Week 6 - "There's an app for that"

    We live in a great time! Resources are available by the click of a button. We are able to find many free resources, and even those that we pay for are usually between $1-$5. Apps help make learning fun, and help us to assign activities to students at different levels - whether we are providing enrichment activities to gifted students, or remedial activities to students needing extra practice.

    

    Working in special education means that I spend a lot of time re-teaching, and giving remedial activities to students. In my search, I found 4 apps that I think every math inclusion teacher should know about. The first is an application to be used by the teacher; the last three can be used by students.

11)      The Percentally app is great for inclusion teachers. It allows you to enter education and behavior goals and tally to track progress of each goal. The app converts the tally measures into a percentage. This is great for tracking all of those measurable goals from IEPs.  I also believe tracking through the app could be more confidential than many of the techniques that are currently used.

22)      Fractions and Decimals can be a little scary to everyone. Extra practice is needed in this area on a regular basis for many of my students. The Fractions & Decimals – Foundational App (by Mind4Learning, Inc.) presents a 3 stage process to increase math levels in this area. Students use drill and practice activities to increase understanding of fractions and decimals.

3

33)      For more practice in several topic areas of math, students may use MATH!!! By Math Pentagon. Students can pick subject areas from a list that includes areas such as Algebra, Geometry and Proportions. Students are given practice problems to work out. The app also allows teacher to schedule sessions for students and allows a teacher to view the work done by each student.

4

44)      Factor Race by NRCC Games allows students to practice factoring as they play a racing game. Each question that is factored correctly moves the student closer to the finish line. There are multiple levels that include both binomial and trinomial factoring.

Week 5 - Digital Citizenship - Why is a good digital reputation important? What values are important?

    Why is it important?? Digital citizenship is important because I believe those who lose a good reputation in digital citizenship also lose their credibility as a professional. To maintain a professional demeanor, it is important to take values of a good digital reputation seriously.

    I feel that as a teacher, our paychecks differ greatly from the standards that we are held to on a daily basis. This extends from the classroom, to the community grocery store, to your facebook profile picture. If you think that your students haven’t tried to look up your facebook, Instagram or Twitter – I am afraid that you are probably greatly mistaken. While all of these allow for privacy through different settings, we cannot be naive in thinking that if we post the worst, or show our less than redeeming qualities that this will go unnoticed – by parents, by students, by coworkers, by the BOE. I feel that the key to good digital citizenship can be summarized as we summarize most citizenship – do not do, or in this case post – anything that you do not want everyone to see.

   I think that by having good digital citizenship, we set a model for those around us. The most obvious value of a good digital reputation is respect of others and yourself. The internet really is not the place to post EVERY thought that comes to your mind, or every picture. Even if you delete a post, someone saw it. Someone has not refreshed the page; and if it’s really bad – someone probably took a screenshot. It is important to maintain good relationships with peers online. If you have an issue to arise with someone, it is best to address the issue in person, or on the phone – not on social media for all onlookers to see. I also consider presenting your best self to be a facet of self respect. This means using appropriate language and grammar. Sure, there is internet shorthand. However there is a difference in IMO (in my opinion) and Wu$ ^ Y@lL. Especially as a teacher, it is known that you are educated – do not abandon that education with toggle typing and replacing letters with symbols. Please?

    Another value of digital citizenship that I find important is being careful about what you repost and/or giving credit to information that you find or post. Please, no chain posts/emails. Also, especially with controversial material – make sure that it is coming from a CREDIBLE source. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen repost articles from The Onion that they have tried to pass off as true, verifiable information. No. Check the source of things before you send the information on, or post it from your own social media page. When you DO find information, tools, or techniques of interest, or perhaps useful in the teaching profession – by all means share! However, it is important to cite your source. There is no need for an APA or MLA style bibliography with each post or e-mail. However, it is important to share where you got your information and give credit where credit is due, especially when you do not provide a link for the site or article from which you gained the information. 

   So, set a good example for your students and peers. Be responsible with what you share, and how you share the information! 

Week 4 - Material Generators

    Wow! There are so many materials generators to make our lives easier – and I didn’t even have a clue about some of them! Picking only three to blog about has been tough! So, here we go!

    First, I was very much intrigued by Individualized Education Program Generators.  However, after reading more about the IEP Generators, I found that this may be what is already in use through SETs. There are many drop-down options, topics – etc. While I am thankful for these generated reminders and options, I know that when writing my IEPs, I will be wishing the whole process could be completed by prompts and drop-down menus. Still, I am very much thankful for the IEP generator in place and hope that it helps next year as I begin to take on IEPs on my own. Until then, I may start taking notes for next year from my coworkers.

    Second, I would like to address that even though right now I do not manage any specific cases, there is still a LOT of paperwork, forms, etc associated with my job – whether it be notes home, personalized behavior charts, or missing assignment notices. PDF Form Makers have been a life saver. By making a generic form in PDF style, I am able to either type in or choose from drop down menus the information that I want displayed. I can also personalize the form with student information. This is helpful – versus typing letters/forms many times that use the same format.

    Test Generators are used by many of the teachers that I currently work in inclusion with. If I needed to create my own test for whatever reason, I would use test generators as well. I really enjoy that you can put the questions in, and generate different versions of the same test. Also, the program that our teachers use gives automatic answer keys. For those who regularly send students to the resource room for testing – let me fill you in that this is GREATLY appreciated. Yes, we can sit and figure out the answers, but having a key to compare student answers to when tests are turned in give us a way of more efficiently checking for if we need to give the test back for a “second look” or whether we can have the student return back to class then. In a perfect world, being able to simply print 2 copies of an answer key would always be an option – test generators make this possible! Test generators used by our current geometry teacher also allows the teacher to set aside certain questions that do not appear on modified tests – no more crossing out, or sending a list of questions to omit! I plan on taking my math PRAXIS in a year or so and becoming certified as soon as possible in this, so that I have the option of special or general education instruction. If I make the leap to solely teaching math, test generators will be used!