Blog Assignment 3

Peer Editing

After watching the videos and going through the power point presentation I have come to a better understanding of what peer editing is and how to be successful when editing. In the video What is Peer Editing, there are three steps listed to find success when peer editing. The first step is to compliment your peer on what they’ve done correctly. I think this is just as important as any of the other steps because allows the person who is being reviewed to see what they have done correctly and feel like they have made some accomplishments before being told what they need to work on. The second step is to make suggestions. There were five areas in which the video listed as areas of focus when making suggestions: word choice, details, organization, sentences, and topic. Suggestions may be needed in these areas to ensure the paper/blog/assignment is easily read and understood. The third and last step is correction. In this step there were four areas of focus given: punctuation, grammar, sentence, and spelling. After following these three steps, as well as staying positive and being specific peer editing is a breeze. These three steps however simple they may seem were really helpful in finding the balance between being mean and being helpful.

In the video Writing Peer Reviews Top 10 Mistakes, I was amused by the entertaining way each type of editor was depicted. Although the video was meant to be amusing it helped me realize the common mistakes we make as peer editors. It made me think back to elementary school even high school and how I would behave when he came time to do peer reviews. In this video they give a list of ten categories in which we tend to fall into when providing peer reviews: picky Patty, social Sammy, whatever William, Jen the generalizer, mean Margaret, loud Larry, pushy Paula, off-task Olivia, speedy Sandy, and defensive Dave. I know personally I could find myself in each of these categories at one point and time or another, but after watching this video it really made me evaluate myself when I am editing for my peers.

Finally after reading through the power point presentation,Peer Editing with Perfection, I feel more confident than ever I can be a helpful and successful peer editor. Through the power points step by step help in working through examples and applying the skills I obtained from the videos I now feel as if I can and should provide my peers with more than a good job or it needs some work feedback when peer editing. I now have a clear understand of what my job is as not only the editor but as the edited.

Technology in Special Education

In the video Technology in Special Education,Cook tells of how she uses technology in her classroom for the benefit of her special needs students. Cook says she uses technology to “to help facilitate student participation.” Cook’s students are nonverbal or suffer from a physical or cognitive disorder, but because of the use of technology are able to take part in and do things they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. Throughout this video Cook gives examples of how she is able to use technology to grab the student’s attention and to prepare them for the world.

I was personally unaware of some of the ways technology is used in the classroom. I loved the idea using the ipod for audio reading during silent reading time for those children who have a hard time reading on their own. This seems so simple to those of us who can read with ease but to a child who has to be sent in the hallway with an aid to have help during silent reading time this can be such a great tool. Not only will they be able to stay in the classroom and not feel singled out, they will be able to follow along in the physical book while having the help of the audio reader. This is such an amazing use of technology to me personally because my little brother has a learning disability and I know what a difference this would have made in his academic career.

Apps for Academics

When looking for an app that could be used in the classroom I found apps in varying price ranges doing various task all claiming to be the best. I tried the free version of a few different apps but I ended up falling for an app called Alphabet Machine. In using this app students will be able to learn their ABC’s. For each letter of the alphabet there is a screen with that letter, a picture of an everyday item that starts with that letter, and a voice recording saying the letter. Seems simple enough right?

I currently teach at a preschool and in doing so I am responsible for making sure my students can recite the alphabet. This app uses the same method I use to teach countless preschoolers every year their alphabet. I believe this app would be beneficial in the classroom of a kindergarten class as a fun way to review and/or teach the children their alphabet as well recognizing the letters. This app can also be used as a way for the students to test their knowledge since the sound can be turned off so that a student could say what they believe the letter to be then check to see if he/she is correct by turning the sound back on.

Harness Your Student’s Digital Smarts

In the video Harness Your Student’s Digital Smarts Vicki Davis, a teacher and IT director at a rural school in Georgia, uses all kinds of technology to teacher her students. She is getting her students involved in all different forms of technology such as: blogs, wiki’s, and other software. Davis says “by teaching with only paper and only pencil only certain types of students will succeed.”

By teaching in this manner Davis says she is still accomplishing the set curriculum but she is “teaching her students to learn to learn.” When I first heard that statement I thought what an oxymoron teaching them to “learn to learn” but the more I thought about it I found the meaning in that statement. By teaching her students to “learn to learn” she is preparing them for the real world and providing them with life skills that many of us weren’t taught in school, I certainly wasn’t. She is giving them the chance to find the answers on their own, to explore their options and make decisions.

Davis is also providing her students with the opportunity to explore things many students in a rural Georgia town wouldn’t have the chance to explore by having them engaged in digiteen and flat classroom. By using these two programs the students are able to work with students from all over the world and collaborate together to finish a single project. I think this amazing. I know as a kid growing up in a small town in Alabama I never thought of the world being anything more than the United States and for these students to be able to work with other students their age in the Middle East to complete a project is amazing to me. How empowering that must be for all the students involved. I think this also provided students with many much needed life skills. We will all be required to work with other people in our jobs and they won’t always be just like us and we will have to find a way to make it work out and this is an amazing and fun way to teach students that lesson while infusing it with another lesson.

I give Ms. Davis two thumbs up for allowing her students to have the chance to explore so many different things and still accomplishing the set curriculum. I will most certainly be applying some of these things to my future elementary classroom.