Blog Assignment #3

Learning to Comment:

Paige Ellis’ blog post about leaving a quality comment was such a big help. I never know what I am supposed to write or how much. Paige's EDM310 post #12consisted of a list of steps to follow (and videos to watch) that help others in EDM310 learn to write great, informative, and helpful comments. Two links she provided wereWhat is Peer Editing? and Peer Edit with Perfection. These links, one to a video and one to a PowerPoint presentation, are basically the exact same. They discussed the three steps of Quality Commenting: Compliments, Suggestions, and Corrections.

Compliments consist of anything great you have to say about the post. Things like “I love your post”, “I liked when you said ____” , and “My favorite part was ____” are all appropriate for this first step of the comment. Next is the Suggestions part of your comment. This is where you tell the blogger if you agree, disagree, or have anything to add. This section is rather up for anything you want to say. The last part of your comment is where you make corrections to the post concerning grammar, sentence structure, spelling, etc. And that’s it! It’s really that simple. The number one rule though that Paige and both of her links all had in common though was Stay Positive! So remember this and happy commenting! Also, the video Writing Peer Review- Top 10 Mistakes is a very cute and funny one that would be great for teaching children how to comment on people’s blogs.

Assistive Technology:

The first two videos that I watched about assistive technology, Vision and Hearing Impaired Children and The Mountbatten, are really just about making you aware of the children with disabilities that still have to learn. They focused mainly on the deaf and the blind. I think that this is wonderful because I used to actually be fluent in sign language. We have a deaf ministry at my church and a staff of full time interpreters that translate the message and songs. I fell in love with the language early in life and took classes with the interpreters to learn it. When I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, I really considered minoring in sign language so that I could teach math at a school for deaf students. Unfortunately, South doesn’t offer sign language as a major or minor. Without using it for like 3 years, I have forgotten many words and can barely hold a conversation now, but I still can understand most.

The video Teaching Math to the Blind was kind of a wakeup call for me. I love math, and I understand that even those students without disabilities struggle to succeed in math, but I never considered that a blind student wouldn’t be able to line up problems in order to add or subtract. I guess I never thought about a blind person wanting to be an engineer or mathematician. Although Art Karshmer and his students at University of San Francisco have come up with a wonderful board to help them learn to set problems up the same way other seeing students would. In some new technology, such as the Ipad, companies like Apple have obviously taken these things into thought while making their product. In videos like Ipad usage for the Blind and Teaching Mom what her Blind Child is learning on the Ipad , a blind man and a mother of a blind child teach and are taught about the specific setting that Ipads make for their blind users. I think that it’s amazing that people sit down and take the time to make sure their product is friendly for all users, blind included. This makes me think highly of Apple and makes me want to go out and buy an Ipad.

Harness your Students’ Digital Smarts:

In the video about Ms. Vicki Davis’ technology class, Harness your Students' Digital Smarts, she tells about her students’ wikis, blogs, podcasts, and more. It is really interesting to see a class like this. In the school that I was raised in, the extent of our computer class was to learn how to use Mircosoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Even in my college computer class, this was all we had to learn. I did have one Calculus class in high school that my teacher was actually in the room, but the class was broadcast to televisions at other schools were classes didn't have teachers and just watched our teacher teach to them through the T.V. and all of our work was done on swivel laptops. I can see how having a computer/technology class like this one would really help students to use the technology in their other subject matter and get them interested in learning more and figuring it out on their own.

The website in which the video was located, edutopia.org, is a great website for learning to incorporate technology and such into your existing classroom or giving ideas for future classrooms. I looked around some while I was there watching the video, and it is full of videos and blogs from teachers, students, and professionals. I think that I will definitely use this website at least my first year of teach while I’m trying to form my classroom into something of my own. And the best part, it’s free!