Friday, December 4, 2009
Emma Heinlen- My Prezi Final Media Presentation
Please follow the link for better viewing. http://prezi.com/lcdn3bisjxob/
For the Video Summary, Click here:
Amanda Lange. Mod14: Used screencast and Prezi
http://prezi.com/d3zem5phsbtu/
Monday, November 16, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Emma HeinlenTechnological Tools for Assisting Students who are English Language Learners (ELLs) and for each Too, Noting Strategies for Teaching ELLs.
A computer can increase the use of verbal speaking to learn another language. Computer books are interactive stores that are on a computer screen and often have real voices that read aloud and different effects. A study showed that the verbal interaction can be facilitated by computers. Vocabulary development can be influenced by including pictures and definition and often the ability to recall the vocabulary is more long-term. Also programs can be used to create memory books that allow students to be creative and use sounds and video to create a project with which they can show their parents. Students also could use e-mail to send emails to other students or teacher in another language and use an internet dictionary to help create a response. There are many different types of tools found on the internet or that can be bought, such as different software, which assist students learning another language.
English Learning Students
There are also videos that you can access to not only have the students hear what they’re learning, but you can show them new and interesting ways to learn things. Learning a new language isn’t just involved with classes, tests, and quizzes. It involves participating in real one on one activities. It’s not something that you can just take a break from once you’re done with the classes if you actually want to take part in “living with the language”. It’s something you must commit to and be dedicated for. You can help these students by making sure they’re up to date on their knowledge of the internet and computers. They cant use any of the advices without them. Hopefully with the help of you and the dedication of the student you can have them become a full fledged English speaking student.
Resources
"Innovative Ways to Assist English Language Learners." ConnectED. 06/10/2009. Web. 11 Nov 2009. http://connected.waldenu.edu/index.php/blogs/34-educations-cutting-edge/449-innovative-free-ways-to-assist-english-language-learners.html
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Amanda Lange: Technological Tools for Assisting Students who are English Language Learners and for each Tool, Noting Strategies for Teaching ELLs
By Juliette Heinze | November/December 2004
This article addresses how many teachers with English language learners may speak the language of the English language learners, but has never had the proper training to support these students and give them the vocabulary that they need. It explains how to compensate for this there are many technologies available that can help increase and English language learner’s vocabulary. This article divides the technologies into three general categories, which are image galleries, multilingual books, and multimedia projects. After each category it gives a description of how these categories help assist students along with some examples which fit into the categories.
The image gallery category explains how images provide “contextual clues” to help English language learners determine meaning. An example of an available tool accessible for almost all teachers is a “google image search.” Teachers can pull up images for English language learners to see and use to help determine meanings, and these images can be easily printed in minimal time. The category of multilingual books includes audio books created by children who speak the different language and can be accessed online by English language learners through programs such as “duel language showcase.” In he multimedia project category, the article explains how in upper level grades there is a higher demand of more advanced vocabulary and English language learners may have huge difficulty as a result. Multimedia projects however allow students to see, hear, and experience information through different types of media such as videos, pictures, and sounds that can help English language learners depict meanings of certain vocabulary terms or concepts that they may not have been able to grasp if just reading text.
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=10516
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Amanda Lange's Podcast
Websites addressing technology tools for assisting students with special and/or diverse needs and noting the specific learning outcomes for each technology.
Amanda Lange:TechnologicalTools for Assisting Students with Special and/or diverse needs
The article “Special Technological possibilities for Students with Special Needs” is a very informative and helpful article. It discusses multiple different technologies available for students with various special needs. It discusses how assistive technology devices can take many different forms depending on the special needs. Some of these needs include technologies required to assist in different language and vision-related problems, and can assist with speech output, word predictions, and speech recognition. “Talking software” in which there are verbal directions or verbal reinforcement like “good job” and “correct” as well as verbal outputs that can guide students verbally through software and learning are great successes for students with visual problems. There are also many online books in which the books are read out loud and in crisp and clean voices at a slow pace that also act as verbal aids to those with visual problems. There are also programs that read sentences back to students after they create them as well as whole paragraphs so people who are blind can type their work and hear and understand their writing as a whole.
