EDUC+8Y24+–+Sec4Showcase

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Presenter: Strategic Transitions Software: **Word Q, Speak Q** and **Inspiration**.

The focus of this workshop is to inform educators how to teach students to use today's technology and current software applications and make essential connections. **Word Q** is a software program used to help students to improve writing skills. Students can use this program to predict words as they type. Phrases can be read back so that the student can hear any errors that he/she has made grammatically. There are visual prompts emphasizing punctuation errors as well. This program is flexible to meet the needs of each student, and can accommodate all writing levels. **Speak Q**, a separate application that works in conjunction with **Word Q**, allows your spoken words to be inserted as text. The speech recognition feature, uses a voice to prompt the student what to say. Both **Word Q** and **Speak Q** are extremely helpful in aiding students with learning differences. **Inspiration** software is designed to help students organize information and facts. This comes in handy when working on essays, assignments, synthesizing text book data, preparing for tests and tracking assignments. Students can also enjoy putting together mind and concept maps, as part of presentations. A free 30-Day trial is available at **www.strategictransitions.com.** You won't be disappointed!

I was unable to attend the Technology workshop so Candace instructed me to report on another workshop that I attended.

Special Education Workshop

This was a very informative workshop. We watched a video showing "animal school." The video drew a parallel between certain animals and their capabilities, posing the question as to why we expect squirrels to fly like eagles. The purpose of the video was to highlight the fact that we are all different and our strengths and needs must be taken into consideration. We learned about the difference between accommodation and modification i.e., accommodation is making allowances for various needs whereas modification is making changes to the curriculum. For example, we wouldn't penalize a student for requiring glasses to read, why would we penalize a student who required a scribe to write. The statement that having someone read to you is still reading also made a huge impact. How the student is delivered the information (either by reading, having someone read it to them, or braille) is not as important as their ability to comprehend the information they are being given.



Tricia Magill: Smart Technologies with presenter Micheal Ward

This was a very informative workshop for the modern teacher. This was a basic overview of the company's products and services. The emphasis was on student centered education. The philosophy is to move away from a teacher standing in front of the classroom pushing knowledge all day to having an interactive classroom where students are actively involved in daily activites, Smart board technologies facilitates this. After getting a brief overview of these products I would find it difficult to ever use an overhead and other redundent machine again. Also facinating were the options available to be used with a smart board; such technologies include: a lamp that can project the contents of a book or article to the white board, this lamp has an attachment where it can work as a microscope...facinating! Clearly Smart board technology is a driving force in modern education.

Nehmat El Zarouni:QECO

During the Qualifications Evaluation Council of Ontario's presentation, I learned that QECO is a program of Evaluation for salary purposes.Teachers are evaluated and given a statement of Evaluation in order to be accepted by the board for salary category placement purposes. Completed courses, university transcripts and supported documents must be submited via QECO's e mail address.

R Rachelle Kelly - Comic Life & Bitstrip This session was amazing! We learned how students can make their own graphic novels and cartoons using this board-approved software. Bitstrip is a web based program, so anyone can use it. I look forward to having students make graphic novels about history events, thereby integrating social studies and language arts. I also enjoyed the Mac session on using garage band and imovie as well as the session on using the smart board with language arts.

Tech Showcase Summary Assistive Technologies: Room 25 (9:00am-10:45am) Hosted by Mary Ann Fenner



This workshop was divided into three sections, each a description of the overview, and the application of three Ministry-Licensed software applications. In short, it was a rudimentary instruction piece on how to use these software tools in the elementary classroom. As such, I will divide my summary into the three applications.

Write:OutLoud A text-to-speech word processor. -allows students to receive instant feedback on their spelling. -aids in student creativity -greater student support -aids students with disabilities.

Co:Writer A word processor with predictive features. Practical for use with students with fine motor skill deficiencies. -aids students in creativity, sentence building -minimizes key strokes -allows students limited by typing, motor skill, spelling, troubles to type at a faster rate and develop their ideas minimizing the impact of potential deficiencies.

Clicker 5 A picture-enhanced word processor. -students supported by pictures of suggested words at bottom of screen as they type. -aids vocabulary and spelling -provides feeling of independence for students -other features support coordination development (mouse skills) for younger students, or students with special needs. -users can upload (familiar) images -labelling applications: geography, music -math applications -French applications - “So much more than a talking word processor with pictures.”

