Thursday, December 1, 2016

Class Reflection

In this class, we have done multiple different projects that have helped me learn how to better assist my students in the future classroom. The first project we were assigned was the concept map. I did my concept map on the five senses, and how they could be identified in the winter time. For adults, this seems like a silly concept; however, for pre-school and kindergartners this concept is something fairly new, maybe even brand new, for them. Also, the concept maps help the students to sort of navigate themselves through the lesson being taught; they are useful with any type of lesson ranging from math and science to PE and music. I can definitely see myself using this type of learning for my future classroom.
The second activity we did was the Web Tools: Rubric, TrackStar, and creating online puzzles. I did my TrackStar and Rubric on the importance of independent reading in the classroom. My Rubric was based specifically on Reading Fairs that will motivate the children to participate in independent reading because there is a prize at the end if the judges think they met all the criteria. For the online puzzles, I made 2 separate puzzles one of them was a crossword puzzle on adjectives and the other was a word search on double -e, long -e vowel spelling words. I can more than definitely use the online puzzle maker for my classroom because it's a good way to teach without them knowing their learning. I could possibly use the Rubric maker for my classroom if I teach an age over pre-school or kindergarten, and I would not use the TrackStar.
The third project that we were assigned was the Google Groups Assignments we did the story and the Presentation. The story my group did was a spin-off of the Disney Channel show Phineas and Ferb. The story was named The Impossible Jake and Spot, which is about a little boy, his best friend, and his dog who go on adventures together. My Google Presentation's focus was on Sight Words for kindergartners. I do not think I will use these applications in my classroom because I have PowerPoint on my computer, and I aim to teach the younger children. I did learn that if you do not have the Microsoft applications on your computer then you can use your gmail account to access a Presentation maker.
These were my 3 favorite assignments to work on because they sparked creativity inside me to see that there are new ways to teach children where we can make it fun for them. This class has been very beneficial and I had a great time learning everything!

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Assistive Technology

This is a screenshot of the first part of my paper. I only wrote about a half a page more, but I am so passionate about this subject that my fingers would not stop typing once they started. I have always wanted to learn more about ways to help my future students as much as I can. I have learned a lot about the different types of resources that are available to me on the internet for students with learning disabilities. If I were to encounter a learning challenged student in my classroom eventually, I know I would be prepared with all of the available resources out there to help them. My favorite by far, as mentioned in the paper, would be the interactive read-along video we created. There are multiple ways to edit these videos so that it is easier for children with disabilities to learn the same materials that their peers are learning.