ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Today I had the opportunity to work with a teacher and show her how she could use PaperShow for Teachers in the classroom. As luck would have it, all of her students were going to be taking the NJ Drivers Written Exam and she needed to review the material with them. Rather than do a traditional question and answer session the teacher began to draw different scenarios on the PaperShow for Teachers notebook that the students could visualize and then annotate on the paper. The session was extremely engaging and interactive but more importantly the students really enjoyed writing on the PaperShow for Teachers notebook and reviewing the material. You can see above one of the images that was captured during the session. For an entire period we were able to engage the students in a highly interactive fashion and help them review key points that they could expect to know for the NJ Drivers Written Exam. How are you using PaperShow for Teachers in the classroom? Interested in learning how you can use PaperShow for Teachers in the classroom? If so, then sign up here for a free webinar.

This past week I have had a chance to work with several teachers showing them how they can use PaperShow for Teachers in the classroom to support their special education students in the classroom. While the first couple of minutes of the sessions were demonstrating the mechanical aspect of how to use PaperShow for Teachers we did get a chance to come up with some great ways to use it in the classroom. Many of the teachers enjoyed being able to to walk around the room when talking to their students while using PaperShow for Teachers as they put up ideas on the board. The students were totally amazed by the technology and all of them enjoyed writing on the PaperShow Notebook and watching their ideas come to life. The two special education teachers that I worked with used PaperShow for Teachers to brainstorm ideas as a pre-writing activity which really provided the students with the support they needed. Another teacher drew a a graphic organizer using the circle and line tools with PaperShow for Teachers and had the students fill in some of the idea bubbles. After the session was over both teachers talked to me about all the possible way they could use PaperShow for Teachers in the inclusion classroom to support students with learning differences. Both special education teachers were really excited with all of the possibilities and how it could be used with students to scaffold their learning.

If you would like a free demo of PaperShow for Teachers please feel free to contact me

One of the handiest tools that I use when I teach is Comapping- it has been a fantastic tool for developing the agenda for each and every class that I teach on campus. Comapping allows me to map out what I am going to cover with links and attachments that makes it very easy for my students to access and use. Once I have completed my agenda map for the classroom session, I simply Publish to Web from within Comapping and grab the embedding code that is generated. Once I have the embedding code I simply paste it into Moodle to generate the mind map. Here is an example below of a agenda map that I recently used in a class this week.

I'm sitting here thinking about the start of the new semester as I return to teaching graduate courses in assistive technology at the College of St. Elizabeth. It is a very exciting time to be in this field and to think about all of the possibilities and how we can assist students with the use of technology. A lot has changed over the years and with more free software and applications that run within the browser students can now have access to tools as long as they have an Internet connection. As I think about the syllabi for the courses that I will be teaching I want to ensure that my students can take advantage of what the web has to offer not only for the students that they work with but for their own professional development. Using tools like Bloglines and Google Reader is one sure way to keep teachers up to date in their field. Using RSS feeds is imperative for any professional in helping to keep abreast in their field. Likewise, their are a host of podcasts and blogs that consistently deliver on content to help them to reflect on their teaching and to give them new ideas to bring into the classroom. Yes the times they are a changing, and for teachers to keep up in their fields they will need to jump on the Internet and learn how to hone and to keep their skills sharp. It should be an exciting semester as I integrate various Internet based projects so that my students can keep on the top of their game.