Cyr,+Rachel

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Web English Teacher **This website includes all kinds of information from bulletin board ideas and lesson plans of the month, to help integrating technology and sample response questions from a variety of literature. This website has some ideas for K-5 but mostly focuses on grades 6-12. It was created by an English teacher looking for helpful websites on using technology and internet resources.**
 * This website is friendly and simple to use as a resource for literature ideas, guides, and for students looking for helpful hints. It includes lots of information and ideas presented clearly and simply, including lesson plans, what to read, questions to ask students, and games to help encourage learning and engagement in the classroom. I think this website will be useful in the future as an English teacher because it is packed with tools and information for classroom development and teaching skills.**

I found the CAST website to be a very helpful, informative, and an innovative way to help engage students in education. Universal design for learning is important for all teachers to understand and the CAST website provides excellent examples and approaches for using UDL throughout all types of curriculum. I found their three step style to organizing education refreshing and necessary to manage and better understand education for students. Understanding the “what”, “how”, and “why” of learning helps build well-rounded students and creates opportunities for many styles of teaching. The CAST website is clear and simple to navigate while providing lots of information and strategies for both teaching and improving learning. Overall the website was full of information and a positive feeling toward universal design for learning that can sometimes feel frustrating and impossible. As I took the learning style survey, I thought I wouldn’t be surprised by the outcome, but I was wrong. Previous surveys had told me I was mostly an auditory learner, and while auditory learning is one of my strengths, kinesthetic learning style was rated as my top personal style. This makes a lot of sense. I’m a hands-on kind of learner and succeed best when I can practically apply skills that I have been taught through projects and especially through movement. I find myself talking aloud when studying and writing papers and enjoy giving presentations, performing activities, and creating projects rather than reading texts or lectures. I hope to apply some of the techniques when studying harder material, such as pacing or taking a walk when memorizing, reading difficult text aloud, or pretending to explain the information to a friend. I hope that this kinesthetic nature will correspond well in my teaching style also, keeping my classroom lively and interesting. I also found the activities on the CAST website interesting and eye opening. Being aware of what I noticed in the old picture, for example, helped remind me that others may take a different approach. Both of the exercises emphasized individual strengths and weaknesses that all people possess. As a teacher, it is important to be aware of each student’s strengths and how to use these strengths to improve on their weaknesses. Exploring the //Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age// section of the CAST website provided some helpful and clear insights on using UDL in the modern classroom. It was refreshing to see many different methods being applied in the classroom to stimulate and guide many different kinds of learners. Breaking down the traditional classroom styles to create new affective teaching methods is amazing. Letting students take control with online learning, asking questions and getting informed answers through the computer while exploring literature, math, and science at their own pace. Standards can be met, even with multiple approaches to learning, by setting clear goals and using appropriate tools to help aide each learner. This idea, to me, is fantastic! Individualizing education, making it more interesting, stimulating, and relatable for each student is important to the overall success both for the student and the teacher. These methods can be applied to any classroom by finding the general goal of a standard and finding many ways to teach and practice this goal. If my objective is to understand the tone of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, I can achieve this by using students’ strengths so they are not frustrated. Approaching the problem with many solutions; they could draw a detailed scene if they are visual or artistic, they could write a story in a similar tone, they could record their voices performing the poem, or research similar styles online. Universal Design for learning just opens the door to many new teaching possibilities without being confined by the traditional classroom style. In the future I would like to explore more methods to apply UDL in my individual field. I also would like to find out more about funding and equipment that is being provided to implore these practices. All of it sounds great on paper, especially individual lesson plans and technology, but how do we make this more of a reality in out-dated and old-fashioned classrooms? The ideas and methods presented on this website are exciting and positive, I really appreciated the approach that UDL can be done and have a great effect on learning. I think that education will go in this direction throughout the future. Technology and digital education will become more and more important for individualizing approaches and building skills for students. I feel that learning about UDL and its methods is extremely relevant to today’s classroom and the CAST website is a great resource for understanding and applying the techniques.
 * __UDL and the CAST website__**

__Virtual Field Trips__

Virtual field trips, like anything, have many positive and negative features. I feel virtual field trips and using online museums can provide students with many educational tools in a stimulating and interesting environment. The information and activities provided on many of the websites is fantastic, presented with lots of pictures, diagrams, and student friendly vocabulary. The interactive games are fun and helpful for learning about all kinds of things. I think students would have a great time exploring these sites while enjoying the feeling of independence. These virtual museums provide students with the ability to see what they want to see, learn about what they find interesting, and give students the opportunity to discover things on their own. Certain websites also offer activities and games that might not be found in a regular museum with more structure. Overall these websites provide a sense of independence and a less serious tone compared to museums themselves.

However, some of the experience of visiting a museum or going on a field trip is lost. Perhaps most importantly, students never leave the classroom, and isn’t that part of the fun of a field trip? Real hands on experience is also lost, you cannot truly experience life in the colonial era without being fully submerged in it like visiting Williamsburg. Or understand the magnitude of a civil war battle without walking the fields at Gettysburg. Or touch a live reptile while at the zoo. I feel that virtual field trips can be a valuable tool for education and development within the classroom, but “real” field trips are also essential in giving hands on, genuine experiences to students.

__Assistive Technology__ 1. From visiting the websites and viewing the videos in Part I of the assignment, what information did you learn about assistive technology for disabled individuals? It is truly amazing what technology can do for people with disabilities. All sorts of products and services change the way people with disabilities communicate, create, and participate in everyday life. I found that many everyday products are available adapted for people with disabilities, like bicycles, desks, and even gardening tools. The technology available to make learning and participating in the classroom easier is essential for those with disabilities. 2. Were there any sites, products, or resources that particularly impressed you and that you want to remember as you prepare to become a classroom teacher? Many of the resources available online will be very useful in my future classroom. Using websites to help research how to accommodate a student with disabilities and finding helpful strategies for more successful inclusion is a valuable tool. I found Kathy Schrock’s educational website especially useful for dealing with less severe disabilities such as social anxiety, reading trouble, or speech development. 3. What promises/potentials does technology provide for students with diverse learning needs? I think that most importantly assistive technology provides students with diverse learning needs hope and positivity. Giving them the tools they need to be able to be in a regular classroom with other students to thrive and succeed throughout their education is invaluable. Technology allows the students to be part of the their larger peer group and not separated into special schools giving them social skills, educational skills, and developmental skills. Technology only promises to advance helping to make the difficult life of a person with special needs easier. 4. Have you ever had a personal experience with a student or other person who has used some form of assistive technology to help them function in learning or everyday life? If so, describe what you observed from that experience in terms of meeting the special needs of those individuals. I sometimes substitute and throughout this experience I have encountered many students with special needs. One particular student comes to mind, his case was mild but impactful on his education. The student has trouble writing and especially keeping pace with the other students in the class. The solution for this student was simple, he uses the computer to type his assignments. This student had a simple adjustment but it made him more successful in the classroom and more comfortable and confident in himself. Using basic technology changed this student’s ability to function within the classroom and helps him day to day. 5. From this assignment, what will you carry with you as you prepare to become a teacher – one that will, most likely, face the challenge of meeting the needs of special education students along with non-disabled learners? I think the most important lesson learned from researching technology and special needs students is that there is help out there for these students. It will be vital to remember to look for solutions to help the students. Having patience and encouraging the students to be as independent as possible through using the tools and technology available to them.

Movie Maker Project