Digital Blog Post G - Chapter 10

Chapter ten of Transforming Learning with New Technologies discusses many different adaptations for classroom learning with technology. Technology offers two main routes for designing the classroom so that students with diverse learning needs can access key points. The first route is to support change in the classroom environment. The second is to support change on how the curriculum is delivered. The following key factors of the chapter are examples of the different mid- and high-tech tools that teachers can use to support learning.



Michael Gorman flikr.com

 A word cloud is a visual representation of text. This means that it allows the teachers and the students to display large amounts of written text in a visually engaging format on a computer screen. Word clouds are generated by software programs that take a count of the words that were used the most in a document, and then they reposition them into an image. The word cloud avoids using prepositions, conjunctions, and other small words because they cannot clearly highlight the text. Word clouds can be used as an effective teaching strategy when used as an entry point, like a discussion opener, or as a graphic organizer for students. There are many different websites that you can use to make a word cloud; whether it be, wordle, tagxedo, wordsift, or ABCya. Word clouds are great for the classroom because there are many different ways to incorporate them. One example would be to but a word cloud on the board and have the students pick one word in the cloud, define it, and then write about what they think the new assignment will be about. I personally love using word clouds now for my college courses because they help me focus on key words in the text. Using this form of adaptation in the classroom would really pay off  and it would also be something fun that students would enjoy!

Another great way to promote learning success would be to use electronic spellers and dictionaries. This type of tool is used for students or learners of all ages. Beginning readers can use electronic spellers to find correct spellings, listen to words spoken aloud, and check the accuracy of their spelling with out adult help. By plugging headphones into the machine, students learning English, with hearing impairments, or nonfluent readers can hear and see words that they may not be able to sound out yet. Headphones are a great idea if the student is using the electronic dictionary and speller during class. This form of machine is not just limited for students with those forms of special needs, they are actually good to use with all students. These machines can also be used to support their writing and spelling, and learning. It is a great thing that the electronic spellers and dictionaries are not limited to a specific type of student. These would be a great thing to have in k-3 classrooms where students are learning new things. The great thing is that there are also electronic resources for middle and high school students. Theses machines are used as a professional reference tool; as a, thesaurus, an encyclopedia, and a collection of documents in U.S. history. Overall, this form of technology should be very appreciated in the classroom because it would help to incorporate all learners, and give students the opportunity to learn on their own.

While electronic spellers and dictionaries explain a words meanings, word prediction software acts as a spelling and writing coach for young writers. This type of software predicts what the writer is intending to write next and then offers multiple options as the writer types. This is similar to speech recognition software because this program learns an individuals word usage habits. Some example are: after typing on my, way might appear, or good, morning might appear. This form of software prediction appears in most cell phones and some versions of this software will speak the word that is typed to facilitate confirmation. I still not sure how I could apply this in the classroom, but I feel like this would be good for normal texting or web searches. This form of word prediction could also be used for writing essays or assisting students who have difficulty with figuring out what to say. This topic intrigued me because I was hard for me to find a place to use this in the classroom.

 

 

Citations:
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.