November 26

The class tonight was frustrating at times. Our pod spent the first hour trying to figure out how best to set up the programs of Clicker 5 and Cloze Pro. We read the profile of Mary and had a lot of discussion as how to best suit her needs with the technology. It took us the entire night to work on one subject area for one child. The entire content of the ebook, the writing grid and the test would probably take Mary about half an hour to complete. I realize we are new to these programs and hopefully with more practice we will become faster at designing activities. I am glad we worked as a group bceause if we were stuck, usually someone in the group could figure out where we went wrong.

Writing

After reading the paper dealing with the writing task analysis I was amazed at all the details needed in order to write. At my level the content skills are very weak. Some of my students have limited prior knowledge and experiences about how language works. They can not organize ideas and usually find it difficult to keep their attention on the task.
Another problem my children have is the use of their pencil. They do not have the experience of holding a pencil or the pressure required for printing. Again concentration and memory are a factor for these children. In order to write effectively children need to have proper directionality. This skill needs to be taught at the beginning grades for writing and reading. Children need to be able to have automatic letter form recall and motor skills in order to write.
I have seen children use the program inspiration and found it to be helpful in developing writing skills in students who have the ideas but can not organize them.

Programs for elementary students

I really was involved in our last class since the programs discussed and worked with were ones that I am becoming quite familiar. The children in my grade one classroon really enjoy Simon Sounds It Out and Earobics. Even during free time at the end of the day, they want these programs on the computer to play with. I am fortunate to have a full time PSA in my classroom to work on the computer with my child with Autism and CP. Otherwise I would not have had the success with these programs and the children would not be learning at their individual levels. I look forward to learn more programs that I can use in my class to help these children cope with the curriculum.

Presentations

I truly enjoyed the presentations last week in class. I see the program has benefits for all grade levels from grade one to twelve. Everyone worked hard and all students will or could benefit from the hard work. Kathy