“This is how we describe it: We lost our child to autism at about 20 months, and we have been trying to get him back ever since,” says his mother, Missy Brademeyer.
Now one technological tool may help bring Cade a little closer to home.
About eight months ago, Mark Coppin, assistive technology director at the Anne Carlsen Center in Jamestown, encouraged the Brademeyers to buy Cade an iPad. He told the Fort Ransom, N.D., couple that some children with disabilities were successfully using the popular tablet computer to communicate and learn.
Cade, now 11, had already tried other communication devices but didn’t really take to them. That changed when he got his hands on an iPad. In no time, Cade was scrolling through the touch-responsive screen’s digital pages, clicking on apps (pre-programmed applications) and playing games.
These days, he uses a program called Proloquo2Go to communicate. Proloquo2Go allows users to select images representing words, which the iPad will speak for them. Cade uses it to augment his vocabulary of five to six spoken words plus sign language.
Since he got the device, “Cade has definitely become more communicative and is independently trying to say new words that he was previously only signing,” says Mary Lewis, special education teacher at the Anne Carlsen Center, which educates children with special needs.
This is one of those unintended consequences of technology that makes me very, very happy.
On Tuesday, Skype launched Skype in the Classroom, a dedicated teacher network.
Using the platform, teachers can create profiles that describe their classes and teaching interests. They can then search a directory of teachers from all over the world by student age range, language and subject, finding classrooms that match theirs. This will allow teachers to connect with other classrooms around the globe, bring in guest speakers without asking them to travel, and take virtual field trips.
What an easy and accessible way to create a global classroom!
Vocabulary Instruction in Today’s Classroom Part 5 - Using Technology
Read Part 1 - Introduction
Read Part 2 - Why is Vocabulary Instruction Important
Read Part 3 - What Vocabulary Instruction Should Look Like
Read Part 4 - Activities and Tips (non-tech)
So, those of you that have followed me on tumblr know that I love to use this platform to collect online teaching tools, resources, and class activities. Therefore, I really enjoyed this article: eVoc Strategies: 10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary, Bridget Dalton, Dana L. Grisham, The Reading Teacher, February 2011 the following activities/sites were listed in this article (read the article thing to see all of the tools/sites)
Wordle and Word Sift are similar tools — Wordsift provides related words, which I really like. I’ve heard of Wordle a number of times, and have used it to introduce a new unit in math before. This article pinpointed questions that should be asked when using these tools to build vocabulary such as:
- what does this image suggest the passage / text will be about
- what are the most important words
- how do you think these words will go together
- why do you think this shape was selected
and to follow-up after reading:
- what words would you add or take away
- are there certain words that should be given more space
Trackstar allows you to collect websites, videos, add annotations and create a digital field trip to help build vocabulary and prior knowledge. What I like is that there are a lot of lessons already created that you could use or tweak for your students.
Also noted in the article were digital translators, digital texts, and text to speech tools which can be particularly helpful for struggling readers and ESL students.
The following sites come from my own explorations on the internet, tumblr, twitter, etc.
Word Stash allows you to create separate lists to share. The site acts as a dictionary and a thesaurus. It provides a sentence for most words that you look up, the pronunciation (actual sound), the latest tweets that have the word, and recent articles that have the words. You can also quiz yourself on word lists. I like to have my students use this as a resource when creating word expert cards or completing vocabulary graphic organizers.
One Word One word provides you with one word to write about for 60 seconds. I have not used this yet, but I think it could be a good vocabulary builder to gage vocabulary knowledge.
Vocabulary Games has… you guessed it! Vocabulary games.
Spelling City has vocabulary and spelling activities.
My Vocabulary has activities with root words, SAT words, themed word lists and more.
Vocabulary.com has discussions on how our lexicon changes. It also has quizzes, word lists, and quizzes.
Finally, Qwiki can be an excellent way to find related words and learn vocabulary — especially for visual learners!
Also I really love the vocabulary concept maps that can be found on Busy Teacher’s Cafe .
Academy of Achievement ”brings students face to face with extraordinary leaders, the visionaries, the pioneers, who have helped to shape our world through interviews, podcasts, articles, and videos.
This is a terrific site with lots of great resources.
If you’re an educator who’s new to technology, or don’t know how to use Excel ::cough, cough::, I think you’ll find this to be a great resource:
When you’re trying to figure out how to use a new piece of software or a new web application, searching YouTube for how-to videos often returns some useful stuff. But for teachers there is a better place to turn to and that place is Russell Stannard’s Teacher Training Videos. Russell Stannard’s videos are screencasts in which he walks viewers through the process of using software and web applications from beginning to end. The videos are categorized by the purpose of the application such as blogging, podcasting resources, online quizzes, file sharing, IWB, etc. There are also categories for EFL and MFL.
Popplet combines the sticky note capability of Wallwisher and the concept mapping capability of Webspiration. Popplet allows you to create a site of “sticky notes” that can have videos, images, or text. You can connect these notes into concept webs. You can invite students to collaborate.
Why Wallwisher might be better- students don’t need accounts or to be invited to post notes onto a wall, but you can’t create mind maps.
Why Webspiration might be better- can convert mindmaps into outlines on Google Docs & share with the class, but it doesn’t have the multimedia capability.
Thanks Free Tech for Teachers for sharing this.
PhotoFunia is an online photo editing tool that gives you a fun filled experience. You upload any photo and just wait to see the magic. Our proprietary technology automatically identifies the face in the photo and let’s you add cool photo effects and create funny face photo montages.
PhotoFunia is free and very easy to use. Just select an effect you like from over 100 different effects, upload your photo, and PhotoFunia will handle the rest for you.
I can’t believe I only found out about this now (it was started in 2007). This is an excellent, and easy-to-use tool that my students would love. Also, I’m sure there are a number of ways to incorporate this into learning projects.
I remember a while back reading some posts (on several tumblrs) about flickr losing many photos that one man had stored online. People were amazed that they had no back up system. Well, I present to you backupify which backs up / archives flickr, gmail, twitter, and facebook.
Thanks to Dianne’s Digital Discoveries for this link.
Worked with SDC students today and the computer station had this website up. During math they played with math games (addition, subtractions, multiplication, integers, fractions, and ratios) and during the language arts component, students worked on the language arts and geography sections.
Very useful.
I’m listed in Tumblweeds under education, teaching, technology
I’m listed in Tumblweeds, a user-generated community directory that rates Tumblr bloggers by their number of followers. Find me listed in #education, #teaching, #technology
Using Tumblr as a teacher and for teaching
I was recently talking to Rich Tong about ways tumblr can be used by teachers.
I obviously included ideas such as a better directory page outside of the educational page, a education/teaching section like there is for news (search that tag and you’ll see what I mean), and possibly doing something with teachers like they are doing with fashion week.
(I can’t promise that any of these will happen. )
He mentioned that one of his friends at Parson’s teaches a creative writing course and uses a tumblr to manage class assignments.
She has her students create a tumblr.
She follows her students
Assignments are posted on the class page.
She has them post assignments to tumblr.
She likes the posts so the student knows the assignment is received.
She reblogs anything that she thinks is really important, interesting, worth discussing to the class page for everyone to see.
Her name is Adriana Young and her class tumblr is Writer Block Party
I thought this was an awesome way to use tumblr. The only obstacle I would have with doing something similar is that at my school, tumblr is blocked. I wonder if there is a way to have a “safe setting” that would allow it to be used in more schools.
