July 20, 2011
The day of presentations finally came and, I feel, it was a very worthwhile experience for us as well as the B. Ed. students. Lots of information presented; hopefully, not an overload. I was pleased to see our two groups take a somewhat different approach to this presentation as I was a little concerned that there would be too much repetition. However, I think we kind of balanced each other out. I thought the other group did a fantastic job of keeping it "light" but still getting the message across. Thank you Barbara for providing us the opportunity to have this experience -- I really appreciate how much I've learned from actually "doing" rather than sitting and listening to lectures and writing papers.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Day 11 - Presentation Rehearsal
July 10, 2011
A great day!! Our group met to add the final details to our presentation outline. We changed a video or two. We then moved to the Seminary to find a room that would enable us to set up to a projector and go through the presentation. Once we got set up in the room, we spent a couple of hours going through the presentation with each of us taking portions of the presentation to present on Wednesday. This was time well spent and something that I had been looking forward to doing for a couple of days now as I like to be organized and was anxious to see the whole project from start to finish. This practice run-through was very beneficial as it highlighted a couple of places where we needed to add more information as in another graphic organizer and blog entry. I just hope we haven't missed anything. Well, I guess that's it until the big day on Wednesday. I trust it won't be too overwhelming for the B. Ed. students as it is a lot of information.
A great day!! Our group met to add the final details to our presentation outline. We changed a video or two. We then moved to the Seminary to find a room that would enable us to set up to a projector and go through the presentation. Once we got set up in the room, we spent a couple of hours going through the presentation with each of us taking portions of the presentation to present on Wednesday. This was time well spent and something that I had been looking forward to doing for a couple of days now as I like to be organized and was anxious to see the whole project from start to finish. This practice run-through was very beneficial as it highlighted a couple of places where we needed to add more information as in another graphic organizer and blog entry. I just hope we haven't missed anything. Well, I guess that's it until the big day on Wednesday. I trust it won't be too overwhelming for the B. Ed. students as it is a lot of information.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Day 10 - Group Work
July 15, 2011
Our group met again this morning to work on our assistive technology blog. We finished this blog by researching and adding information on appropriate assistive technologies for the remaining disabilities in our class profile. We also researched and downloaded some apps that would be beneficial to use with specific disabilities. We also plan to have a demonstration of some of these apps during our presentation to the B. Ed. students on Wednesday. We finally downloaded some Youtube videos and pictures and embedded them into our blog page for demonstration and illustration purposes. We have three blog pages in total for this project based learning project. The main blog page is the project based learning with the two other blog pages of class profile and assistive technology linked to the main page. I think we are nearing the end - will review it on Monday and organize ourselves for the presentation.
Our group met again this morning to work on our assistive technology blog. We finished this blog by researching and adding information on appropriate assistive technologies for the remaining disabilities in our class profile. We also researched and downloaded some apps that would be beneficial to use with specific disabilities. We also plan to have a demonstration of some of these apps during our presentation to the B. Ed. students on Wednesday. We finally downloaded some Youtube videos and pictures and embedded them into our blog page for demonstration and illustration purposes. We have three blog pages in total for this project based learning project. The main blog page is the project based learning with the two other blog pages of class profile and assistive technology linked to the main page. I think we are nearing the end - will review it on Monday and organize ourselves for the presentation.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Day 9 Research and more research!
July 14, 2011
Our group spent the majority of today's class researching possible assistive technologies that would enable the students with disabilities in our profile to access the project of creating a blog. This was fairly time consuming but also a great learning experience. As Carl mentioned, we are certainly not experts in assistive techonology; however, I feel we have grown so much in this area over the past two summers. I was also able to share my knowledge of appropriate apps for the specific disabilities that I had learned from the webinars that I participated in throughout the past year.
Since we only have a couple of more days to meet before we present this project, Christine set up a Skype account today that would enable us to chat online. After today's work, I feel that we can possibly finish this project tomorrow and then have Monday to review and add any finishing touches.
Our group spent the majority of today's class researching possible assistive technologies that would enable the students with disabilities in our profile to access the project of creating a blog. This was fairly time consuming but also a great learning experience. As Carl mentioned, we are certainly not experts in assistive techonology; however, I feel we have grown so much in this area over the past two summers. I was also able to share my knowledge of appropriate apps for the specific disabilities that I had learned from the webinars that I participated in throughout the past year.
