Week 6 - Essential Apps for an App-less World...

This week's blog topic requires me to discuss five apps that I could use in my English classroom, however, this topic actually hit on quite a vein of frustration, as my school doesn't allow students to use mobile devices, nooks, kindles, or iPads/tablets in the classroom. I have quarreled bitterly with my administrator over this topic, but the tired and outmoded insistence that evil tech devices will distract students and endanger faculty members prevails, so I will happily research these apps, but it will be a distant day before I can actually employ their use. Alas.
1. Stanza. This free app allows you to read digital books on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. It is linked to several free literature providers, such as Porject Gutenburg, so it allows kids access to a library at their fingertips, as well as organization tools for books and reference materials.
2. Grammar Up  - Selected by Apple for its “High School Survival Guide,” this iPhone and iPad app provides a quiz system with over 1,800 grammar questions in 20 difference categories. Older students can use the quizzes to help prepare for various tests and exams by going through categories of questions or they can simulate the test environment with random questions. The quiz format and real-time error feedback provide students with the opportunity to improve their strategies for grammar success.
3. Writing Prompts - This writing prompt generator app uses pictures, colors, words, genres and different types of writing to provide creative inspiration for writers and writing students. The app also includes a database of 600 creative writing prompts in the form of quotes, story openers and writing exercises that can be used to jump-start student writing projects.
4. Chicktionary - This popular Internet word game is now available on the iPad. Players unscramble a roost full of hens (each hen represents a letter) and create as many words as possible. The iPad app supports dragging and shaking gestures to move and shuffle hens. Ten game levels and a variety of silly hidden features will keep students engrossed as they exercise their vocabularies.
5. Pages - This word processor app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch allows teachers and students to create assignments, presentations, handouts, tests, and other types of document that includes text and graphics. Sixteen templates are provided for different types of documents, and pages can be uploaded to iCloud and accessed from other Apple devices.

Week 5 - Minding Digital Manners

The topic for this week is digital citizenship, and why it is important to be a good citizen, digitally speaking. I guess the reasons for behaving one's self electronically are fairly similar to the reasons for doing so in day-to-day real-life activities. Being mannerly, both in cyberspace and in person, shows those around us that we respect them and want them to feel comfortable around us. It also shows a restraint and a delicacy that help us demonstrate our credibility and build our trustworthiness to those around us. In addition to just plain good manners, however, we must also accept that, as educators, we have a responsibility to lead out students by example, and in a world where information travels so quickly, we must expect that, whatever bits of ourselves we put out there, whether on Twitter, Facebook, in blogs, or through emails, is going to be accessible to our students and their families. We cannot expect them to learn to communicate with taste and integrity if we do not show that we are able to do so. I have an acquaintance, for example, who teaches at a nearby high school, and she posts the most scandalous personal information on her very public Facebook account. She frequently posts about going out and drinking, often adding pictures of herself in these situations. She is a grown woman, and certainly entitled to do as she wishes, but my opinion of her drops more and more each time I see her make the decision to provide this information to the public, including many students that are listed as "friends" on her account. More disturbing is the fact that several people have tactfully mentioned this behavior as problematic, and she disregards the advice to tone it down. As a teacher, it makes me sad. As a parent, I know I would have serious doubts about the quality of education my children would receive in her classroom. Alright. My backside in getting sore, which means I must have spent too much time in the saddle. Time to climb down from my moral high horse. :-) Have a great week, everyone!

Week 4 - Juice Up the Generator

I love how easy technology makes my life sometimes, and I feel particularly grateful when I use material generating software, especially test-generator software. The Glencoe ExamView software I use is especially great because it allows me to make tests using existing banks of questions, which I can add to, change, or delete in order to tailor the tests to  meet my students' needs. Even when I want to write my own questions, the generator allows me to format them so easily, while simultaneously creating keys, and best of all, I can print multiple versions of each test to reduce the all-too-common incidence of cheating. I also love puzzle generators, both by Glencoe and Holt, which allow me to use vocabulary terms relevant to my subject to create puzzles for my students which enable them to learn/reinforce their learning while adding some levity to the class by way of giving out a puzzle.

