Freely Given

 Let us take a look at 8 free tools found around the internet that can be used to improve both one's classroom lessons and one's other professional duties. Think meetings and professional development.

FULLFORUMS is a forum generator and host server. I have been on a few forum communities over the decades, and have particular features that I look for. At the start of June, I was looking to set up a new forum for a personal project. Fullforums was the only free creator and host site that offered the features I wanted in their free version. Those tools are sufficient storage to allow the keeping of older threads and posts, a thread searcher, and admin tools that let me set up hidden and limited access rooms.
 

WEEBLY is a website builder and host server. I have tried a couple of different website generators over the years. Weebly is the only one I have been comfortable and interested enough in to actually use it through to publication. The free version provides only the basic elements for a website, but in a relatively intuitive way for the user. I find that if I leave its templates, and try to free style, it can be difficult to align photos exactly as I want on the page. And there is a button in my favorite header style that I have no use for and can never seem to delete. So I always have to change it to the label “not a button” while leaving its link blank. Weebly’s forums are really not worth the trouble, because of the limits that Weebly puts onto the free version, but I work around this by having a page with a forum link in it that can go to an external forum. What attracts to Weebly is the amount of tools and storage you do get for free, and I always seem to find a design or layout that aesthetically matches what I hope for thematically. As a bonus for any business or technology teachers or teachers with projects appropriate for websites, Weebly includes tools for educators to monitor student websites. “Students are provided a simplified area to create and edit their websites at students.weebly.com” (Weebly is the easiest way to create a website, store or blog. (n.d.))

MATH.COM has a number of tools for both teachers and students. Mostly they are small and simple, but they can be a lifesaver for the student who forgot to bring their graphing calculator to class. I have used their Algebra Worksheet Generator before. It was useful for generating more practice problems than my usual worksheets have on them. Coming up with random problems that are solvable and specific to a skill or subset of skills can be very time consuming and often an exercise in futility, when you notice problem 7 did not match the skill-set you wanted your class to work on. This generator saves all of that effort. It is not so good for introducing new concepts, as there is not a place for inserting instructions, examples, or diagrams. But for pure review, why waste time being creative. 

CATPIN is an online bubble sheet generator. As a tool it is a relatively simple concept, but it does have a lot of variety and adaptability with its, admittedly, very narrow area of specialty. I am not a big fan of bubble sheets in education, as I consider them a sign of laziness and of a potentially limited view of the content, but there are times when they are useful. It can be adapted to surveys just as easily as worksheets and tests. The Catpin allows you to save your test in there system, save as a pdf file, or you can print them out directly from the site. All in all it is a very function tool if you are looking for bubbles.  

MOODLE, I am not a fan of thee. It may just be my own personal aesthetics. It seems that every teacher sets up his or her class slightly differently and I inevitably end up making some mistake or missing some key information until after it would have been useful. I am quite comfortable with computers and reading, so this does not happen to me very often….except it was the norm for UoG classes for me. From a couple of years ago, when it was newer to the school, I found it very frustrating. There was no or little formatting in text submissions, which earns a lot of ire from me on work that should look professional. I got so fed up I actually researched it on line to figure out why UoG seemed so enamored of it. At the time there were 3 major companies offering this type of interactivity. Moodle was the cheapest. Even on line, where so many things are free, we still get what we pay for. Coming back to a UoG class that uses Moodle after 2 years, I find it more functional, but my earlier impressions will not fade quickly.  

FIREFOX has been my primary web browser since some time in the 2000-aughts when Explore had yet again another big security hole that they were rushing to find a fix to re-protect. Just a few days ago we had the latest “Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 through 11 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted web site, aka ‘Internet Explorer Memory Corruption Vulnerability,’” (Microsoft » Internet Explorer : Security Vulnerabilities. (n.d.) I understand that these are not Explorer’s fault, because the more ubiquitous the software (or hardware) and more internet-connecting it is, the more it is targeted by hackers and criminals. They are just playing the numbers game. I came to appreciate the spartan speed and simplicity of the vanilla Firefox, as well as finding different add-ons to personalize its use without the clutter that Microsoft products inevitably collect. Still all of this said, I suspect that I am going to need to consider parting ways from Firefox in the next decade as its ascendancy will attract more and more of the criminal elements that forced me away from Explorer. 

