week 6 blog

     Personal Digital Assistant is basically a small computer that can fit in your hand and can be used as an assistant for you. They can store events coming up in your life, store telephone numbers, email addresses, and you can also access the internet from the device. A PDA would be good to use in the classroom to hold all your students contact information in. Another feature is that you could use the calendar to make due dates for assignment so that you can easily keep up with what you have assigned and when it will be due. If students had PDA’s they could use them to record data, and mark when their assignments are due, they could use it as a journal, and there are many more uses of PDA’s for the students and teachers.

     Online surveys are a good way to give your students a way to express their opinion of your class and let you know how to improve your class to better serve your students. This could help us in our classrooms because we can reach more students better by knowing what they need, want, and expect out of the class. If they tell us where they are struggling then we have a better chance of helping them succeed. A good rule for writing a survey is ask the students opinions and how it makes them feel and also give them a place to give you ideas. A second rule would be to ask the students specific questions not vague questions that won’t help you find out what you need to know.

     Having technology like a PDA would be very beneficial not only for the teacher but also for the students. Student’s lives are very involved in technology and adding something like this to the classroom will only help better connect the teacher to her students. Having this type of technology in the classroom is only going to help teacher keep the students involved in their education.

Jonassen, David H., and David H. Jonassen. Meaningful Learning with Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.

Inspiration and Webspiration Blog #3

From the website I found the two programs can help teachers make their classrooms more efficient, and its also a good way for teachers to stay organized and connected with the students writing thnrough technology. One thing that interest me was how you can create visuals from outlines or outlines from visuals that you make using the program. The teacher could print the outline and that could be something the student could have in hand and the visuals are something for them to see and easier for them to commit it to memory. As an all level Special Education teacher this would help me keep the students assignments organized because they all will not be working on the same level. I could make a visual to show the students what we will be working on that day and it will help my students and myself stay on track with our daily goals. Webspiration looks to me like a great tool to have in the classroom to teach students effective writing. It will keep their thought and paper organized and result in a better constructed paper.

For special education every student is at a different level, but one activity I could incorporate would be to have every student write down their daily routine and how much time they spend at each activity, then use the information and show them how to make it a graph or pie chart for them to look at. This activity could help them stay organized through the day and help them remember everything they need to get done. One effective way of students helping each other is to allow them to proof read each others papers and give suggestions to the writer of the paper. If the assignment was to be posted to a blog then each student could go online and comment their thoughts on the paper. This would allow the student to have several fresh pairs of eyes look the paper over before turning in the final draft. My first time teaching new material I knew the material but after teaching it I had a better understand because the students asked several questions and answering each one helped me be more confident in knowing the material.

Technology is always changing and our students are becoming more and more involved with it, it is important that teachers are trying to use it in their classrooms because that how students are learning. These two programs will help teacher stay in the loop with their students and also give them a creative way to think, learn, and organize their writing skills.

Jonassen, David H., and David H. Jonassen. Meaningful Learning with Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.

http://www.inspiration.com/videos/Inspiration

http://www.inspiration.com/webspirationclassroom