Week 3 - Fun with the Five Types of Instructional Technology

Greetings, ED505ers (and anyone else who might have stumbled across this blog). The task at hand this week is to discuss the five types of instructional software. I usually go to most any length to avoid simply regurgitating the material we are all already reading in our textbooks, but I don't see much way around it, so here we go! Just in case you didn't know, this info comes from Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (Roblyer).

Type One: Drill and Practice

They say practice makes perfect, and this type of software capitalizes on that notion.

Characteristics

• Software presents items for students to answer
• Immediate feedback of correctness
• Some software will also give explanations of answer choices

Benefits

• Gives instant, personal feedback
• Helps to motivate students to learn
• Helps the teacher save time as there is no work to grade

Criteria for Effectiveness

• User must remain in control of presentation speed
• The software must adequately grade responses
• Feedback for both correct and incorrect answers must be appropriate

Drill and Practice Example Sites:
Earobics
Description: This software give practice in phonological awareness and other reading skills
http://www.earobics.com/


Type Two: Tutorials

Characteristics

• Presents an entire sequence of instruction
• Is considered  complete instruction instead of supplemental
• Drill & Practice functions are included
• Is organized either in a linear fashion or branching fashion

Benefits

• This software gives instant, personal feedback
• Helps to motivate students to learn
• Helps the teacher save time as there is no work to correct
• Can be a standalone instructional software
• Can help the teacher keep records of student progress

Criteria for Effectiveness

• Must have extensive interactivity
• User must remain in control
• Must apply appropriate pedagogy
• Must use graphics appropriately
• Feedback and answer judging must be adequate
• Record keeping must be adequate

Tutorial Example Sites:
Phonics Alive
Description: Comprehensive grammar software to improve elementary students phonics skills.
http://www.learningservicesus.com/home/ls1/page_806/phonics_alive_4_grammar.html

Type Three: Simulation

Characteristics of Simulation
• Software provides a model of real or imaginary systems
• Physical phenomenon and hypothetical situations can be modeled
• Students can see the immediate impact that their choices have made

          Benefits

• Gets students involved
• Experiments are safe
• Can speed up time or slow down processes
• The impossible becomes possible
• Helps to save money and other resources
• Allows repetition with different variations
• Complex processes can be observe

         Criteria for Effectiveness

• Since this type of software can be complex, good documentation, which explains characteristics and uses is needed.
• Accuracy and fidelity of the system is needed for some simulations

Oregon Trail
Description: This simulation is set in 1890's. Students go on a simulated wagon train journey.
http://www.riverdeep.com/

Type Four: Instructional Games

• Characteristics
  • Provides opportunities for problem solving and or skill practice in a fun way
  • Uses rules of games
  • Challenges the student to do their best and win (usually competitive)
• Benefits
  • This type of software is highly motivational
  • Helps students spend more time on topic
• Criteria for Effectiveness
  • Activities and format must be appealing
  • There must be an obvious instructional value
  • There should be a reasonable amount of physical dexterity
  • Violence and aggression should be minimal

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?
Description: This game helps students study history and geography by answering questions which provide clues to where Carmen is hiding.
http://www.riverdeep.com/

Type Five: Problem Solving Software

• Characteristics
  • Problem solving tool are included
  • These programs create environments, which challenge students to solve complex problems
  • Provide problems which help to develop problem solving skills, such as, recalling facts and following a sequence
  • Gives the chance for students to practice solving content-area problems
• Benefits
  • Motivates students to spend more time with content area with challenging activities
  • Inert knowledge is prevented by illustrating situations in which skills apply
• Criteria for Effectiveness
  • Format should be interesting and challenging
  • Must be clearly linked to developing specific problem-solving skills

Fripple Town
Description: Students use this software to practice thinking strategies such as using logic, analyzing attributes, working backwards, creativity and multiple solutions.
http://www.riverdeep.com/