Khan/Koller Review

I love Khan Academy, not only for myself but for my students as well. I have used Khan Academy to help myself through College Trigonometry, and it was extremely helpful. I also have used it as a study tool, to get 8^th graders involved and enjoying math. We made it a competition between students’ and other classes. The kids were motivated to work hard, so their class could “win” a pizza party.

On Khan Academy, I like how you receive trophies as you complete levels. The students’ really liked this visual, and it really made them work hard because they were competing with their friends. Once the kids are taught how to use this interactive and easy website, it really is hard to get them off the computer and moving on to a different task! We found that after teaching the kids about this math site, they were working on it at home, without even realizing they were actually “studying.”

I think most of his videos are very easy to follow. When I watch online tutorials, a technique I use is watch it all the way through one time first, then go back and re-watch it, while working through the problem with his video. Then, I walk myself through my math problem that I am working on, using his steps from his example he has demonstrated. This helps me talk myself through the problem, so I can remember the steps faster.

Online courses are definitely easily accessible for anyone. Although they may be more complicated, it is easier to get work done at your own pace, with the support from online instruction. However, I think online courses depends on student preferences. Personally, I take online courses so I have time to work two jobs and go to school full time, while student teaching. It is easier for me to work on a class a little bit at a time, then having to miss work or student teaching to sit in class. However, there are some classes that I would much rather take in the classroom, because I know I will retain more information that way. If a class does not interest me, then I lack motivation to work on it online. However, if I am taking it face to face, I know I have to show up, and then I pay attention because there is peer interaction, and I can ask the professor questions and receive immediate answers.

 Although Coursera is new to me, many of the courses are very interesting. When I was searching through some of the courses, a lot of them were not what I would typically see offered at CSCC, or other campuses. I was looking at “Food and Nutrition,” and a course that popped up was, “Chicken Behaviour and Welfare.” This may be important for people studying agriculture related to different food and nutrition, but if I wanted to take a course relating to becoming a Nutritionist, I am not sure this would be my first course of choice.

However, the courses that looked most interesting to me were those of biology and education. These looked interesting to me because, becoming a special education teacher, I enjoy learning about the brain and its processes. I also enjoy science, learning about the body and what is good and bad for it, nutritionally, physically, socially and emotionally.

I am not sure if Columbus State accepts Coursera classes, but that is definitely something that I would like to look in to with more detail, since I have a biology class that I still need to take. I think Coursera is a useful tool that will be helpful for many people who enjoy online courses. In the New York Times article, I really agreed with this quote, “There’s talk about how online education’s going to wipe out universities, but a lot of what we do on campus is help people transition from 18 to 22, and that is a complicated thing,” said Mr. Page. (New York Times, 2012). This quote, I believe is very true. College is a progression, and there are a lot of benefits to going to a college versus taking online courses only. Socially, you grow because you have to interact with other peers daily. Also, being in special education, I know how difficult the transition from high school  to college may be for some students, so I believe this transition to “real life” is an important step in any persons life. 

Ohio DL Schools

         If I had to pick a DL for my child, I would choose Virtual School House. VSH had a very inviting and easy to navigate website. The first thing I noticed about VSH was the willingness to help students with special education services. They have many options for 504 plans and IEPs and they also have IEP teams. Another thing that I found to be important was VSH's involvement in PBIS, which is positive behavior support systems. They offer many online LIVE tutoring sessions, and there are field trips where students' can get together with their classmates. VSH, overall, had a very well laid out website and was user friendly. They used words and phrases that parents can understand, but they also used information that certified personnel would understand, with given explanations for parents or anyone else who might not understand.

            One DL I would not use for my student, if they were young, would be ECOT. I felt that the website was very overwhelming and wordy. I got lost and found myself not interested in reading what they had to say. Also, recently, there have been articles about the ineffectiveness and poor testing scores that ECOT has been receiving. However, ECOT might be more beneficial for older students' who are going back to high school, or finishing up a GED. In the article I added below from the Columbus Dispatch, it mentions ECOT ranking in the top 10 largest schools, however students graduating on time is extremely low. While I realize a lot of online schools work with students who have dropped out of school, I feel like online schools should want to try harder and entice their students to  wanting to be interested in school. Learning is supposed to be fun and interactive, and I feel like the numbers that have been mentioned in the article do not prove that they are trying everything they can to make learning "fun." Also, I did not see a detailed special education section on their website. Special Education is important, especially for online schools, because interventions need to be used, as well as differentiated instruction and UDL. Online schools need to show and prove to parents and students that they want to help their child succeed and that they are willing to do all that is possible to make this happen.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/01/04/popular-ecot-poor-performer.html

Assistive Technology for Students with "OHI"

Assistive Technology

Other Health Impairments (OHI) limits learning in the classroom. Currently, I am in two classrooms where over half of the 40 students have OHI, including ADD/ADHD and asthma. Working in this classroom, walls are very plain, breaks are frequent, and extremely small group instruction is given daily for reading, writing and math, based on response to intervention (RTI, tier 3). The small groups that I teach for math, reading and writing, also all have SLD (specific learning disability). OHI and SLD adversely affect the students educationally because they have a difficult time focusing on the task at hand. In my small groups, I have to redirect and give simple instructions repeatedly to make sure the students understand what is being taught.

