Project #16 Prezi

Here is Team Tokyo's Prezi. It is a portfolio of sorts of big projects we did throughout the semester.

C4T #4

C4T #4, comment #1

Flipping in Physical Education 2.0: It's all about the videos! is the first of Jason's posts that I get to comment on. This post is about the positives of "flipping the classroom" in physical education. Because this subject has so much importance on the how-to of sports, these out-of-class videos enable much more class time for the students to actually try the how-to's. Jason not only talks about his how-to videos, but also how he films his students for later analysis. He says it immensely helps them when they get to analyze themselves through video. In my comment, I spoke about flipping the classroom and his use of video analysis for his students. This blog was very helpful and I am sure I will look at it for reference if I am ever in the position of having to teach physical education.

C4T #4, comment #2

What is Flipped Coaching? is the second of Jason's posts that I am commenting on. This post is just explaining what flipping the classroom is and how you can move that to physical education. Jason makes the very good point of "Rather then spending valuable practice or PE class time on lecturing about a new skill or concept, you can make a short, simple video that conveys what is needed." This is why flipping the classroom is such a great idea. It gives students more time to practice the skill rather than learning it. In my comment, I told Jason of how I was skeptical of flipping the classroom at first but now I thought it was a great idea.

Blog Assignment #13

"Bring Your Own Device" Mobile County is moving towards this initiative. Research it and give reasons as to why or why not you think it is a good idea.

Through many of our endeavors in this very class, we have learned that the students in Baldwin County have a tremendous amount of access to school-owned technology such as iPads and laptops. In Mobile County, however, school officials are asking students to bring in their own devices- such as smart phones, Kindles, etc. They have named this BYOD- Bring Your Own Device. Personally, I absolutely think this is a great idea. This program was piloted at Cranford Burns Middle School. School system technology director David Akridge and Burns Principal Joe Adams had a few things to say about this new initiative. Since 75 percent of students at the school have such devices, Akridge said, "We might as well integrate them into their learning, so they learn how to use it for a good thing." This statement is so true! So many kids have access to some sort of smart device and they are constantly glued to them. Instead of these devices being a constant annoyance for teachers, allow the students to use them to further their education.

There are two main arguments that pop into someone's brain when this BYOD initiative comes up .The first is "What about the kids who do not have access to smart devices?" The answer is simple. Mobile County will have to invest in some technology so those kids can have access as well. The second argument is "The kids are not responsible enough to take care of these devices." Principal Joe Adams addressed this issue by saying, "they're the kids' own devices, so they're going to take care of them." If you would like to read the full article on this BYOD initiative at Burns Middle School, you can do so here.

I think the BYOD initiative is a great thing for Mobile County. Instead of spending money on new resources for the huge amount of students in the Mobile County School System, the students can be responsible to provide their own- if they already own one. Officials should make it clear, however, that in no sense of the world, are parents expected to buy smart devices for their students.

Blog Assignment #12

Here is Team Tokyo's blog about assistive technology. Enjoy!

In the video Assistive Technologies For Vision And Hearing Impaired Children we are presented with an alternative concept of the majority of our realities. I was reminded of a play I was part of called Children Of A Lesser God by Hessper Anderson and Mark Medoff. It is the story of a teacher and student coming to terms with different worlds. The teacher, able to hear is coming into a deaf school. The Student unable to hear, but able to form approximate words. (For the benefit of the audience I’m sure.) It was an experience that made me question my reality versus the realities of sight or hearing challenged people. Just as this video does.

That is where the similarities end. My high school experience wasn’t one that lead me to seek innovations able to bridge the gap between the everyday world so many of us take for granted and the soundless or shapeless world of the minority. This video isn’t an in-depth expose of the various tools and their usage, but it does present several suggestions to alleviate the gap left in the wake of a sight and touched based technological world.

For sometime now, 5 years if I had to guess, I have been exploring vastly different concepts of teaching from what I was comfortable with prior to a blind student. I’ll call her Mae for now. Mae was someone who became blind due to an accident. A car wreck left her unable to see anything. No shapes, colors, silhouettes or even light. Her mother helped her do a great many things including a bachelor's in Psychology. Mae lived alone and tried to be as much of a social butterfly as she was able. She had a very positive attitude and carried a smile on her face. She never missed an opportunity to make a joke about her condition and make people laugh allowing them to feel less concerned about hurting her feelings.