I chose to summarize this workshop because it seemed that it was appropriate for immediate use in any classroom. Also, it would enable me as a teacher to take advantage of available resources in my classroom. What made the presentation effective was Ms. Fenner’s real time use of the actual programs on the smart board to supplement her fine explanations. She also mentioned the following resource for free software: http://www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk/resources/restop.htm Hope you guys get a chance to make it to the next one, A.

Sam A.

BrainPop!

This was an amazing session about a great resource that I was quite unfamiliar with. The videos and classroom resources which included word-wall words, lesson plans and so much more will be a great resource for me when I am a classroom teacher. Even if the school I am in is without a subscription, there are 21 free videos and resources for public access each week. Not only is BrainPop engaging, it is extremely appropraite, and coming in March all the Ontario expectations will be in-line with BrainPop resources on the website.



Wendy I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop. I have seen Brainpop in use once before, but was not aware of how useful it could be within the classroom. For example, the educational ideas for lessons and experiments was interesting. Furthermore, the videos provide a visual component that engages the students while they are learning. This is an example of a tool that can be used to assist with teaching. It's not just the tool itself, but how it is used to enhance learning. The graphic organizers are something I will certainly use and the site is bookmarked on my computer.

Joe DiBenedetto The BrainPOP workshop proved to be a very educational seminar. Essentially brainpop.com is an interactive search engine that allows you to access information in an engaging way. The site is linked to the ministry standards and has multiple extensions associated with all subject matter. Students and teacher alike will find interactive videos, quizzes, games, as well as graphic organizers that can be used to supplement any lesson. The site provides great ideas for teachers on how to use these tools throughout the three part lesson plan format. Over 1200 resources are available at your fingertips as well as tutorials on how to use the tools. Also incorporated into the site are BrainPOP Junior, ESL, and French. This is a great way to differentiate instruction and involve students of all grade levels and ability. For example, BrainPOP Junior has a Read Aloud which allows you to pause and point at words and definitions so you can build your own word wall. Perhaps the best feature of the site is that it is accurate and safe. You can feel secure in knowing that students will not come across inappropriate material. All of the resources and information provided on the site are checked and approved by a full time staff of teachers.

Joanne Falletta: Getting Under Your Skin: Creative Projects across the Curriculum

The session I attended was “Getting Under Your Skin: Creative Projects Across the Curriculum” and the presentation was given by Kelly Janzen, an Apple Distinguished Educator. Although the presentation was engaging and entertaining, I feel that there was less applicable information to be used in our classrooms. All of the tips and techniques hinge on our schools having MAC computers, which as we all know are rather expensive. Kelly showed us varies ways of engaging our students across the curriculum with the tool “Garage Band,” which of course is a wonderful program. I own a Mac myself, and therefore found the tips rather helpful for personal use for ideas in presentations etc. However, in terms of the application to a J/I classroom in a “normal” school setting, this workshop may be a little a head of the time in terms of available funding to the majority of the schools.



Ashley Adamec: Tech Review, Getting Under Your Skin: Creative Projects across the Curriculum and BrainPOP!



I got my picture with the Kelly Janzen who ran the "Getting under your skin: Creative Projects across the curriculum" which looked at Garage Band and iMovie. I thought it was a great concept, but something that is not that useful or even realistic for an elementary class. On that note, I would like to talk about another session that I went to on Creating a lesson using BrainPOP! Chris Lee ran the session and he gave us a bunch of teaching strategies along with the tech information. Some ideas were ice-breakers and other ways you can bring BrainPop! into the classroom. It was an overall great session, however when we tried using the website to create our own lesson that used the website, we were unable to. Brock's network was being very uncooperative and very slow. This was pretty inconvient and really a shame that we could not search and explore the website during the session. However he did give us a promo code that we could make a username and password for a free trial for 30 days. I can't wait to put that into my lessons when I go for my second teaching block. There seems to be a lot of good ideas for math and science, and the representative from the company, Laura, also informed us that they are putting up Canadian standards in March. Which will be a great resource for many teachers. It is something that will be very useful for when we become teachers. Great session and it is definitely something I can and will incorporate into my teaching.

