Assistive Technology

The assistive technology tool that I reviewed is the on-screen magnifier. This tool is really helpful for those students who have impaired vision. They can use the magnifier to increase the size of any text that the cursor is over. This helps them with reading assignments on the computer as well as typing papers. By making everything larger for them, they can spend less time struggling to read and can better keep up with the rest of the class.

As you can see, students have a number of different settings available to them while using the magnifier. They can dock the magnifier to a specific side of the screen or have it move freely. They can also change the view to a negative color option. This might help students with color sensitivity.

Communicating with Students and Parents

I would create a website using Google Sites to keep in touch with my students and their parents. I could post the syllabus and create links to all of the assignments, so that sick/absent students could stay on track with their work no matter what. I could also post study guides for quizzes and tests, along with the answers. This helps students focus their studying and ensures that they know the material they are being tested over.

I would also post students' grades (listed under their Student ID number to ensure privacy) so that they and their parents could keep track of the student's progress throughout the year. I could also post weekly updates to let the parents know what material we are covering.

The use of this website would greatly help the classroom run smoothly and efficiently. I wouldn't have to spend large quantities of time tracking down absent students and getting them their missed assignments, or talking with parents who are concerned over grades or subject matter. This would save me an enormous amount of time throughout the year, while still keeping in touch with the students and parents.

Station 4: Words, Word Count, and Vocabulary

Here is the citation for the two articles: English and Spanish.

In wordle, both "Obama" and "percent" are the two biggest words for Spanish and English. However, while "rating" is the third biggest word in English, "voted" is the third biggest in Spanish.

Prepositions are used much more in the Spanish article because unlike in English, prepositions cannot be taken out of a sentence. Most English sentences have an implied preposition, but in most Romance languages (Spanish, French, etc.) they cannot be taken out.

The wordles do a great job of creating a general summary of the subject matter of the articles. In fact, the titles of the articles are almost completely listed in the wordle pages. This overall view of the article would not have been possible had someone simply read a single paragraph, since the articles cover a wide range of material.

Station 6: Persuasive Speaking Story

Spreadsheet Screenshot

Google Survey

Google Groups

While Google Groups is a good idea for bringing a group of students together and encouraging interaction with students, teachers and parents, there are a number of problems with it. In order to be a member of a Google Group, you are required to have a Gmail account. Since many people do not have Gmail as their main email address, they would have to create one in order to be a part of it. Many parents would most likely decide against having to memorize another password, and simply opt out of having that connection tool to the teacher.

This also creates a problem if students are required to do any projects or homework through the Google Group. As in my case, I have been having problems becoming a member of the group, and therefore have been unable to edit my assigned section for the project. These kinds of problems are frequent with internet based homework assignments, so at this moment they are more bothersome than helpful for most classes (most commonly, math classes will assign online homework and the websites with the homework often crash or have problems).

Content Exploration

I reviewed the Inspiration software for Secondary English Education. It is a great software that helps students form organizations skills in writing and visualize concepts and relationships. There are also a number of tools for teachers to customize Inspiration to work with their curriculum. Inspiration even comes with easy to understand training videos that help everyone get started efficiently.

This literary analysis of the story The Cay is a great example of how students can use Inspiration to enhance their understanding of stories and plots. Also, depending on the student's preferred learning style, they can either view the analysis in either a diagram mode (with pictures and brief descriptions), or as an outline.

While this software is mostly focused on student retention and understanding of the material (and would be consdered a reference tool), there are books available for teachers that help create lesson plans using Inspiration. The books acts as a tutorial for the teacher by providing an overview and review questions over the information. Here is the sample tutorial.

3 Great Lesson Plans

1. http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAMusicHipHopSimilesAndMetaphors712.htm
This lesson plan for similes and metaphors definitely enhances students knowledge of the difference between the two. Students can work together and have fun while learning. The songs or raps can also be used as teaching tools for other students. They could listen to the other raps and identify which comparison is a simile and which is a metaphor.

2. http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAImproveReadCompWithImagery712.htm
This plan is especially effective for students who are visual learners. It stipulates that students create a collage that shows main themes of a story. They will include imagery and key words as well as the name of the story and the author. The students would then present their collage to the class and demonstrate how it describes the story. This form of student-teaching-student education helps both the student that is explaining it and the student that is learning the information.

3. http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAOTheMostDangerousGame-MurderTrialFauxTrialIdea9.htm
This lesson plan is really effective because students are able to have fun with a short story that they read. This plan gives a specific example for the story, but it can be applied to many other stories, and it engages the students and draws them into the tale. By giving them a personal experience involving the story, they will better remember the material and the characters.