Entry 5: Assistive Technologies for Students with Learning Disabilities

For my assistive technology for students with LDs, I played around with creating a thinglink in conjunction with an infographic I found off the web (see final product here). I was unsure how to begin or what kind of infographic to choose and I have to say, looking around the thinglink website offered a lot of inspiration as did the tool itself. In the end, as our LD lesson focused around dyslexia, a reading disorder, and as my learners are pre-readers, I decided to choose an infographic about basic phonics. The infographic is basically an alphabet chart but with the added value of a pronunciation guide in a visually attractive and cohesive manner, leading to a lower affective filter (the emotional barrier associated with learning a language) as well as lower cognitive demand due to the appealing and organized "look" of the infographic.

I would implement this tool by using it as a review of letters, rather than a first step in teaching. I would give all students the link to this infographic on our school's education platform and students could use it at their own pace to practice letters. That way, students only need to review the letters that they have trouble with. The activities provided on the harder letters (vowels, x, and, c) offer extra help in the form of worksheets, games, or songs, so that students with many different learning styles can benefit and be given equal advantage in letter-learning. This is also very helpful for dyslexic students, who, with the videos and games, are offered opportunities to learn visually (non-text), auditorily, and kinesthetically. It would be amazing if you could imbed quizzes and questions that can be tracked to measure student progress as well as student participation at home.

I really enjoyed learning about and utilizing assistive tools that can not only benefit students with LDs but any student who has an atypical learning style. Everyone can benefit from decreased cognitive overload - it allows for increased learning on the really important stuff - the content!

Entry 4: Student Engagement

The article, Classroom Response Systems (Deal, 2007), discusses the results of many studies which reveal links between non-cognitive factors (i.e. using classroom response systems) and cognitive results (i.e. higher grades in the course) in higher education. Many of the studies connected related non-cognitive factors, such as attendance, higher ratings of the class and professor, and class preparation, with higher grades in the end of the course.

In one study examining an Earth Science course at Penn State University, "mean attendance ranged from 81% to 84% over the four CRS [Classroom Response Systems] semesters measured, compared to an estimated 50% by the midpoint of semesters without CRS" (Deal, 2007, p. 5). In another study of classes "offered with and without audience response systems, Copeland et. al. found that 'lectures in which the ARS was used were significantly better rated than those in which theARS was not used'” (p. 5). These are just two studies mentioned that indicate how using clickers in class can have positive effects on students. The use of clickers crosses into the realm of cognitive results when it starts to have an impact on grades, as evidenced by one study which saw "the percentage of students earning A’s increased from 23% to 40%, and the percentage of students receiving C’s or D’s in the course decreased from 34% to 21%" (p. 7). 

The discussion concludes that, when used correctly, clickers can enhance many aspects of the students' experience and ultimately lead to greater understanding and higher grades. This can be explained by the fact that when students are required to use a clicker to indicate attendance, participation, and even comprehension, they are in effect being forced to be "engaged." When students are more engaged, they (unsurprisingly) rate the course and instructor as more engaging. And when satisfaction is high, students tend to be more engaged, closing the circle. All of these factors will raise the students' chances for academic success. 

As mentioned, however, it is important that classroom response systems be used correctly. Teachers need to be cognizant of the usefulness of clickers and their motivation for using it. Like the SAMR model, the use of clickers can be divided into three increasing tiers of use. The first is to simply monitor the classroom, such as attendance, checking if students are paying attention, etc... The second is to check comprehension and use the results of the clickers to pace the rest of the lecture. The final tier is to completely transform your class to be based on a question/response/discussion format. In my opinion, the more teachers know about this model, the benefits of using of clickers and demonstrate best practices in CRS, the more students will benefit.

Entry 3: Screencasting and Flipped Classroom Video Tools

The tools I used to test out creating a Flipped Classroom experience were EDpuzzle and Zaption. Both involve adding questions directly into the video as you're watching so that it pauses as chosen times to ask an open-ended or multiple choice question. Both also have the option of inserting teacher notes (Zaption as an image or slide and EDpuzzle as a comment), but I did not use these features. They differ in terminology - in EDpuzzle you create 'lessons' while in Zaption you create 'tours' - and user interface. EDpuzzle was much easier for me to use. Zaption was more confusing and less user-friendly in my opinion as it seemed more 'techy' and therefore intimidating. There were things to drag and drop and another place to add 'clips,' which wasn't clear to me what that was. Granted, I could have gone through the tutorial but, as a millennial, I'v never gone through any tutorial on any website and have never run into a problem so the fact that I didn't understand how to use the site clearly on my own is an indicator that it's too complicated, especially for teachers who aren't familiar or comfortable with technology in the classroom. Despite these small differences though, the final product is more or less the same and both have analytic tools to see how many students and which students have viewed the video and answered the questions. EDpuzzle has an advantage in this fact in that it shows you each students' grade (correct responses) while Zaption's analytics are more about the big picture.

