Blog Assisgnment #3

Paige Ellis' Blog Assignment #12
The video Peer Editing and the slideshow Peer Edit with Perfection Tutorial basically followed the same guidelines. I personally thought it was very helpful as a "commenter" and "commentee." I appreciated how everything was very straight forward and told you exactly how it would be best to comment on a classmate's blog.
On the other hand, the video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes does not only reiterate what the two previous videos stated, it went further into detail about specific commenters. Like most people, I don't like to hurt people's feelings so I try to say to them what I would want someone to say to me. The videos have taught me that criticism is good as long as we can stay positive and not crush people's confidence.

Technology in Special Education

First and foremost, I must say my heart has always been in working with special needs students. I believe that anything that can help accomodate these students learn more efficiently is great and should be used. If children with certain disabilities best learn by drawing in the sand, then I am all for supplying sand boxes in all schools. If accomodations or modifications are needed and technology will create these things then these technologies should be provided.
Secondly, I think what Miss Cook, in the video Technology in Special Education, is absolutely brilliant. She has tranformed the way the students view learning and how they learn. All the students were so proud to show off the technology they use to learn and most kids take their ability to learn on their own for granted. I will be showing this video to my friends who are planning on going into Special Education and also the woman who was a big contributor in my love for working with special need students.

I have honestly never thought of implementing technology into a math class. However, if I were to get a student with a disability in my class, depending on the severity of the disability, I would life to use Math Bingo. Not only does it seem to reinforce basic math skills, the students may not picture it as soley a piece of learning material but a game. As far as I can tell, everyone is more willing to do something if there is a reward, even if it is just a screen that says "WINNER!"

Vicki Davis: Harness Your Student's Digital Smarts
At first, I thought Vicki Davis was just letting her kids learning to play virtual living games such as "The Sims." That couldn't be farther from the truth. When I was in high school we were required to take a computer class, but I could only wish I could have had one like she's teaching. For the majority of my life, I have wanted to be in contact with someone on the other side of the world. These students get to do that, but magnified.
I think these students are extremely lucky to be taught these skills at such an early age. They are being "taught" (and I use that loosely, more like learning themselves) how to navigate their way through the internet and and a virtual world with other students all over the world. I think it is absolutely amazing. If I were going to be a computer teacher, I would love to be able to teach my students just as Davis does.