I met Mae at a practice party. Her mother, an avid dancer, brought her out. Mae had clearly danced previous to our meeting, but a little more dancing with me and she was eager to take some private lessons to improve her ability. I must admit, the task was daunting at first. The way we teach the various ballroom dances are visual based cues. I often stand in front or beside someone and let them mimic my movements. I could no longer say, “here do this” as a method of education. I found that I had to understand the way she experienced the world in order to properly communicate with her. I first discovered the attention that I devote to visual cues, she must devote to known factors of the room. I would walk her around the dance floor so she was aware of how much space we would be using. When discussing degrees of a turn I would have to talk in percentages of a turn or first inform her of what walls to face. She was an excellent follower, as she relied purely on tactile cues to know what to do or where to go. My time teaching Mae taught me more than I was able to relate to her. I am a far better communicator and educator thanks to her.

Memory lane trips aside, the driving question for this week’s assignment must be answered. First and foremost, I think our best tool to teaching anyone with sensory impairments is empathy. I don’t mean sympathy or pity in anyway and it shouldn’t be confused at this point. Empathy is the ability to see things from another’s perspective. Taking technology to task using empathy, how can we improve education for those with sensory impairments? My first thoughts goes to articles/videos I have seen recently about implants and the innovations science is creating to end the impairments of a vast number of ailments. Such as Bionic Eyes, Retinal Implants, and Bionic Ears. Those won’t help me in a classroom though.

As a PE teacher who hopes to bring ballroom dancing into classrooms, I have to deal with the crux of that issue. The National Center For Learning Disabilities website has a great many suggestions to deal with traditional classroom settings. I happen to be concerned with a non-traditional, not even sitting down setting. As I mentioned in a previous blog, a vibrating metronome app can assist someone that is without the ability to hear beats of a song. As for blind students, there isn’t an app for action. Short of the bionic eye implants I mentioned above, I know of no technology that will help someone learn how to waltz better than doing the waltz. Perhaps, items like Kinect can be used in schools the same way VISIONS in Manhattan is helping senior citizens with vision impairments. Xbox Kinect is a device that is connected to the TV through the Xbox gaming platform. In the current form it responds to voice commands and uses cameras to track the motions of the user. No remote needed. But it isn’t designed for be full audio feedback, the system isn’t something that can be used without sight at this time. I’m not a programer but I’m sure, once it’s set up, it can be used to inform a visually impaired student of their body position and help them correct problem areas such as arm level or posture. Things like Microsoft’s Kinect, Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s Playstation Move are all using a similar approach to motion controlled video games. Hopefully these companies will begin to see the further use in the field of visually impaired learning aides. I would even lend my voice and knowledge to work on a dance game. “Raise your right arm to a height that allows your partner to travel under it in a clockwise motion.” Yeah… I could do that. The search continues.

I watched the video “Teaching Math to The Blind-Professor Art Karshmer University of San Francisco”. This video mainly talks about how blind students can’t use a lot of mathematics only a rare amount of it. So this professor from the University of San Francisco is trying to experiment a better and more helpful way to let blind students teach and learn math as well.

Art Karshmer is the professor explaining this experiment and invented this scrabble-like object to help the students who are blind. What this scrabble-like object does is it has wooden pieces just like the game of scrabble does except instead on letters on the pieces it has numbers.

When you put now numbers on the board it has a sensor to tell the student/students what the number is and if you put an addition or subtraction problem down it will read it too you as well. In my own opinion, I think that this a really cool invention for blind kinds because it gives the students hands on mathematical aids, just like when people who see they write the math problem on a sheet of paper and work it out that way. This scrabble-like object is this same thing for blind students as us seeing students use paper to solve problems.