In general, I wasn't a fan of either of these tools. I think they are very disruptive and break continuity in the video, making them harder to follow - which, for ESL learners is already difficult enough. I think maybe for longer videos, these tools would be okay but when the videos are only 5 or so minutes, they are too disruptive. As an alternative, questions can go at the end (like TedEd). This might be hard for long videos when there's too much information to retain but would be better, in my opinion, for short videos.

In addition, while I think these are great tools for implementing a flipped classroom for older students, but they are not relevant or appropriate for younger audiences (especially mine who are only 2 years old). The same goes for the screencast. When I created the quiz questions for my Screencast, I knew that the only way to deliver them to my students would be orally. Instead of watching a screencast at home and answering questions, with my students, I would present the presentation to them and prompt them for answers at the end. In other words, it would take the "flipped" out of "flipped classroom." Regardless of the fact that they won't be relevant to me in my teaching and final project, I think they're great tools and want to share them with my sister who is a 4th grade teacher because I think her students would really enjoy it.

Entry 2: Reflecting on online vocabulary tools: Wordle, Quizlet, and Puzzlemaker

Since I recently was offered a job as a Ganenet for 2- and 3-year olds at an English-speaking Gan for next year, the focus of my work in this course has shifted considerably. I no longer am thinking about the business English option, but rather am tailoring the blended learning tools we learn about for toddlers. Additionally, since the tools we learned about in our last lesson were online vocabulary tools and since the age group I am working with are pre-reading age, I decided to focus these tools on phonics - something more age appropriate but still involving the reading process.

Wordle

I based all of the tools I created (Wordle, Quizlet, and Puzzlemaker) based on the story: Zac is a rat! via Starfall.com, a phonics website for kids. This is an audible interactive story where young learners get practice with the flat -a sound (rat, pan, nap, etc...). In the lesson, we would first play the game on the Starfall website so students are familiar with the story, characters, and words. Then we could look at the Wordle (see image)

and students could try to find all the 'a's that they could and would have a chance to see the words again in a new format, in bright colors, reinforcing the vocabulary and phonics. Then we would go to Quizlet to break down the words they heard in the story and saw on the Wordle and practice phonics - sound to letter correspondence. Finally, they can (try) to find the words from the story in a wordsearch created via Puzzlemaker.

I think all three of these tools are very valid and relevant and do exactly what blended learning sets out to do - makes learning more engaging and effective. In terms of my own students, the wordsearch is probably the least practical as they are only 2 and 3 years old and, while they may be able to identify letters, expecting them to sort through a jumble of letters to find a word is developmentally inappropriate. However, I think that Wordle and Quizlet have a high potential for effectively bringing technology into the classroom, even at this young age. Wordle is bright and engaging and the students will want to look and play with it. I could even cut out the words and letters and have them put the letters together by color. Quizlet can also be useful, but obviously we would use it in the classroom as a learning tool rather than being a study tool at home. I especially like that instead of vocabulary words, you can insert pictures. This is very age appropriate for my kids. Working together, these three tools are a great way to practice and reinforce a phonics lesson.

Entry 1: TPACK and SAMR

I enjoyed reading about the SAMR and TPACK models as frameworks for evaluating the usage of technology in the classroom and see them as necessary first steps to the course, where we will be evaluating and trying out many different technologies we can use in our own classrooms as TESL teachers. Like all teaching practices, it is absolutely essential to be able to evaluate our use of technology including why we chose that particularly technology matched with that particular content for a particular group of students - in short, its effectiveness, appropriateness, and relevance. 

While I think TPACK is as essential as it is intuitive - perhaps because the TESOL program has amazing professors who constantly remind us that we need to reflect on our choice of pedagogy in relation to the content we're teaching, and by extension reflect on the technology we use in relation to our chosen pedagogical method as well as the content - I find it a little complicated as a reliable framework for evaluating instructional technology usage. I don't think it is realistic to expect teachers to monitor three different realms (pedagogy, content, and technology); their relation to one another; as well as the relationship among all three of them (the center of the venn diagram) - not to mention, the many other external factors that relate to all three, as shown in the diagram here.

Thus, I identify more with the SAMR model, because I think it is a more realistic framework for teachers to evaluate their use of technology, especially when we consider that the lowest level, Substitution, is not bad but merely less "meaty" than the other three. This video explains it easily, using a Google Doc and its various functions as an example of all four levels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us0w823KY0g.

On the commute home from school, the time when many teachers reflect upon their lessons during the day, it seems far easier to think about: Did the technology I use merely substitute for a pencil and paper? Did it add anything? Was it absolutely essential? Bottom line, did it enhance my students enjoyment of the lesson and their learning?

Rather than: Which intersection of pedagogy, content, and technology did I achieve today?

This is not to say that I think the TPACK is a bad model. For instance, it can be used effectively as continuing education for teachers who are older and might need/want to learn more modern ways of engaging their students. It is a clear diagram that people can identify with in order to note their strengths and weaknesses and determine which of the venn diagram circles they fall into. Thus, it is useful for determining overall, broad strengths in teaching ability, whereas the SAMR model is a concise, realistic model for evaluating technology use in real time, per lesson, and in more specific terms.