Blog Post #3

Peer Editing:

I was told to watch two videos and a slideshow on peer editing. I learned that peer editing is a easy process but it does have some rules. All three of the sources told the viewer that you three important rules. The first rule is compliments. You need to always start with compliments and stay positive through out the whole peer edit. The second rule is your suggestions to the writer. Again, you need to stay positive. Lastly, the third rule is corrections. You need to be positive and also very specific.

When you start on the second rule, suggestions, you could give the write suggestions on word choice, using more details, their organization, and if their topic matches their writing. You also need to check their sentence structure. Do their sentences run-on? Do they need revisions? When you work on the third rule you need to check for their grammar, sentences, spelling, and punctuation. All in all you need you be specific and positive through out the whole peer edit. Also, remember if someone was peer editing your paper, how would you want them to edit?

Assistive Technologies
I'm pretty excited we got to learn about these. My junior year of high-school I got the opportunity to work with a student who had cerebral palsy. He was wheel-chair bound and had use of his fingers and his arms 50% of the time. He could speak, but it wasnt very fluent. It took a lot out of him to speak as you and I would. He got a text to speech device and it worked miracles for him. He told us he felt much more independent and he cried the day he graduated. I promise there was not a dry eye when he gave a speech to our classroom. He helped me make the decision to become a special education teacher.

Mountbatten
I have never seen anything like this device. It offers the student immediate feedback which is very good for students with disabilities. It is a device used for the blind. It is a braille writer that as the student types in braille it writes the braille and also produces an audio of what is being typed. Its also very advanced because it saves, transfers, and receive files to and from computers for the teachers and students. I would like to have this in my classroom, being as I will be a special education teacher. I've never been in contact really with a blind person, let alone a student. I'd really enjoy it though!

Teaching Math to the Blind and iPad for the Blind

In the video Teaching Math to the Blind by Art Karshmer, he tells us the problem with braille and math is that braille is linear. For example the math problem would read 123+4567 to the blind student instead of how we read and see the math problem lined up on top of each other. He invented an easier tool for the blind to do simple to more complex problems. He took small blacks with braille on front of the blocks and also the visible number. You scan a bar code and the box is connected to a computer. It verbally tells the student what number they are on and the problem aloud in case they need verbal assistance also. I would like to have one of these in my classroom. Anything to make the child's learning more adaptable to their disability would be great to have in the classroom.
In the video iPad Uses for the Blind Wesley Majerus demonstrates how a blind student, or blind person in general, would use an iPad in the classroom. Personally, I think iPad should be in all classrooms, especially in classrooms with children who have disabilities. There is a program on the iPad called iHooks. It is a mainstream iReader. Kindles do not have this feature. It not only reads the book aloud but it describes pictures, if there are any. Also, voice over is a feature that is a screen access package that is built in the iPad. Siri, a new feature, I believe could also help.

In Vicki Davis': Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts (4:49) she tells us about how she uses technology in a classroom. She teaches a class much like EDM310 being based on the internet and no, as Dr. Strange says, "burp-back learning". She teaches the students to be self-thinkers. The students also teach each other and help each other as much as possible. Davis does not baby the children. She wants them to be technologically advanced, being as they leave in rural area. Even though she lives in a rural area, she does not let that stop her or her students.

I wasn't aware that other teachers taught this way. I have never encountered a class that was completely taught on the internet, until I got to college. I have heard of Wiki but I have never really used it. I wish I would have had a class such as Mrs. Davis' when I was in middle-school or high-school. I'm going to be teaching special education so I'm probably not going to be able to do a class based of straight technology but I plan to use as much technology as possible in the classroom.