GOOGLE’s suite of APPS is quite an ambitious one stop shopping tool for communication software, like Kmart is for retail. And, just like Kmart, it has some questionable quality issues. Do not get me wrong, everything functions, unlike at Kmart. But almost everything feels like the simpler, free version of much more advanced software. Google’s suite of Apps is saved by four significant factors. First, it is free. That is hard to beat. Second, it does have more social media and communication tools all smoothly integrated with each other than any other software publisher I am aware of. Microsoft Office Suite has the communication tools bundled just as smoothly, but lacks the social media tools. Third, that smooth integration is extend in an additional dimension by Google Drive being highly sharable in real time with anyone else who has a free G-mail account. And fourth, it has opened up its code enough to allow 3^rd-party developers to design support apps and tools. This last fact is the most significant in making the Google Apps appealing. The add-ons in Google Drive allow it adapt and compensate for its simplicity, allowing it to be considered as a valid replacement for Office even for those who have access to the (clearly) higher quality Office. Still it has a number of negatives unavoidably attached to it as well. It is an online tool, and so is dependent on bandwidth and connection speeds. Yes, many of its core apps can be run in an “off-line” mode, but when trying with Google Drive’s Docs, it was awkward to use and I was nervous about keeping my data if anything happened to the web browser. Another negative is that many of those redeeming apps request access to information and data. This raises a number of privacy and security red flags for those of us who are a bit more aware of the possibilities for their abuse. 

LIVERBINDERS is a tool that I have encountered before. However, it had always been encountered in viewing other’s work. This was the first time I had used it for my own purposes. My reaction was quite different from the other side of the tool. In my earlier exposures, it had struck me as essentially a cheap and low tech-skilled alternative to setting up an actual website. I suspect that that impression was in part due to the users use of it. Having worked with it myself now, I have a different opinion of it. I have come to appreciate using it in two specific ways. First, it is a convenient central-organizing tool for any project involving multiple online resources. Used this way it is only slightly better than a well organized collection of “favorites” folders. The folders are faster, but Liverbinders gets the edge, because of the ability to preview the site or media involved. The second part I like about it is that its style matches my presentational style better than Powerpoint or Emaze. I have little interest in bullet-points and spending time on flashy special effects. I prefer to use the media to support and supplement the quality of the content I am speaking on. Its purpose is to show or present those parts of the topic that I cannot deliver with my voice. Livebinders lets me set up this type of supporting media for a presentation quickly; in just a few minutes if it involves elements I have used before and have saved.  There are two major drawbacks. It is slow to load tabs. This can be partially gotten around by “warming up” the tabs by pre-visiting them and letting them load before they are needed. The other negative is that it is an online tool, and so is dependent on bandwidth and connection speeds. 

References

Microsoft » Internet Explorer : Security Vulnerabilities. (n.d.). Retrieved June 29, 2015, from http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/product_id-9900/Microsoft-Internet-Explorer.html

Weebly is the easiest way to create a website, store or blog. (n.d.). Retrieved June 29, 2015, from http://www.weebly.com/weebly/userHome.php?page=education

Right "AT" You

   In actually planning for ways to adapt an activity in a lesson plan, there are a couple of important thing for a GE (general education) teacher to bear in mind. One is to avoid pre-planning too much before actually knowing the needs and possibilities of a student. While there are typical needs, limitations, and solutions, which a student may present to a teacher, the possible varieties of these is quite extensive. To attempt to anticipate all possibilities would consume too much of the rarest of educational resources: Time. Instead, when lesson planning, a teacher should look over the “materials” section of his or her plan very carefully. As Sheryl Burgstahler, the Director of DO-IT, University of Washington, says, "Technology is not always included in the planning process." (How Assistive Technology Enables Dreams. (n.d.)) The teacher should be sensitive to the possibility that any of the materials he or she uses for an activity may need to be adapted based on the individual student(s) in his or her classroom. By “materials,” such simple everyday lesson items such as pencil, paper, desktop, and movement space should be included in any consideration of an activity. With that materials list in mind, a teacher should consider the needs, limits, and possibilities mentioned in the IEP and observed in interactions with the student. If needed, the teacher should consult resources such as Tech Matrix  or the AEM navigator  and on Guam the Guam System for Assistive Technology. The teacher should take careful notes of any adaptations made for an activity, including the symptoms the student presented that required them (without using names.) These notes should be retained as reference footnotes after each semester or year (or other cycle of students.) This allows a teacher to build up a database of solutions used over the years, which should, over time, reduce the amount of time that is needed in future lesson planning.   

