CLASS THIS WEEK

AGENDA FOR NEXT CLASS

2. 30 minutes: Revisit syllabus and consider where we are headed. Take a look at what is going on in Blogger-land. Amnesty on Blackboard issues & the like

I am what I learn

Virtual Debating

Online Professional Development

Action Research

Social Justice

On the topic of good blogs

Survey-rama

NICHY – National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities http://www.nichcy.org/Pages/Home.aspx

IRIS Center - http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/resources.html

ATIA Triumph Stories http://www.atia.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3403

** Great place to start - WNY resource to get AT in your own class - http://atto.buffalo.edu/

Journal of Special Education Technology http://www.tamcec.org/jset/

Center for Implementing Technology in Education http://www.cited.org/index.aspx

CAST – Center for Applied Special Technology http://www.cast.org/

CEC - Council for Exceptional Children http://www.cec.sped.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home

Technology and Media Division http://www.tamcec.org/

DAISY - http://www.daisy.org/

American Association of the Blind http://www.afb.org/

National Institute for the Deaf http://www.ntid.rit.edu/

tool: Sign language browser http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/

Autism Spectrum http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer

Specific Learning Disability http://www.ldonline.org/

Speech and Language Impairment http://www.naset.org/speechandlanguage2.0.html

Occupational Therapy http://www.aota.org/Consumers/WhatisOT/CY/Articles/School_consumer.aspx

Handwriting without Tears http://www.hwtears.com/parents/parentextras

Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org/tech-integration

Iris Center http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/resources.html

TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/)

CLASSROOM 2.0 http://www.classroom20.com/

EDUCATION http://education.ning.com/

Language Learners (good overview of Web 1.0/2.0 and the future!) http://education.ning.com/video/1027485:Video:36368

Wikispaces http://www.wikispaces.com/site/features

http://etherpad.com/

http://pixton.com/

http://www.toondoo.com/

3. 45 minutes: Online Literacy activity

4. 15 minutes: Do we teach it, or not? Do we use it, or not? How do we perceive assistive technology - what is our framework? How can we better consider the framework of our students?

5. Group work

• Problem Based Learning - The SO WHAT factor

• What are essential features of a website that is designed to engage students? How can we create one that is geared toward preparing High School students to consider a theatrical performance?

Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: The World's Largest English Department

Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: The World's Largest English Department

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What is this? Consider for a few minutes

CLASS THIS WEEK

Please watch this 4 minute video to get you in the right frame of mind for learning.

Bring some caffeine, a digital camera, your computer, maybe an idea or two about how to use class time to make a project you can share with your own students.

Here is a digital project that I did last month with a group of science teachers, SCIENTOX

We will make a movie in a similar genre but will call it TECHNO-TOX.

Mod 4 - Exemplar on Delicious

This is my delicious tag cloud. Take a screen capture of yours an upload it to your blog too!

Imagine... how could you use delicious to plan an event? write a paper? organize research topics with a small group?

MOD 3 - exemplar

After watching The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature and reading Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age (Seimens, 2005), my perspective and unquestionable faith in "constructivism" as the ultimate learning theory has swayed a bit.

As Seimens' noted in Connectivism, "A central tenet of most learning theories is that learning occurs inside a person." (3) This grabbed my attention.

For the analogy, I chose to compare a learner to an alchemist. My vision of an alchemist is connected to what Seimens discussed in the video, The Conflict of Learning Theories and Nature. He referred to Vygotsky's stance that our use of "language gives birth to our thoughts" and I think this is what learners/alchemists do.

We have the desire to externalize our thoughts and Seimens invites us to see that it is the theory of connectivism that will transform our learning and our thoughts beyond ourselves.

I took this picture in San Miguel Allende, an artsy community in the mountains of Mexico. I walked by this woman every morning on my way into town. She stationed herself on the stoop outside a convenience store and collected spare change. One day I sat down with her. I used the display screen on my digital camera to show her pictures I had taken throughout my stay in San Miguel. Although, my spanish is not so good, I could tell she like what she saw. Magdelene agreed to let me take her picture. It is one of my all time favorites.

Like an alchemist, I considered what was separate (my existence in her world and her in mine) and I joined together a moment that could have been left behind.

As Seimens reflected, "Learning theories are concerned with the actual process of learning, not with the value of what is being learned."(3) I agree. This picture is an example of connectivism and the value inherent to a thought/moment that I externalized and learned.

Class #2 It's GOOGLE time

MOD 1

Please take a look at my blog if you ever need any ideas. This is a course that I took and am now teaching, so I am very familiar with the Mods.

I look forward to seeing you Thursday.

Take care,

Shelley