The world of Web 2.0 tools can have an incredible impact on any classroom but can really make a world of difference to students with educational needs. There are hundreds of options available to teachers and students. The world as we know it is changing. Since 1984 the number of internet devices is 1 million times more (Did You Know 2011, Mrpcstuff123,http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BLJ4VmWk5tw ). In just over 15 years no one under the age of 30 will even know what a CD is. Therefore, teachers are challenged to reach out to students using the technology that kids are so familiar and comfortable with.
Students with disabilities benefit from having information presented in many different nontraditional lecture type ways. Some great options are through the use of video, picture and sound. Youtube has a video for just about everything and these visuals are great ways to show students in a way that was not so accessible even 5-10 years ago. Another great Web 2.0 tool is Fotobabble (http://www.fotobabble.com/). This is a tool allowing you to upload photos and add sound to them. I like this tool because I think it can be a great way to teach vocabulary and create student made projects. Many students with disabilities struggle with learning new vocabulary. It is sometimes hard to understand when exclusively given word definitions. Fotobabble allows the user to upload a picture and voice description. A teacher can first model this by creating a vocabulary list with photo and voice description making new unfamiliar words a little more tangible. Another option would then be to have students find their own pictures and give their own definition. This would be a great way to team up students in an inclusion classroom and allow them to learn from each other. This allows students to be active learners and act as a teachers. When children play an active part and participate in teaching others they learn and retain information better.
Please take a look at the few vocabulary words I created in Fotobabble. http://www.fotobabble.com/m/LzFGUDBGcVdTd3c9. Then to explore the site a bit more, try a search in the top right. There are some other education samples where students gave reports to go along with a picture.
I agree that teachers need to be familiar with the technologies that their students are using. A teacher I worked with ended up retiring because she could not deal with the changing technologies in the classroom. I brought in some old CD players for the students to use, and she asked me if they were the new thing everyone needed to have. She had no idea what an mp3 even existed.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to look into Fotobabble. It sounds like the perfect site for a project I had last semester. Your idea for using it to learn new vocabulary is really interesting. In one of my other classes I'm working with the "If-It-Fits' learning strategy for learning new vocabulary, maybe I can pair the two together. It also sounds like a good tool for students who struggle with written language.
I appreciate how your posts consider the needs of students with disabilities when using various tools. I wasn't able to see what you created since the link brought me to a log in area. Can you post without requiring that?
ReplyDeleteI apologize for the link. When I tried it, it opened my page but I didn't realize I was still logged in. I updated the link in the blog. That should bring you to one sample and allows you to click on my other two samples.
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