It is now Sunday, May 9, 2010. What a busy day yesterday was. So many new programs and resources and there was even a late night baby born. Congrats to the new grandmother. What a Mother's Day present!
I had to wait a day to start my blog because I had so much new information to retain I needed a day to process it all. I wish I had of video taped the class because I am sure there is no way to remember all of the great stuff we were introduced to. The following few paragraphs is my attempt to reflect on the highlights of yesterday. This is in no particular order.
Learning about the reading process was great. I teach reading to such a range of students and it helped me to understand just how much goes into taking the text form the page and making sense of it.
The youtube video "21 Century Education in New Brunswick" was such a powerful video. I had to watch it when I got home and I've already showed it to two other people. The video had the audience hooked in the first five seconds. All of us can relate to changes like no longer adjusting tracking on your VCR or putting film in to get developed. But other changes were things that have changed in front of me that I never thought about until now. One of these changes being the fact that a grade two student might be typing at 60 wpm or trying to remember the last time I used a pay phone. I kept thinking about our curriculum documents and how so many outcomes we currently teach are not necessary information students need to know. Are we as teachers and staff of HRSB adapting to these changes? I think we are not going near as fast as we need to.
Googame.com is now my new favorite website. I teach in a junior high learning center and initially I thought this might be to young for my students. I tried it with one student and he loved it. While he was on the website a few students watched him play some of the games. I now have a few other students working towards earning time on the website.
The aquarium application worked really well with a student of mine who has autism. We tallied types of fish and different colors of fish while he watched it. He was beginning to get overstimulated before I introduced the screen saver and it seemed to help him relax.
I also had a chance to work with Kurweil. It is somehow set as the default program on my computer to work on text documents so instead of changing it I have been brushing up my skills. What an amazing program. I have several grade nine students who are supposed to be using the program and they don't. Now that I feel more confident using it I can encourage the students.
I am wondering about a website that was mentioned to the class but I don't believe we explored it. it had something to do with UDL tools(?). I can't seem to find the website.
