Blog Assignment #3

Thoughts on Peer Editing:
The videos: What is Peer Editing?, Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes and the tutorial: Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial, were very helpful and offered a different outlook on peer editing. The videos and the tutorial were helpful in explaining how to edit when it comes to peer editing. I agree that it is important to stay positive when editing a peer's blog. Being too harsh on your peer could cause them to become discouraged. However, it is important to be specific about mistakes made so that they can know exactly what you mean and it is also good to give helpful suggestions on how to correct their mistakes.

The video on the top ten mistakes when peer editing showed me how not to act when editing a classmate's blog. Overall, the videos and the tutorials showed that being positive and giving helpful critiques is the best way to edit a peer's blog. We should not be a Picky Patty or a Mean Margaret when we edit, simply because we would not want some one to edit our blogs in a negative. Staying positive and helpful is the key.

Technology in Special Education:
The video Technology in Special Education, was so amazing!! It shows how important it is to stay up to date with technology, as it can impact our classrooms in incredibly ways. The video allows us an insight on a day in a special education classroom where they use technology as an aid. It showed that technology makes it easier for special education children and adults to accomplish classwork and homework. Technology, as shown in the video, makes it easier for the student and teacher to communicate. Technology helps these students to be able to help themselves learn and that is so important. Without technology these students require a more one on one environment.

Being able to have special education students in my classroom when I become a teacher will be such a great experience and blessing. I plan to use technology to help my students learn and actually enjoy the classroom setting; and I am excited to use technology to help students with special needs. They are just like other students, they just need extra assistance and technology helps so much with being able to give them the assistance they deserve. I plan to have as much technology in my classroom as possible.

Special Education and the IPad:
It is truly amazing to see how something like an IPad can help a special needs child learn. Technology is a great wonder. The IPad makes learning fun and entertaining to special needs students. I chose Proloquo2Go as an app to help special needs children.

Proloquo2Go is a great way for special needs children to work on their speech and communication. This app shows them pictures of tasks they can do and when they click on the pictures it speaks for them. This app becomes a voice for those who need help with communication and speech. It is an amazing tool, just like the IPad itself, they are helpful to special needs children in so many ways.

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts:
Vicki Davis's video Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts, shows how students can self-teach through technology. It is much easier for students to learn when they are hands-on, doing it themselves, instead of listening to a teacher lecture an entire class period. By doing things on their own through technology, students can find a sense of empowerment by learning to do things on their own.

This video also shows how peers can teach other and even their teachers by using technology. It showed how students can interact and create with other students all over the world. Vicki had great advice on using technology in the classroom. Students, in even rural towns like Vicki's, should be given the opportunities to learn, create, discover, and interact just like the students in her classroom. It is amazing to see how she has transformed her classroom into a technology based learning experience.