Using Flexible Technology

I believe the most important change to make in a classroom in regards to using flexible technology would be to embrace all the amazing technology resources available to truly achieve universal design to meet the learning needs of ALL students!  The wide variety of technology resources, literally, "right at our fingertips," makes creating multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement so much more readily accessible than if we did not have this abundance of awesome technology resources!  To do this, I believe teachers must become comfortable with using technology and knowledgeable of the wide variety of resources available before this can truly be implemented in a classroom.  It is important for school districts to offer professional development opportunities for this, as well as the time for teachers to engage in these opportunities for further learning.  It is also important those choosing new software and curriculum for a district keep in mind materials that support mixed-ability classrooms, including text-to-speech, color coding, adjustments for different ability levels, and graphic options.  I realize time is of the essence- finding and integrating all of these amazing resources takes a lot of time on the teacher's part.  It would be awesome if in the future new programs and curriculums were created with UDL strictly in mind- integrating all these great resources in the first place!

Accessible Textbooks

Accessible textbooks come in several forms, these include, Braille, various digital forms, including audio, large print, and etext.  

Over the past decade, etext has become the primary alternate format for accessible textbooks in today's classrooms because of the versatility and flexibility it offers.  The cost of digital scanning equipment and software has dramatically decreased over the past decade and this form of technology has become common place in schools.  Etext can come as WORD, RTF, ASCII and HTML formats and can be highlighted and read aloud by synthetic speech on nearly any computer.  Etext can be instantly increased in size, preferential color schemes can be applied, and letters, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and sections can be sequentially highlighted as the text is read aloud.  

Benefits of Accessible Textbooks: 

Accessible textbooks offer benefits in the classroom for a wide range of students, including those with visual impairments, students with physical disabilities, students with learning disabilities, students who are deaf or hard of hearing, and students with cognitive impairments.   Accessible, flexible alternative versions of curriculum materials can increase engagement, attention, and achievement of all students by offering adjustable levels of complexity, novelty, and mixed media.  Many state's "Braille Laws" require textbook publishers to provide digital files compatible for Braille transcription free of charge.  For students with physical disabilities, including issues with dexterity, digital files with a more accessible structure, including special layout and navigation structure with an emphasis on key terms and points of the text (bolded) can be more easily navigated using voice control, eye gaze, head pointer, single-switch access or keyboard.  For students with learning disabilities, audio versions can help some students keep pace with their typical peers and increase their independent use of core curriculum resources.  For students with hearing impairments, digital files allow for the creation of both signed and text versions of the same instructional content.  For students with cognitive impairments and traumatic brain injuries accessible texts offer the ability to transform text from one modality to another and to customize the display of a page into discreet and manageable chunks to help focus the attention of students who are often easily distracted.  

Webquests

Webquests combine the most effective instructional practices into one integrated student activity.  They allow for integration of technology into the curriculum, provide real-life application experiences for students, allow students to work cooperatively or individually to solve problems (more real-life application), aid students in developing higher level thinking skills, offer flexibility, and the opportunity for multiple engagements!  Because of their key features and structure, I believe webquests are an excellent example of Universal Design in practice because they can be easily altered and modified to fit the needs of all student abilities.

Technology Blogs to Follow.

Free Technology for Teachers
I found this blog through the Edublog Awards 2010 site.  The Free Technology for Teachers blog won the 2010 award for Best Individual Blog, Best Resource Blog, as well as Best Educational Tech Support Blog and its content looks very interesting to me, as it includes frequent posts linking teachers to free resources and lesson plans to aid in their teaching with technology.  I'm looking forward to this blog providing great up-to-date resources for application in the classroom!  


2¢ Worth

Teaching & Learning in the new information landscape…I found this blog through the Kathy Schrock's Ed Tech Blog Picks page on her site.  It is also the blog of one of the author's from the quotes we had the choice of evaluating from the Digital Kids.  Analog Schools piece yesterday.  I really liked the author, David Warlick's, quotes about technology in education and figured his blog would be interesting to follow.  I like how the author primarily poses questions as opposed to answers and feel this blog will be thought provoking for myself as well as offer topic starters for further discussion on technology and education with fellow educators.  

I found this blog through a Google search of "early childhood education technology".  This blog is dedicated to Early Childhood Education, an area I'm very interested in professionally as well as personally that includes a section and numerous posts on the use of technology in early childhood as well as many other topics related to early childhood education.  

Prekinders: Resources for Pre-K Teachers

I also found the Prekinders site and blog through the same Google search above.  It also looks appealing to me as it covers a lot of early childhood related topics of interest to me.  They offer a list of recommended Preschool iPod apps here.  

Digital Kids. Analog Schools.

I’m getting tired of hearing people continue to ask for the evidence that technology helps students learn. It doesn’t matter. We know that good teachers help students learn. We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teacher’s hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time, and it is the lens through which we experience much of our world.
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2006/05/22/curriculum-is-dead/


It frustrates me when I hear about school districts denying student's access to awesome technology, such as the Google apps, because of the risk of a few students being "off task" during the activity.  To me, these are the tools and resources of our future, where better a place than in the schools to learn to use them responsibly and appropriately?


I'm surprised to realize how progressive the small, middle-income community (a population of approximately 11,000-12,000 people) in which I live is in terms of technology in education and how lucky the children attending the public schools here truly are!  For many years Sturgis Public Schools has had a technology curriculum in place.  Sturgis Public Schools has numerous, up-to-date computers and software in every elementary classroom with access to high-speed Internet for student use, numerous iPad's and iPods for student use in each of the schools, Smartboards and Elmo projectors in most, if not all, classrooms, and they utilize cell phones for polling of students and other various activities- they've truly embraced that these tools are the way of the future for students.   They do not block Google on student computers, in fact they've embraced the Google apps and Internet as important tools in student learning.


I'm extremely proud of my community for their belief in the value of technology in education and the impact it will have in preparing our children for the future.  As the author of this quote suggests, Sturgis Public Schools has truly placed, and continues to place, new, relevant technology in every classroom and the hands of every teacher and student in this community.




While we teach whatever we teach at school, the kids go home and learn the skills they need to survive and prosper in an interconnected global economy.

Incrementally changing our teaching methods, slowly bringing people up to speed . . . worked fine when ideas of literacy and education were not rapidly changing; but they are. We need to be able to leapfrog in our understandings, in our methods, and in our tools, allowing us to move to where the kids are. If we do not become leaders to our students, we will  be followers, seen as irrelevant, and left to cry in our books while the kids are off setting the agenda.  

http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2005/11/educational_lea.html


I think it is imperative teachers be given ample opportunities to access a wide-variety of professional development opportunities for learning new ways to become familiar with and incorporate new technology into their teaching to help engage students in meaningful learning.


To me, one of the greatest things about the use of technology in education is how it allows students to truly learn- technology allows students the ability to access an infinite amount of information.  As opposed to being "taught" information directly, students today have the ability to seek the information quickly and efficiently and learn in new, meaningful ways.


I believe it is imperative that teachers embrace new technology and adapt their teaching style to incorporate it into their classrooms to help students truly learn how to learn- one of the greatest gifts a teacher can give a student.

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