Lesson 3 in Review

Once again, this class has provided many useful resources for educators through the technology explorations we have explored. These resources are great for the use in any classroom. Here are this weeks technology explorations in review.

Technology Exploration 7:
The two websites that were reviewed for this technology exploration include: www.gpat.org and www.zoho.com. GPAT is an assistive technology site.  It provides useful information for teachers and educators about the types of assistive technology that are available for student use.  It also provided information about the IDEAS Conference. Some simple assistive technologies include pencil grips and large handled cups.  There are many aids that students can have access to if the teacher knows about them and if the technology would benefit them and fit into their IEP. Zoho is a site used to create charts and graphs to display data. It can be used within a school setting or in a small business setting.


Technology Exploration 8:
The two website that were reviewed for this tech. exploration include: www.4teachers.org/tools/ and dimio.altervista.org/eng/. With the site 4teachers.org, we were to select three tools to explore. I chose to explore Quiz Star, Casa Notes and Web Poster Wizard.  Each of these were useful tools that can easily be used in the classroom and are a great resource for educators.  The second website was designed as a text to speech program.  It is supposed to function as an automatic speech recognition tool, but the program would not download properly to my computer and therefore caused issues.


Technology Exploration 9:
The website explored in tech. exploration 9 was http://fullmeasure.co.uk/powertalk/.  It was a great resource and would be easy to incorporate into the classroom.  Power Talk is a program that speaks texts that are on presentation slides.  Great resource


Technology Exploration 10:
The websites explored in tech. exploration 10 include: http://www.webquest.org and http://readthewords.com. The WebQuest site provides links to different WebQuests.  The ReadTheWords.com site is another text to speech technology that provides users with the ability to generate audio files from written materials.


Now onto the documents I've used with my after school students.  This summer we are planning a mini-camp and field trip.  I have created a postcard for my students and their parents.  At first there were pictures that made the post card visually appealing, but it was a little distracting. There was too much going on with the pictures behind the text and it was distracting to try to read. It was also lengthy and needed to be shortened to get the message across in a quick but effective manner.  

I have since recreated the postcard to make it more effective.  This is what it looks like now.

Front of post card, discussing the topics for our mini-camp.

Back of post card, letter to parents discussing the field trip.

I removed the pictures from behind the text and made them smaller and to the side of the texts. i also added a solid color for the background and a contrasting color for the title to make it stand out.

















The parent letter was written with a small picture to the lower right corner and the title of the camp written over top of the picture.  The letter quickly lets the parents know what students should do to prepare for the trip (i.e. wearing tennis shoes, jeans, and bringing a light jacket).


The postcard is now much more effective and less distracting than the first version.


That's this weeks lesson in review.