to learn about Grab last week – I have used it before, but it had been awhile, and it was a nice refresher. I could see applications of that program in making technology manuals for kids (0r adults) to use. I am also excited to learn more about Podcasts and the application for that technology in my classroom. I haven’t tried creating or playing any yet, but plan to tackle that media in the coming weeks. I could see broadcasting information for kids from one of the many Podcasts available on I-tunes. I could also see the application for Podcasts on a sub day. You could leave your instructions in a Podcast format so that the kids could hear directions and guidelines as intended by the classroom teacher. I suppose I would have to have a technologically-savvy sub, but I think we are moving toward that (hey, and you could always burn it on a cd!).

Our objectives are coming along. I think we came a long way from our original draft. We were also to rework or delete any objectives that we perceived as subjective or unclear. We refined exactly what we were looking for in the process and narrowed our statements down to the essential ideas and skills.

We really struggled with finding a way to assess voice in writing. I think I’ve always struggled with this in my correction of student work. It is hard to say exactly what voice is. It can also be very subjective. What I consider good voice could be very different that Janet or Julie’s perception of the same piece of writing. So, we dealt with this by debating what we specifically wanted to see in the students’ writing – and eliminating the term “voice” altogether. I think in the end, we were able to develop quantifiable objectives by really thinking about precisely what we wanted instead of using blanket terminology (like voice).

Although I’ve known this is what we needed to do to develop objectives, it wasn’t until we had drafted some vague ones that we were able to rework those ideas and design concrete and quantifiable objectives. It also took the discussion between my colleagues and myself to really hash out what we wanted and how we were to word our demands.

I think this process will help me in creating everyday lesson plans. I will be able to think about the “meat and potatoes” (or essential understandings, to be more technical) I want the kids to gather from a lesson. This focus should help drive my instruction and assessment. I also plan to work harder to make my objectives (daily and unit) more available to students. It gives the kids a sense of purpose and understanding when they can see what they are working toward and a possible route to get there.

I think that’s it for this week. I am looking forward to our “objective share” this week in class and hope that we will be able to cement our objectives and get to work on the assessment piece.

See you Thursday!

Article: How Can Teachers Promote the Use of Accessible Tech in schools?

Article 1: How can I advocate for universal design and accessible technologies for my students?

Burgstahler, S. (2004). How can K-12 teachers promote the use of accessible technology in schools? National Center on Accessible Information Technology in Education. Retrieved September 17, 2007, from http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?1252

This article presents useful definitions of terminology related to accessibility:

AT – Assistive Technology – grammar checks, text-to-speech technology, etc.

IT – Information Technology – computers, software, web sites, etc.

UD – Universal Design – In this sense, educators should be choosing products that are able to be utilized by everyone.

Accessible Information Technology – “Producers consider the needs of people when developing IT.”

The authors promote the idea that Accessible Technology & Information Technology can work together.

The authors point out that promoting Universal Design can lead to implementation of NCLB. It is also stated that educators can follow a four step plan to meet the needs of all learners.

1. Educators should be knowledgeable about UD and accessible technology. (In our case, check!)

2. Teachers should “identify the barriers” students have when they attempt to access technology and education. (Working on it…)

3. Districts should write a technology plan that is sensitive to learners’ needs. (Perhaps, next step?)

4. The plan should be instituted and be used to always consider accessibility in the purchasing and utilization of technology.
There are also some useful websites on this page that educators can use to access more information.