Hearing loss is something that can be detrimental in life— and in the classroom, especially. I speak from experience. I have significant hearing loss in one ear and I remember having to ask other students what the teacher’s instructions were or what he or she said. It was a waste of my time, as well as the other student’s time. Luckily, I have learned to adapt with my hearing loss. I try to sit closer to the teacher and make sure I pay close attention to what is said. For those with more serious hearing problems, this does not help much. But a FM System can. This system uses “radio signals to transmit amplified sounds.” The teacher wears a microphone connected to a transmitter, and the student wears the receiver that is tuned to a certain channel. These signals can be transmitted from as far as 300 feet and are easily used in public places. Since radio signals can be transmitted through walls, users should be aware of other users nearby and pick a different channel. Another assistive technology is a personal amplifier. This is better to use from day-to-day life. It amplifies sounds levels and decreases background noise. A personal amplifier can even come with a microphone to direct at the source of sound. I believe both of these tools can be extremely helpful in the classroom.

It may seem hard to imagine trying to talk to a child or an adult with Cerebral Palsy. That is just our assumption until we do further research. In this post I will be enlightening you upon assistive technology in the classroom for students with Cerebral Palsy.

Eye Access Technology (Tobii C12) allows students with cerebral palsy to communicate with

just heir eyes. The camera on the device picks up the movement of their eyes. C12 Speech Generating device by Tobii with an eye control module device. The device is called the Communicator Device. There are word pages to make sure the student's speech is making accurate progress despite their disability.
Here is a video of a student with cerebral palsy communicating with a teacher using the Tobii C12 Speech Generating Device.

Sources: Tobii Series

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/assistive-devices.aspx

C4KSummary for April

My first C4K for April is Desmond from Miss Ouano's class. His blog post is about Eating Pikopiko which he explains is a fern-like plant that tastes like asparagus and cucumber. In my comment, I told him that I had never heard of pikopiko before and now I knew how to cook it because of him.

My final C4K for this class is Lomio in Miss Lavakula's class. His blog post is a brochure that he made about local plants. He had pictures of three different plants and their descriptions. In my comment, I simply told him he did a great job on his brochure and I learned alot.

Project #12, Part B

Here is Team Tokyo's Project Based Learning Plan, presented via SMARTboard.

Project #10, Interview Movie

Here is my interview with Mrs. Medlin of Baker High School.

Blog Assignment #11

In my EDM310 class, I am a part of Team Tokyo. We have had many group assignments so far, and this blog post is one of them. We each took two videos and here are our responses. I encourage my readers to go check out my teammates Aaron and Leanna's blogs!

Brian Crosby, from the video Back To The Future, showed me how he has innovated the use of education to include experiments, technology, and networking to not only meet the standards, but to educate and engage the students in their own education. He reached out to others in the use of blogs. Not only the blogs his students read, but blogs twice removed from his typical blog circle. In this way, he exponentially increased his student’s networking and influence. At the start of the video, he showed how his students were unsure of the city they lived in; throughout the video he showed how he made those same students, not only aware of their city, but globally aware. Perhaps the most touching element was when they brought a typical issue of health concerns that keeps most students at home, into the classroom. Celeste was struggling with cancer and through the use of technology, she wasn’t just a student who fell through the red tape cracks. Crosby set up video sessions that kept her involved in the classroom environment. This type of interaction would have certainly kept up her morale and helped aid her recovery. “Now we are including Celeste in a regular day in school.” This simple statement from one of the students foreshadows Crosby’s follow up statement, “Not only are we learning but we are learning to change each others lives.” I wish I could do experiments in a class. As it is, P.E. majors have other duties. I have considered sending a balloon into the atmosphere in the past few years on my own. While I haven’t yet spent the time or money to learn and invest in this fun and simple idea, I’m sure, without any doubt, that those kids involved in that experiment will not soon forget it.

