Photos on Picnik 9/20

Chase

Willa

Quinn

Kathy Schrock's Blog

I liked Kathy's blog.  It drew me in because of the photos she had right at the top of her blog page.  The pictures made me want to read about what they were and got me interested in what Kathy had to say.  One of her blog entries showed a picture of a charging station for many different devices all in one.  She said this particular charging station has 2 spots for an ipod or iphone, a place for a kindle or ipad, and 2 other USB ports to charge other devices.  I think this would be extremely convenient to have because I too have so many different devices I have to charge and it take up so many different outlets, so much time, and so much space.  This station would eliminate all of those problems.  I liked how she consistently posts different kinds of gadgets that she uses in her life that she thinks other people would benefit from.  I feel like posting things that could be of use and interest to other people's daily lives makes a blog more worth while to read.  After reading Kathy's blog I am no interested in getting someone the devices she posted about and I even have some background knowledge of which ones to buy and how to go about buying them.

Standards for Teaching Special Education

I am in the graduate Special Education program here at fairfield U and work at an elementary school with children with autism, so I will direct my focus for this class towards broadening my knowledge and skills for helping special education classes.  The standard principles of special education are to work collaboratively to achieve individual students' unique goals and objectives, to design lessons and strategies that will work best for each student, and differentiate teaching styles to meet different students needs.

According to the Common Core of Teaching, Special Education teachers should have knowledge of "instructional materials including adaptive equipment and technological resources.  I find this to be key to this class.  So, I will focus my projects, and research for this class on how I can help students with special needs access different materials and find ways for them to use adaptive technology.  A lot of the students I work with have trouble communicating in the sense of expressive language.  I will try to find technologies in the class that will help enhance that skill for them.  As a future special education teacher I will have students with difficulties in organization of thought and hope to have a standard for technologies that will help students to gather thoughts and easily and smoothly put them together. I will have students with various different learning styles from auditory, visual, kinesthetic, ect. and I want to be able to have knowledge of technologies that will be able to meet all of those different styles of learning needs.

Teddy Bears Go Blogging

The idea of pen pals has remained quite the same over the years, however the actual act of the 'pen' in pen pals has morphed quite a bit.  Now most people and simply type into their e-mails and press send and the message is delivered instantly.  This article made me think about how great it could be if all kids could use a blog to communicate with friends, and people all over the world.  This Teddy Bear article shows how unique and creative one can get with blogging.  It shows the versatility and ease of blogging.  I think that children these days love and thrive off of using technology so they would be even more enthusiastic about blogging.  It would be a great opportunity to allow children to explore their love of the internet while practicing writing skills, learning about other people, and developing conversation skills.