Assistive Technology

Sticky Keys


Sticky Keys on Vista is a great assistive technology for those with limited mobility. For students with celebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, and any sort of limitited paralysis. It is really helpful because it eliminates the need for multiple buttons to be pressed at once, such as Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Instead, Sticky Keys allows the user to press one at a time, allowing limited mobility.















Magnifier

The Magnifier tool on Vista is a very basic but great assistive technology tool for users with visual impairments. The tool provides a magnifide screen that can be adjusted to whatever size that stays on you Desktop. Then, as you open documents, they remain visable beneath or above the magnifier, allowing you to see what is open while using the magnifier to magnify the text and browsers. The Magnifer also includes an "Invert Colors" feature which adjusts the browsers colors, allowing those who cannot deal with great contrast a great solution to use their computer effectively.

Google Forms

For my Professional Development Plan I explored Google Forms to see how it can be incorporated in my future classroom.

Google Forms is a great resource for it allows you to make an online quiz and share it with all of your students. They then can take the quiz, and the results will be sent straight to th teacher. For some quiz formats the students can be given the answers to see how well they did right after they complete the assessment.

To explore Google Forms, I created my own assessment. I chose to create my assessment on the algebraic standards of factoring polynomials to better relate to my future classroom. Creating the form was very easy, and did not take a lot of outside research (tutorials, Google info) to figure out how it works.

Cyberbullying

CNN NEWS ON CYBERBULLYING:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/06/24/am.intv.walsh.cnn

For my Professional Development Plan I researched Cyberbullying to understand why it is a problem, in and outside of a classroom.


To better understand cyberbullying, I looked at STOPcyberbullying.org to see exactly what it was and why it is such a problem. The facts shocked me. The website has seperate pages for differen
t age groups, as young as 7 years old! Just the thought that seven year olds were being bullied or actually bullying themselves made me realize how much technology and the Internet has changed.

What exactly is cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is when a child intentionally threatens, harrasses, or humiliates another child via technology such as the Internet and phones. It is done through direct attacks through messaging or through proxys. Many schools however, cannot directly intervene. Many times the child just keeps the fact that they are being bullied to themself.

How to handle cyberbullying
STOPcyberbullying.org and Cyerbullyinginfo both explain how to handle different instances of cyberbullying based on the persona of the bully. The following are different scenarios of cyberbullying.

The 'do gooder' cyberbully doesn't realize that they are the bully. To them, they are just righting a wrong that happened to them or one of their friends. In this situation, it is important to explain to the bully how their actions are wrong. But directly telling them may not be the best answer. Reporting them to an anonymous site or informing for parties of parents will give the bully a support system when dealing with their bullying problem.

Some cyberbullies bully out of revenge and malice. Their motives are intentional, and they know it. They typically were the victims previously but have found cyberbullying as a solution. These cases should be handled by a higher authority (parents, school officials, and in some instances police) because they are typically targeted one on one and use a higher technology to accomplish their bullying.

Some children are inadvertantly a cyberbully. Typically this is only once or twice action in which they are hurt and don't think before sending a message. These are the easiest cyberbullies to deal with, for typically they realize what they have done and will make amends themselves. Otherwise, just talk to the bully and explain that their actions were wrong.

Data Driven Decision Making

This is a lab workout which analyzed a mathematic misconception.

First, this question was asked:

When you multiply two numbers together, the answer is always bigger than both the original numbers
(1) True(2) False(3) I don't know

The answer, is (2) False. When you a number by any number less than one, the rseult will be less than both of the original numbers.

To see how well the class did, I explored Excel and used the Pivot Table feature to analyze the answer data. The results show that 81 said true, 321 said false, and 10 were unsure. 91 people had the misconception that multiplication always produces larger results. Based on these results, this concept needs to be evaluated further during multiplication lessons.

Content Exploration: Geometer's Sketchpad

I reviewed Geometer's Sketchpad bacause it can be used in any seconday math course. This tool is not only designed for geometery; it includes linear and polar graphing that are used in algebra, calculus, and trigonometry.

Geometer's Sketchpad is such as great tool because it creates so many visual guides for learning; which include graphing, geometric figures, and a tool to make you creations animated. More specifically, students and teachers can construct parrallel lines, angle bisectors, and line segments; transform figures around a graph by reflecting, rotatating, stretching, and shrinking; and show how to measure angles, area, arc lengths, and diameters.

Geometer's Sketchpad is a good resource and efficient if you know what you are doing. It is important that both the students and the teachers know how to use all its resources.

Atomic Learning, the company that sells Geometer's Sketchpad, has created several video tutorials that show step by step how to use the tools appropriately. The videos are easy to follow and show how to manipulate the features of the sketchpad.

Geometer's Sketchpad isn't just a good resource for teachers to enhance and effect their classroom by showing them to their students. The tool can also be explored by students so that they can see how each function and lesson works. Through trial and error and exploration of the tool the student can learn at their own pace and process. For example, a teacher can have her students use the Geometer's Sketchpad to explore how tranformations work. They can create their own function and use the tools and animation features to present it to the class. Geometer's Sketchpad Resource Center also has over 101 Projects online that you can download, and the site includes 16 free examples that can be used by teachers to give as projects in their classrooms.

Quia Shared Activites

The website featured: http://quia.com/shared/





Created by Quia Corportation, this section of their site includes assessments and review activities for any course; from mathematics to martial arts. Simliar to Classtools.net, Quia Shared Activties has several activities for material review and learning, including puzzles, crosswords, hangman, etc..

This sharing center provide these activities and assessments which have been provided by teachers who use them in their classroom. For specific chapters or concepts, it provides a list of textbooks or resources to specify your search. Each search result includes the author, a description, feedback, and a copy of the activity or answer key (when necessary).

This resource is very helpful for teachers looking for review activities or assessments. It includes feedback and materials that other teachers have used in their classroom that were successuful enough to post on the site.

Martindale's Calculators On-Line Center

The website featured: http://www.martindalecenter.com/Calculators2.html

Created by Jim Martindale, this website has over 23, 785 different calculator applications. Each application is specific to a course or concept. The site contains every possible course, high school and college with applications specific to material from that course (pre algebra, algebra I and II, precalculus, geometry, calculus, etc.).

What is most interesting to me, although not necessarily useful, are some of the more unique calculator applications. For example, one is Egyptian Number Conversion, in which an Egyptian number calculator can configure Egyptian standard to English, or vice versa. There are also different measuring systems created by Egyptians, and provides historical means of mathematics used by Egyptians (ex. Triangular Calculations, used for Pyramid construction).

I recommend this site to any mathematics teacher, especially secondary education, who wants to incorporate specific calculator functions into their lessons.