July 3 First Day of Class

      This was a great first day of class! I can't believe everything I learnt in only three hours. I have to admit that I was a little scared of being totally immersed in "learning by doing" and not having someone "hold my hand" but everything worked out fine. My confidence level has already improved. This is exactly how I want my students to feel in my classroom. I want my students to be excited to learn something new and take a risk in doing it.
     It was a real reality check for me when we did the activity in class involving the papers that were in different languages. I am a resource teacher and there are students that I have worked with that most likely feel like this all of the time. It makes me think of what else I can be doing to meet their learning needs. I get a little frustrated at times because at the elementary level we try to give students time to see if they can learn by traditional methods of teaching/learning and it is usually not until grade 3 or 4 at the earliest that a lot of assistive  technology can be used.
    I take so much for granted in my life that is scares me because the task of writing with my non-dominant hand and using no hands was extremely difficult. I was thinking about how to form letters which is a task that I have not done since I learnt to write. I have a member of my family, deceased now, that is known for his ability to paint with his mouth. His name is Averill Barkhouse, and he was quite amazing! Check out his website.  http://www.nsnet.org/averillbarkhouse/

 The invention of the tablet has really changed the way assistive technology is even used. The ipad purchase and apps is quite affordable for what it can do. When we compare it to the program Kurzweil, that you discussed in class, it is so expensive and limited to desktop. I feel like I am still very "behind' the times at my school. I would love for students to have access to more tablet and easier to manipulate technologies. We have Smart boards at my school that are awesome additions to any teaching and learning styles but it is not as personal as someone having their own device.  I feel the Smart boards contribute to using Universal Design for learning but they are only one small piece. I also have been thinking about how, at my school, we are overusing the use of scribes for students. This is far to dependent for students and is not effectively measuring what they are capable of doing.
The polleverywhere site activity reminded me of "clickers smart response" we use in our school. The advantage the clickers have over the polleverywhere is that the clickers are not anonymous and the teacher can easily measure a students learning. But the polleverywhere site is much easier to manage.
Assignment one was daunting at first but once I got started with it I really got into it! Awesome first day!