There are many types of assistive technology tools available to help students under all categories of IDEA. There are high tech devices, such as iPads or other communication devices, all the way to low tech devices, like dark lined paper, post-it notes, schedules, etc. For the students with ADD/ADHD, I use schedules with timers to help keep them on track. They have morning work that needs completed in 20 minutes, so those students have a timer at their desk so they have a visual of how much time they need to work. Also, the students with ADD/ADHD have spiky tactile cushion seats. Spiky tactile cushion seats is just a fancy way for saying they sit on a rubber seat that has a flat bottom with little bumps on it. These seats help them fidget, or move, when they have to. They can move their bottoms and bodies in any motion, helping to get “the wiggles” out.

When timers and cushion seats don’t seem to be helping, I take little brain breaks and let the students play a game called “Animal Vegetable.” This game is really simple, so here are the rules: You stand up any time you hear the word “animal.” You sit down any time you hear the word “vegetable.” You start out slow saying, “animal, vegetable, animal, vegetable,” in a pattern. Then, as they start to catch on, you change up the pattern, trying to trick them, “animal, animal, animal, vegetable, animal, vegetable, vegetable, animal,” etc. If they sit down on “animal,” or stand up on “vegetable,” they are out and help you catch other people who are out. The game progresses fast, but they are using their brains to focus, while moving their bodies to blow off some of their built up energy. All of the kids love this game, and they can come back to focus after we play a few rounds, which is pretty incredible!

While OHI is difficult to show huge advancements in with low tech AT, high tech AT can be used and advanced more readily. A timer and the cushion seats are both pretty low tech, but a high tech device I allow my students to use in a laptop. Using a laptop can help them gather their thoughts and write them, or speak them, as fast as they are thinking them. Keeping kids with ADD/ADHD active I believe is the best way for them to learn. Since their brains are already at a fast pace with little attention, working on activities in short segments will get the best work from them. Taking exercise breaks frequently will help keep the wiggles to a minimum, and it also helps keep their brains active.

For other Assistive Technology devices for all types of needs under IDEA, The Ohio State University Nisonger Center has an AT library that I visited for an AT class I have taken. Here is a link to their website. They have some pretty clever AT tools that can be done yourself! They also have higher AT that might need to be “tested” on your child or student before you spend a lot of money of a type of technology that may not best benefit your child/student. Also, here are some links to different brain break/exercise ideas that I found on Pinterest. However, if you simply go to Pinterest and type in “brain breaks” great ideas pop up!  

References:

http://nisonger.osu.edu/

http://www.minds-in-bloom.com/2012/04/20-three-minute-brain-breaks.html

PicMonkey

I really like PicMonkey! I have used other photo editing apps before, but this is really easy to use! Although I use instagram and I enjoy their picture editing tools, this website has a lot more options. The picture I chose, I had previously combined together. My parents and I took a road trip to Texas to visit some family, so of course, we had to do O-H-I-O on the River Walk and at The Alamo!! So, for game day, I used an application called "picstitch" to put the pictures on top of each other. So, I used these on PicMonkey. If this website has an app for my phone, I will definitely be downloading it! So many options, I had a hard time deciding what I was going to put on the picture. The clarity of the bottom picture isn't that good due to previous editing. However, I messed around with all of the settings to see what it could do! I will be using this in the future!

My GoAnimate Video

Here is the link to my GoAnimate video:
 http://goanimate.com/videos/0sLOir90hQQ4?utm_source=linkshare&utm_medium=linkshare&utm_campaign=usercontent


I chose to create a video about the first day of school. In the district I work in, 6th graders have their own building, which can be intimidating. I chose to create a video of a student new to the school and to the district, with no realization that technically everyone in the school is new there. I, the teacher, let my student know that I am a new teacher there also. I confide in my student that there is no reason to be nervous because everyone is new, so it will be easy to make "new friends." I also reassure my student that if she needs help with anything, I will be there for her all day every day since I am her teacher. I was reassuring the trust in her that I believe is important to start to build on your first time meeting someone. I believe first impressions are the most important, so building trust with my students' is one way I start first impressions.

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