   Another thing to keep in mind is that the qualitative purpose of the activity needs to be maintained, both for the equality of the special needs student and for serving justice to the needs of the other students in the class. If the activity planned was to engage in a physical experiential activity, showing a correct demonstration of the activity to the special need student does not meet the qualitative purpose of the activity. To do so, the student needs his or her own chance to experiment within the activity. It may not be possible to do so with the actual physical material that the other students use, but software that allows for exploration and experimentation of the curriculum of the activity would be a very valid substitute. Or a low tech solution might be for a TA to follow the student’s directions, using the TA’s dexterity to replace the students, but the student’s experimentational ideas to guide the experience.

   Still, perhaps some examples of specific adaptations should be considered. They can be quite simple, and do not always require technology. For example, teaching immersive ESL in Japan, I was tasked with delivering lessons where even the instructions were communicated without using the native language of the students. When working in Elementary and Kindergartens, part of this was done by planning out very specific oral rhythms and body/hand signals to communicate basic things like “repeat after me,” “group says the reply to my question” and “________ says her individual choice of replies to my question.” This worked effectively until one year on my second visit to a school the best English speaking teacher, in quite broken English, explained that there would be 3 special needs students joining my 4^th grade class, because they had heard how fun it was.  Two of them integrated into the lesson just fine. But one of the students, a jolly giant of a 4^th grader, was never on the beat that I had been using for 2 years, but instead repeated the last thing said by his classmates a beat late, usually after I had started the next phrase or flashcard. In reflecting on the situation I recognized that he was not repeating everything. He would not repeat my questions when the class was expected to reply. So, he understood the difference between “repeat after me” and “reply.” He just could not actually reply or repeat until someone else had said what was to be said. So, for that class I had to adapt my rhythms.  “Repeat” and “class reply” became teacher, class, and then giant. Individual choice of “replies” became teacher’s question, point to both giant and a friend of the giant’s who actually replies, point only at giant while he replies on his own beat. Simple.

   Sometimes technology is needed. One year, a student’s IEP informed my interdisciplinary team that he was required to have a special hearing device that not only amplified sounds, but did so directionally and only when the active button was pressed by the student. He could hear some, but had a great difficulty distinguishing specific sounds when multiple sounds were being generated (such as in a class of students discussing an activity.) It was a bulky device that he was embarrassed to wear and hold out towards the teacher or speaking student. Upon reading this, a couple of things to remember for each lesson were discussed in our meeting on him: we had to seat him in the front near where the teacher usually faced, we had to make sure he had the device on and ready each lesson, and we had to make it clear to his classmates that any comments that could even possibly be considered negative would be dealt with most severely. However, in actually working with him in class, I discovered other benefits to his device. I have very good discipline of my voice from years in theater, and can, when needed, be louder than a classroom of middle-schoolers. His device had a little red light that would signal when he was using it. Instead of using his device to help him amplify the sound of the teacher’s voice, I used his device’s red light as a signal that I needed to amplify my own volume. This allowed me to take on the social attention and reduce his need to use the device that drew attention to him. His mother always brought him to IEP meetings, and he was always asked to comment on his hearing ability in each specific class. When he got to me, it was always “Mr. Brown is loud enough.”

