EdTechBytes

What happens if you have a desktop PC at home, a desktop PC at work, a PC laptop, a MacBook Pro, and an iPhone, and you want to be able to add, edit, and access your notes and files anywhere and also keep them synchronized?
 
One solution is to have a USB drive to keep your files in one place and access the files from the drive when needed.
 
Another solution is to use a “cloud” organizer like Evernote, which works on both PC’s, Mac’s, and other portable devices like the iPhone.  You can access your notes via a web interface, or download a client version for when the Internet is not always available, or use the iPhone app. Your files live on the Internet, so access and synchronization is never a problem.
 

 
A terrific solution for those using multiple computers at various locations.

As Web 2.0 tools become more prevalent in the classroom, educators are integrating blogs and wikis into classroom activities to create engaging writing activities for students. The challenge for special educators is how to create meaningful Web 2.0 activities for students who may have reading and writing deficits, or for students in classrooms emphasizing functional academics. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how assistive technologies can by used to help students with a range of deficits create and access a wiki created using PB Works.

This presentation builds on our 2008 NECC presentation to focus on more of the assistive technology tools.

We chose to create a Community Travel Wiki to model how students in functional life skills programs can benefit from Web 2.0 tools. Teachers can replicate the same process to create similar wikis or wikis that are more academic for core subjects. For example, a teacher for students with Learning Disabilities could create a wiki for vocabulary terms for grade level content using PB Works and the various components of the SOLO program. The possibilities are endless.
 
This link contains a Quicktime video of the various videos from our presentation.
 
necc2009_ledesma_long
 
The following assistive technology tools are featured:
 
1) Boardmaker
 
2) Solo
 
3) Read Naturally
 
4) Read Please
 
The “Safeway” or grocery store featured on the wiki for community travel is at http://safeway.pbworks.com/.  I chose PBWorks because of the free educator account and its ability to create student accounts.
 
My co-presenter, Lara Long, an Assistive Technology Specialist, can be contacted via email at lelong1@fcps.edu.

Disrupting Class, by Clayton Christensen, was one of the readings for EDUC 874: The Achievement Gap. Of particular interest for us in education and technology is Christensen’s proposal that highly customizable computer based instruction will meet the demand for individual instruction, thereby changing the nature of teaching and learning in education. In terms of closing the achievement gap, the question then becomes- can technology close the achievement gap?

Any teacher who customizes their instructional materials would be interested in easy to use, readily accessible technology that makes designing instructional activities appropriate to student needs quick and easy. Back in my special education teacher days in early 2000, I used the Coursebuilder extension for Dreamweaver to create online activities for my class since functional mathematics wasn’t exactly a hot web topic.  I also wanted my students to have opportunities to learn technology skills through relevant activities from simple review games to more open ended webquests. Eventually, I learned some of the action scripts to create Flash activities, but all this took lots of time. 

Two promising Web 2.0 tools that are beginning to make programming more accessible to educators are Scratch and Popfly. Could these tools be the early beginning of Christensen’s highly customizable computer based instruction? So far the education offerings are slim and most of the examples are games and other types of interactive activities- nothing that could be classified as being anything close to “disrupting class.”

But, at the same time it is encouraging to see these types of tools become more accessible to non-techies. With the ability for anyone to create videos, podcasts, and other media on the web, and with the emerging ability to create customizable online interactive simulations/activities, perhaps the idea of “highly customizable” instruction is closer than previously imaginable. 

So I hope to give Scratch and Popfly a closer look, and maybe convert some of my old special education math activities to this newer format.

As part of my doctoral studies at George Mason, I’m helping Dr. Schrum and Ms. Solomon with the follow up book to Web 2.0: New Tools and New Schools. We are looking for educators with compelling stories of how they have used Web 2.0 tools in their classroom to feature in the book. So, if you have a story to share, please take the survey below.

http://tinyurl.com/cmu4qy