Since we only have a couple of more days to meet before we present this project, Christine set up a Skype account today that would enable us to chat online. After today's work, I feel that we can possibly finish this project tomorrow and then have Monday to review and add any finishing touches.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Day 8 - Group Work
July 13, 2011
We spent some time today reviewing our project in collaboration with Barbara and decided to change our focus from the reading task analysis to a writing task analysis. We attempted to add pages to our blog but had some difficulties with getting it the way we wanted; thus, we opted to create new blogs and linked them to our original blog. We created two new blogs; one for the class profile and one for the AT. We decided to do this because our original blog page was becoming a bit cumbersome with not enough space to add the videos that we wanted. We spent some time searching YouTube for videos on each of the disabilities in our class profile. Found a few really good ones and I think this will add a new dimension to our blog. Barbara emailed us her writing task analysis which we were able to add to our blog as an inspirational web. It's coming but still some work to be done. Hopefully, we can get this accomplished within the next couple of days. The realization of the amount of work is actually good in that it helps us realize what is involved for both teachers and students in a real situation. Despite the amount of work, I think it's worth it as we are also experiencing the engagement and motivation as, hopefully, students would.
We spent some time today reviewing our project in collaboration with Barbara and decided to change our focus from the reading task analysis to a writing task analysis. We attempted to add pages to our blog but had some difficulties with getting it the way we wanted; thus, we opted to create new blogs and linked them to our original blog. We created two new blogs; one for the class profile and one for the AT. We decided to do this because our original blog page was becoming a bit cumbersome with not enough space to add the videos that we wanted. We spent some time searching YouTube for videos on each of the disabilities in our class profile. Found a few really good ones and I think this will add a new dimension to our blog. Barbara emailed us her writing task analysis which we were able to add to our blog as an inspirational web. It's coming but still some work to be done. Hopefully, we can get this accomplished within the next couple of days. The realization of the amount of work is actually good in that it helps us realize what is involved for both teachers and students in a real situation. Despite the amount of work, I think it's worth it as we are also experiencing the engagement and motivation as, hopefully, students would.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Day 7 -Elluminate Live Session
July 12, 2011
We participated in today's class through an Elluminate Live session. I've participated in several of these prior to today; however, this was my first experience with being put into separate classrooms to do group work. Such a powerful tool - I can see many uses for this in my current position. Working with twenty-one schools, I could really cut down on the costs and time involved in travel if I were to engage the staffs in professional learning through Elluminate Live. I will have to investigate this further.
Our group added the class profile to our blog page with a direct link to a website containing information on each of the disabilities. We researched and collaborated on some possible AT's for our students with the specific disabilities. We also used inspiration to organize one level of a task analysis required to create a blog page. We then took the subtopic of Reading and attempted to further develop it. We used the information from the Sousa article to guide us with this. We finally added a video of a blogger tutorial to our web page.
I'm really enjoying this project but I'm beginning to feel that the further or deeper we get into the project the deeper we are required to go. Considering all the components involved such as the student product, blog page, presentation to the B. ED. students, etc, I think we have to be careful not to lose sight of the project itself. It can be overwhelming!!
We participated in today's class through an Elluminate Live session. I've participated in several of these prior to today; however, this was my first experience with being put into separate classrooms to do group work. Such a powerful tool - I can see many uses for this in my current position. Working with twenty-one schools, I could really cut down on the costs and time involved in travel if I were to engage the staffs in professional learning through Elluminate Live. I will have to investigate this further.
Our group added the class profile to our blog page with a direct link to a website containing information on each of the disabilities. We researched and collaborated on some possible AT's for our students with the specific disabilities. We also used inspiration to organize one level of a task analysis required to create a blog page. We then took the subtopic of Reading and attempted to further develop it. We used the information from the Sousa article to guide us with this. We finally added a video of a blogger tutorial to our web page.
I'm really enjoying this project but I'm beginning to feel that the further or deeper we get into the project the deeper we are required to go. Considering all the components involved such as the student product, blog page, presentation to the B. ED. students, etc, I think we have to be careful not to lose sight of the project itself. It can be overwhelming!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)