Paul Anderson’s video Blended Learning Cycle brought an interesting concept to bare in his AP Biology class. It is called Q.U.I.E.V.R.S. (Question, Investigate/Inquiry, Video, Elaboration, Review, Summary quiz). He starts a class with a Question and a Hook. In the video he used an Euler’s disc to both bring up the question, and by his method of presentation it creates and sets the hook all on its own. He goes through one of his lessons on evolution and shows how he uses this method of Q.U.I.E.V.R.S.. It’s a very student driven learning experience. He gives the students the content and informs them of what they are to know. If they have not met those standards by the time the quiz comes around, they are required to figure out what they are missing. He allows them to stumble on their own a few times before he intervenes. This self exploration and requirement to be self critical is essential to be an active learner. Again, if I were teaching a science class, I would steal a page from his play book. Self determination of education, is possibly one of the best things that a teacher can give a student.

In Mark Church's video Making Thinking Visible, he talked about students critical thinking. His idea was for the students to think of a banner from a video that they watched earlier in the week. In my opinion, I think that this video was talking about how the students should brainstorm things from stories they have listened to. For example, in the video the whole class reads a book and then they have to think and brainstorm on what the book was about. The teacher gave the student a piece of paper to make a banner about something in the story something that stood out to them. The question the video asks in the middle is “What’s it all about?”

In Sam Pane 4th Grade, a 4th grade teacher was talking about internet safety. To get the point across, he taught his students how to build their own superheroes on the computer. They were creating a Super Digital Citizen, then a comic in which this superhero can help them be safe on the internet. I thought that this video was very good. I especially liked the quote from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” I also liked how the students built their own superhero and made a comic out of pictures of themselves and the superhero they built.

In the video Project Based Learning, the viewer visited a school in Canada in which they integrated History, Language Art, and Information Processing. Instead of having three separate class times, these three classes met together with all three teachers, and crossed-over subjects. By integrating each of these three subjects within each other, it created much more time for students’ ideas to develop. It also gave the teachers more time to spend time with each student to assist their developing ideas. I learned from the teachers in this video that it is extremely important to get advice from a variety of different people because this enables your ideas to fully develop.

In the video Roosevelt Elementary’s PBL Program, the teachers explained how Project Based Learning presents in-depth, “real world” problems and allows students to research their answers. It also allows students to practice public speaking at a young age, which can help develop their skills and let them practice. I learned from the teachers in this video that through PBL you can bring your community into the classroom and it is a great benefit to the students. It also creates curriculum integration, as the prior video demonstrated. Curriculum integration builds background knowledge and helps students in all areas.

Thanks for reading!

Team Tokyo

Project #15, Project Based Learning Plan #3

Here is my third Project Based Learning Plan.

C4KSummary for March

My first C4K for March is Alamoni from Mrs. She's class. He wrote a story about Harold the Giraffe and drew a picture. In his story, he described what the giraffe looked like with very good descriptive language. In my comment, I asked him if he had ever seen a giraffe up close and told them how tall they actually were. His English was very good as well.

My second C4K this month is Lisia. She made a very good Google Slides Presentation on how to solve a math problem. In my comment, I told her how good her presentation was and how I used the same method to solve some of my math problems.

My final C4K this month is Annliz. She wrote a very descriptive story about her sister snoring and her not being able to sleep. In my comment, I praise Annliz for her writing and told her that I felt like I was right there in the room with her.

C4T #3

C4T #3, comment #1

Assistive Technology Toolkit: Multimodal Supported Writing – Annotated Bibliography is my first post to comment on for C4T #3. It's author, Jen Deyenberg, is an educator with ten years experience in the field. This post is simply two examples of annotated bibliographies. In my comment, I asked Jen if there was a place for annotated bibliographies in the elementary classroom, and if so, what would be the best way to present it to the students. Her two examples were very detailed and are something I can refer back to later. C4T #3, comment 2

The second post of Deyenberg's I am commenting on is Assistive Technology Toolkit: Multimodal Supported Writing Tools. This post is about the different things you can use to enhance just plain words. Deyenberg connects the reader to Mindmup, which is basically a collaborative mind-mapping tool. She explains the pros and cons of this tool and how it incorporates multimodal writing. The second tool she talks about is Kaizena. This is a feedback tool that also allows multimodal writing. The final tool she reviews is Prezi. It is a presentation tool that helps you tell a story. In my comment, I thanked Ms. Deyenberg for showing me these tools and told her I have already been using Prezi.