This article also touches base with programs that hare available to students with language deficits, such as “Co:Writer” and “textHELP!” These programs predict the words a user types and brings up a list of words they might use in the context of their sentence, and they can scroll through the different words and choose which they need. However, there are some criticisms of this program that the article addresses. This includes teachers believing it may slow some students down because after each keystroke they now have a new list of words to select from and it takes a considerable amount of time to review each new set of choices. Teachers argue that the time required to look at all the different words may “take away from the creative element of writing,” and that it may in fact be more work for the student. This article is a great resource that exemplifies different technologies available for students with special needs and describes and explains their usefulness as well.
http://people.virginia.edu/~har4y/edlf345/elementary/files/special_needs.pdf
Emma Heinlen Podcast
This podcast reviews two articles about Technological Tools for Assisting Students with Special and/or Diverse Needs and Noting the Specific Learning Outcomes for each Technology.
Emma HeinlenTechnological Tools for Assisting Students with Special and/or Diverse Needs and Noting the Specific Learning Outcomes for each Technology
This website reviews how to use technology to help teach different students with diverse needs. First it discusses the use of choice for the students. The students can choose something that they may be more interested in for the creation of a webquest. “In short, the assignments encourage students to make sense of the past through the lens of their own life experiences”. Also it is possible to utilize Gardner’s multiple intelligences by offering choices of assignments based off of those intelligences. However, choosing 4 of the 8 assignments allows for a challenge. There are further examples about physical disabilities. Computers or voice-recognition software allow students with physical disabilities to complete assignments efficiently. This also can be used outside of the classroom during tests so as not to embarrass the student who is dealing with the disability.
The article seems to be somewhat useful and has examples of ways to include different objectives with different styles of learning. However, it would be interesting to know more about the diversity of the techniques for more mental disabilities. It covers important topics such as assignments that give students a choice, disabilities, providing a variety of materials, and helping students learn from their differences. It would be important for a teacher to be aware of what the article discusses, however the teacher would probably need supplemental information.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
fcat
I’m sure that we all know about the dreaded FCAT that we continuously and painfully went through from Elementary all the way up to high school. However, as much as we hated the test, it has given us plenty of information on students. These tests shows us how we have improved over the years and have helped us decide on what level classes we need to be taking. While, every system has their flaws, the site on the FCAT that I had found shows plenty of research and statistics on all of the Florida students. The website has an area where all of the FAQ are asked and even has up feedback (both negative and positive) on their site.
The whole site seems to be very beneficial to say the least. I like how it shows Florida’s improvement in education and I also like how informative the site is. I always thought it would be a large process to obtain any of this information. It is nice to know that all the information anybody may need to know on the FCAT is right before your eyes, with only a few clicks. Even if you’re somebody that doesn’t believe in what the FCAT does for students, this site still shows plenty of statistics that may be able to sway your decision otherwise. The information is great and a good way to show our students improvements!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Emma Heinlen: Websites Providing Test Data from National, State, and Local Educational Resources
The School district mapping and demographic data link (3rd ) allows comparison between different schools in a district in any state in the country. There are many options for comparison and although many of the districts need much zooming in to see individual school statistics. The final is the Census 2000 school district profiles. This requires a comparison of two separate school districts and shows information of sex and age, total household members, education level, tenure statistics, etc. Overall these sources seem very valuable and the comparisons to other counties seem to add another level of understanding to where a district stands. Although the information may be a little confusing to understand, with further analysis the ideas of where one county needs to improve could be very important.
http://nces.ed.gov/datatools/index.asp?DataToolSectionID=5
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Amanda Lange : Websites Providing Test Data from National, State, and Local Educational Resources
This website originates from the Harvard college library and has a large variety of different websites all relating to providing test data from national, state, and local education resources. What is useful about this website is that it contains data for the United States as well as International resources and with each source given, there is a few sentences of detail of what the sources will be about. These website sources range from “providing data relating to faculty salaries, enrollment, student activities, etc” to search engines in which data can be searched for alphabetically (“FedStats”). This website is overall a great and very helpful resource that includes a variety of different resources pertaining specifically to topics relating to providing test data from national state and local education.
http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/education/index.html
Friday, October 2, 2009
Amanda Lange: Two Websites Providing Tutorials for Using Word, PowerPoint and Excel in K-12 Classrooms.
Very organized and helpful website. Offers links for K-12 on various subjects and contains tutorials that are easy to follow for both Excel and Powerpoint.
2) http://www.fsdb.k12.fl.us/RMC/tutorials/office.html
Provides many links to specific kinds of tutorials for using Powerpoint and Word in the classroom for K-12 in a very organized way, and has many different types of links including using these programs on other computers such as Macs.