Bibliography

AIM Navigator - Home. (n.d.). Retrieved June 28, 2015, from http://aem.cast.org/navigator/page/

Guam System For Assistive Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved June 28, 2015, from http://www.gsatcedders.org/

How Assistive Technology Enables Dreams. (n.d.). Retrieved June 28, 2015, from http://www.edutopia.org/assistive-technology-enabling-dreams-video

Welcome to TechMatrix. (n.d.). Retrieved June 28, 2015, from http://techmatrix.org/

Concerns When Selecting a Game for Use in the Classroom

“To make this subject fun, I will use a game,” is a natural thought that passes through many an educator’s mind at one point or another. It is not, in itself, wrong. However, there are concerns that one needs to be aware of before following this train of thought. Among them are implying that even the teacher does not consider the subject fun, balancing the fun with learning, and ensuring that the game has been assessed for its purpose and not simply its fun.  

Every content has its drier moments. Quite often these tedious elements are focused around memorization, which is an act no-one seems to enjoy, but everyone seems to value the results of it. Teachers should find ways to make this process easier and more palatable. Many tricks are used, such as putting the required datum into song form, but turning a memorization drill into a game is a typical strategy that can usually make the experience more fun for everyone. Many online flash-based games are essentially of this type, flashcards with fun graphics or competitive scoring to sugar coat the memorization process.  Framed within a clearly established value of the content on its own, even without the cool visual or the winning, and followed through with reinforcement of the usefulness of the learned facts, these games can be very supportive of the student’s learning process without any concern that the teacher might be seeking sugar for a bitter pill.

In trying to balance the fun of a game with its usefulness for learning there are two things to focus on. The first is on the game and analyzing whether or not it is a worthwhile tool for learning. In assessing the value of a lesson’s element, such as a game, a rubric can help with the analytic process.  However the orderly geometric patterning of rubrics can seduce the mind into seeking balance. In group D’s project, we selected 5 categories to measure the fun and 5 categories to measure the educational value. The number 5 was chosen for its special numerical power: 5 categories x 2 x 10pts each = 100 points, a convenient number for generating percentiles. We had a lively debate on the virtue and need of many categories, which we eventually whittled down to the 5 the group found the most essential. Here we could have quite easily generated 4 different rubrics, with a significant amount of overlap admittedly. Were those 5 fun and 5 educational categories we ended up with the most essential? Probably they were not. In fact, as educators, we probably should have resisted the instinct for a balanced 5 vs. 5, and instead weighed the rubric heavier towards the educational value. However, it is unlikely that there are 10 objectively essential categories. It is important with rubrics to remember that, while they seek objectivity, they are fundamentally still bound to some subjective choices. So, one should not be afraid of the debate, nor of insisting on the greater value of something over another, and adjusting the rubric accordingly, even if it breaks the ordered balance that the structure tries to establish.

The second thing that should be focused on is whether or not a particular game, recognized to be fun, memorable, and highly educational, should be granted some of the all too precious time that a teacher has with his or her students. “I loved that game, it helped spark my interest in geometry” is a rousing endorsement, but is not enough to justify its inclusion in a grade level that does not have curriculum standards for the element of geometry the game uses. In preparing its presentation, group D spent a considerable percentage of our face to face time considering how any game we might present on would actually be used in a real classroom. This meant that we needed to identify the content standards the game covered. We did this by researching the GDOE Curriculum Documents to find specific standards at the same grade level for each content we envisioned the for the lesson. We found a common grade level (8^th) and thematic compatibility in the following standards: GDOE Science 8.4.9 and GDOE CCSS MATH 8.EE.3 and 8.EE.4. (GDOE Curriculum Documents (n.d.)) By finding these standards we could assess the alignment of our game to what should be occurring in the classroom.

As a team, our individual tasks could be performed separately, especially with Google drive and basic exchange of links either in a Google document or via email. So, we found it valuable to spend the larger part of our face to face time considering and at times debating these three qualitative concerns about our chosen game, Pod Launcher (Science Monster by Cool Math (n.d.)), and a few other candidate games. By establishing our qualitative values for learning the content, categories within our rubric, and degree to which we wanted alignment with the content standards, we found it quite possible to relax in regards to the choices teammates made independently working on their given tasks.

GDOE Curriculum Documents - Curriculum and Instruction. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2015, from https://sites.google.com/a/gdoe.net/curriculum-and-instruction/gdoe-curriculum-documents

Science Monster by Cool math .com - Games - Pod Launcher. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2015, from http://www.sciencemonster.com/games-app/pod-launcher/index.html