Day 5

Today each group presented interesting Apps from the webinars we viewed. I found the presentations to be very useful. Each group provided many different Apps that were unfamiliar to me. It was great to see a snapshot of these Apps so I can further explore the ones that interest me the most.

The first group to present viewed the webinar: Executive Functions and Apps. Students with executive dysfunction have a deficit in the frontal lobe of the brain. The frontal lob encompasses everything that you need to be successful in the classroom. The Apps presented during this presentation were iRewards, Work System, Pictello and Sock Monkey.

The second group presented on the webinar: New Apps in Action for LD: Enhancing Input and Output. The Apps presented were Reading Comprehension, Mastering Sight Words, 7 Notes Premium and Tools 4 Students.

We were the third group to present. Below is our Powerpoint presentation that we put together including our favourite Apps that were presented in the webinar: Top Free Apps for Special Education. We have also included a complete list of Apps presented in this Webinar at the end of the Powerpoint presentation. Top Apps PP

The forth group presented on the webinar: Reluctant Writers. The Apps this groups chose to present were Strip Designer, Pictello, Writer's Toolbox and Instant Poetry.

The fifth group to present viewed the webinar: Reluctant Readers. The Apps presented were ibook, Story Builder, Vbookz, Stanza and ABC Pocket Phonic.

My favourite apps from today's webinar presentations were:

Strip Designer  

Strip Designer is a great app for anyone! It could be incorporated into any subject area and across many different grade levels. It would be a great way to get students to create photo albums, tell stories and let them have fun creating their own comic strips. My class this past year would have been very excited to use this app. I taught a 3/4 combined with a very wide range of abilities. Even though their abilities varied greatly, everyone would be able to participate in this activity. My students were a very eager group who enjoyed writing and publishing texts using different programs. I am looking forward to trying this app with my grade 5 class next year!


Pictello

Pictello is a great app for students with limited fine motor skills and students who have difficulty creating ideas. It can be used to create talking photo albums and picture stories. Each page of the album can contain a picture, five lines of text and a recorded sound. I think this program would be a great motivational tool for reluctant writer's. They would be able to incorporate pictures and sound to create an interactive book. This app would be a great way to engage all students!



Instant Poetry


Instant Poetry is an app that allows you to choose a theme with a word bank provided based on that theme. This makes writing poetry easy for first time and experienced poets. There are several fonts and colours to choose from. Students can also add personal background pictures to their poems. For me, poetry doesn't come easy, therefore I always leave it until the end of the year. This past year I went outside my comfort zone and did a full unit on poetry. I think this app would be a great help for me as the teacher as well as my students.


After our presentations we went back to the reading task analysis, which was causing me to feel very overwhelmed! First of all, I could not find my presentation which threw me off from the beginning. I felt like I was falling behind because I was spending so much time trying to locate it. FINALLY, I found it and got started right away! We were moving at a very fast pace and I found it extremly hard to focus and keep up. I was trying to pay attention, stay focused and type at the same time, but the typing was taking over. I was relieved when one of my colleagues expressed the same concern, ahhh, it's not just me. Luckily Barb reassured us that we would be continuing to work on this as a group tomorrow. Instantly, my anxiety subsided :)

Update on QR codes
Since learning about QR codes, I've been seeing them everywhere, on fruit, vegetables, moisturizer, shampoo bottles and all sorts of things. I scanned the code on my bag of cherries tonight and it brought me to a video on youtube about Sweet Cherries from the Chelan Valley. The video showed the process of how the cherries get from the farm to us. Who knew! Learning something new everyday. Here's the video below.