Marcia Bozzo

I attended the ComicLife and Bitstrip workshop presented by Marilyn Legault. It was very interesting and informative. Both are useful for creating graphic novels. Comic Life is a software you install whereas Bitstip is web based. Depending on the abilities of the students in the class, you can chose between Comic Life does not provide images whereas Bitstrip has everything already available and students are not able to import their own photos. One suggestion she made about importing for Comic Life was the Canadian Clip Art Collection - it is liscenced for educationla institutions. They are tools that could be incorporated in classrooms for language arts if the technology is available.



Janessa Pratt

This presentation highlighted the use of ComicLife and BitStrips for schools as tools for engaging students in the writing process. The presenter, Marylin Legault, highlighted a variety of ways to use these tools within the classroom. Many of the instructional strategies focused on the Language curriculum. Both programs can be used as tools for creating short stories or even presentations. Students are able to be creative and imaginative while also fulfilling expectations from the curriculum. I chose to attend this presentation because of the large amount of research that shows that graphic novels and comics are great tools for engaging boys in literacy. I think it is very important that we, as educators, find a variety of ways to engage all of our learners within the classroom. As a future FSL teacher, I can see many ways to adapt these tools for my classroom as well. These tools will allow students to create short written texts in French in a fun and exciting way. The tools were presented in a way that allowed me to see their value within the classroom as well as learn how to navigate them from the perspective of both a teacher and a learner.
 * Presentation: Using Comics to Promote Writing Literacy**

Carrie Wivell I went to the session on WordQ and SpellQ and Inspiration, I cannot remember the exact title of the presentation - sorry. It was a great presentation on the benefits of technology to at risk students. We learned how to use word maps and concept maps with Inspiration, an extension on what we did in class here and a great benefit to someone like me who is still learning about these programs. The WordQ and SpellQ programs were amazing!! It was great to see the interactivity students can achieve. They can have text read to them one word at a time, or as whole sentences or pargraphs. The program even reads their typing back to them!! And you can select different languages to type and read in!! As students type the program can be set up to give suggestions as to what the word may be, a prediction style program that would (is) a great help to students who cannot spell well and for whom spelling is a barrier to writing. Some students have wonderful stories and ideas in their heads that they cannot get out because poor spelling makes it difficult and time consuming so they just give up, this program helps give students the confidence they need to succeed!!

Deanna DiSabatino ComicLife & Bitstrips I attended this workshop because I thought it would be great to learn more about a tool that would make creative writing more engaging. With this workshop, I actually learned that there are many ways that teachers can incorporate ComicLife and Bitstrips into the classroom, besides using the language curriculum. One use of ComicLife that the presenter mentioned, which I think would be really neat to do with a class, would be to have students write a story in groups that will be turned into a graphic novel, where students would stage their own pictures (incorporating drama) to go along with their text. The presenter emphasized how ComicLife and Bitstrips could be incorporated into pretty much any subject area, including language (ex. how to's, poetry, narratives, etc.), science (ex. demonstrate the life cycle of a frog, a day in the life of an animal while exploring voice, water cycle, etc.), social studies (take on the voice of an explorer or other historical figure), or math. I will definitely adapt these programs for use in the classroom, as I feel that they are excellent tools to get students excited about learning. Every child loves exploring with technology, and having the final product of an assignment being a comic book would make any task seem less overwhelming. In conclusion, I wish this outlet for assignments were available to me growing up, because it would have made a lot of subject areas more appealing.

Terri Sitarski I attended the Support and Enhance the Writing Process Using Word Q and Inspiration workshop, presented by John Delucia from Strategic Transitions. We looked at the Intermediate Canadian version of Word Q, and the technology it offers to high needs students is absolutely incredible. The help voice is named Heather and she spells words for students, she reads back sentences to students as well as offers word prediction when students are typing. 'Word Q also edits and reads a student's work. It has been proven that reading back a student's sentence can be very helpful to them. Word Q can be used anywhere and was orignally designed for children with significant brain injuries. Inspiration and Kidspiration were also introduced, and we looked at the same concept maps and word maps that we did in Tech class. Inspiration offers students a visual way to think by visually representation. Kidspiration is a program for grades K - 5; it offers these students a visual way to learn words, numbers and concepts. I chose this workshop to attend because literacy is so critical to a student's learning; we have to reach out to all our students so they have the opportunity to be successful in literacy. Many students do not possess the ability to write stories and these programs assist these students with some of the technical challenges. I look forward to using the appropriate age tool within my future classrooms; anything that encourages students to tap into their creativity is a asset in my books. There is a huge range of technological student tools available now - we need to be up to date on as much as we can to promote student success.