Blog for 4/22/2009

Carol observed my website and commented that it looked good. Carol felt that my website was sophisticated and in depth.   The only drawback on the website was the link to my blog for my slippery fish video kept going to the blogger status page.

I will continue to build and work on my website.  Particularly I will figure out how to get my link to work effectively for my video podcasts.  I will be adding my newsletters within the month as well as future video podcasts.

4/15/2009 Blog and slippery fish video

Blog for 4/15/2009

How will I use these online resources for parent training, collaboration, and student learning?  

I will be using Google Docs for collaboration with all my related services staff and fellow SDC teachers.  We are writing an assistive technology grant through Autism Speaks and this will help greatly in refining the grant!

I plan to put my parent training on google docs for revisions and additions with my related service staff.

I am video podcasting all my songs and hand movements, trying to attach a link to them from my website so that parents and students can access it anytime.

I am looking at video taping my parent trainings and then importing them in a video cast format so parents who are not able to attend in person will have access to it.  I am looking at doing an online chat with families in regards to the parent training. I am trying to get it all together in a power point presentation for other teachers and paras.

I am looking at using different internet websites for the games and activities in collaboration with Speaking Dynamically Pro.  

I am planning to get involved in Classroom 2.0, TeacherWeb, and QIAT listerv.  I am going to look into listervs in the areas of preschool autism, assistive technology for preschoolers, and behavior analyst forums.

Blog for 4/8/2009

Blog: What 5 things have you learned so far this semester, why is it important to you, how are you currently use them, and how is supporting student development for information literacy?

1) Resources, resources, resources!  I have taken many of the websites and either incorporated them into my classroom or have collaborated with my collegues with them.

2) I learned how to do a website.  I will be incorporating my website for my families and will help with priming for the curriculum for the students.

3) I have learned how to do a podcast.  I will be using video podcasts to record all the hand movements of the songs that I use in class so students can see the movements prior to hearing the song.

4) I have learned about google docs.  This will be using this to collaborate with my collegues as we are developing data forms across the special day classes on our campuses.

5) I have learned more about assistive technology and what it means so that I can be more knowledgeable in IEP meetings.  I have already used this in some IEP meetings and will continue to make more accommodations/modifications on IEP's as I begin to understand more fully what each child needs in relation to assistive technology supports.

How has this helped with student literacy?  Now that I have a better understanding of assistive technology, I am able to make more of my curriculum more accessible and diverse to my students.  This in turn helps them to learn more.

Blog for 4/1/2009

How will you use graphic organizers for teaching, learning, and collaboration?  Why would the use of graphic organizers by both you, the teacher, and your students help improve learning?

Graphic Organizers would be helpful to visually (through icons more than words) show concepts better for my young preschoolers.  

Graphic organizers would be helpful for my staff to see during each area of the day what goals are being worked on.

Graphic organizers would be helpful with collaborating with staff to see how goals are going to be implemented and with whom.

Graphic organizers could help me be more organized in my lesson plans, show parents visually my thought process for a theme, and could help me generate new ideas.

Graphic organizers would help my students understand in more in depth the topics/themes that we use.  I could set up a good sorting activity based on the theme, categories, and picture/word matching games.