Thursday, 14 July 2011
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Apps in Action for Reluctant Writers
I just watched the elluminate session for reluctant writers. I didn't realize how many apps there are to support writing. I can't believe the ithoughts app. I had no idea that there was an app that could be so much like Inspiration. The instant poetry app looks so easy to use. I like the way the background can be a photo.
Idea generation is a concern for many of our students. The strip designer(comics) and Flat Stanley would be great for engaging many of our students.
The other apps on the tutorial looked fantastic, but I think the first one I will install is Tikinotes for word prediction. This support is so essential for our kiddies struggling with writing.
Great elluminate session!
Idea generation is a concern for many of our students. The strip designer(comics) and Flat Stanley would be great for engaging many of our students.
The other apps on the tutorial looked fantastic, but I think the first one I will install is Tikinotes for word prediction. This support is so essential for our kiddies struggling with writing.
Great elluminate session!
Three Favourite Apps
Today we learned about our favourite three apps from the entire group. It was really interesting that none of the apps were repeated. Everyone was passionate about their apps.
Some notable apps were:
Some notable apps were:
Bob's Books
The Letterman Books
Speech with Milo
Alphabooks Lite
Magic Reading
Whiteboard lite
Memoryblock
Relaxing sounds of nature
Small Talk Phonemes
Super Why
Bubbles (for relaxation)
Balls
iZen garden
Composure
Paint sparkles
Wordfoto
Comic Touch lite
iwrite words
ABC maze
3D Words
Miss Spells Class
Talking Rex
Spell That
English word of the day
All of them are stories to engage the reluctant reader. To learn more about them, please check my previous blog with a complete listing of apps.
I also found another new app this evening, Toy Story 3. It looks amazing! It is a bit pricey at $8.99, but for what it does, it is not expensive at all. I think one of best features is the ability to sing along while the text is highlighted. Really great!
Super Why
Bubbles (for relaxation)
Balls
iZen garden
Composure
Paint sparkles
Wordfoto
Comic Touch lite
iwrite words
ABC maze
3D Words
Miss Spells Class
Talking Rex
Spell That
English word of the day
The apps I chose to demo today were:
One Rainy Day
Moo Baa LaLaLa
Tyrannosaurus Rex
I also found another new app this evening, Toy Story 3. It looks amazing! It is a bit pricey at $8.99, but for what it does, it is not expensive at all. I think one of best features is the ability to sing along while the text is highlighted. Really great!
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Kurzweil Assignment, a collaborative effort!
Shelley Paul and I had a great time working together "virtually" on a Kurzweil document today.
We chose to focus on the profile of a student with reading comprehension challenges at a Junior High level. This student would be a reluctant reader, since he/she does not derive any pleasure, enjoyment or information from reading. Decoding challenges could be an accompanying concern, as well, ESL or limited experiences could also be contributing factors in comprehension.
Our goal was to engage the student and support their understanding (visuals, auditory support, questioning techniques, definitions of unfamiliar vocabulary).
We decided on a digital story, written by Mark Twain in 1906, called "A Horse's Tale". The vocabulary would be rather tricky for the students of today, so we really considered how we could make the text more meaningful to the student, as we added little touches to the document.
Since Mark Twain wrote this story so long ago, we wanted to provide some information about the author before the reading was to begin. We added a sticky note to explain how to double click on the blue line under the name "Mark" (where we had attached a hyperlink) and the student would be taken to Youtube video to see, listen and learn about Mark Twain the author.
We placed another sticky note before the passage for the student to read indicating that they are about to read the story from the viewpoint of the horse.
We were really impressed that the sticky notes could be read aloud.
To ensure the student was attending to the story, we added a few bubble notes: a true and false question about Buffalo Bill's appearance and a multiple choice question about the number of horses he owned.
Since the vocabulary was quite dated and probably unfamiliar to the student, we added bookmarks with written text that could be read aloud and audio recordings describing the unfamiliar vocabulary.
We added all of the words from the text to the Word Prediction bank of words for any written expectations.
We converted the entire text to MP3 so the student would have a mobile audio recording of the story.
Although Paul was in another setting, we continued to chat with him throughout the development of our documents. We shared information and troubleshooted together. Very exciting experience.
I am not sure which feature is my favourite. I think it is amazing that we could hyperlink a word to a YouTube video. I also thought the bubble notes are a really smart idea.
The one thing Shelley and I wanted to do, was link a picture to a word. We couldn't figure that one out yet.
All in all, working together, virtually in an interactive, intuitive program, was a hoot!
I also like the Tip of Day when you open up Kurzweil.
We chose to focus on the profile of a student with reading comprehension challenges at a Junior High level. This student would be a reluctant reader, since he/she does not derive any pleasure, enjoyment or information from reading. Decoding challenges could be an accompanying concern, as well, ESL or limited experiences could also be contributing factors in comprehension.
Our goal was to engage the student and support their understanding (visuals, auditory support, questioning techniques, definitions of unfamiliar vocabulary).
We decided on a digital story, written by Mark Twain in 1906, called "A Horse's Tale". The vocabulary would be rather tricky for the students of today, so we really considered how we could make the text more meaningful to the student, as we added little touches to the document.
Since Mark Twain wrote this story so long ago, we wanted to provide some information about the author before the reading was to begin. We added a sticky note to explain how to double click on the blue line under the name "Mark" (where we had attached a hyperlink) and the student would be taken to Youtube video to see, listen and learn about Mark Twain the author.
We placed another sticky note before the passage for the student to read indicating that they are about to read the story from the viewpoint of the horse.
We were really impressed that the sticky notes could be read aloud.
To ensure the student was attending to the story, we added a few bubble notes: a true and false question about Buffalo Bill's appearance and a multiple choice question about the number of horses he owned.
Since the vocabulary was quite dated and probably unfamiliar to the student, we added bookmarks with written text that could be read aloud and audio recordings describing the unfamiliar vocabulary.
We added all of the words from the text to the Word Prediction bank of words for any written expectations.
We converted the entire text to MP3 so the student would have a mobile audio recording of the story.
Although Paul was in another setting, we continued to chat with him throughout the development of our documents. We shared information and troubleshooted together. Very exciting experience.
I am not sure which feature is my favourite. I think it is amazing that we could hyperlink a word to a YouTube video. I also thought the bubble notes are a really smart idea.
The one thing Shelley and I wanted to do, was link a picture to a word. We couldn't figure that one out yet.
All in all, working together, virtually in an interactive, intuitive program, was a hoot!
I also like the Tip of Day when you open up Kurzweil.
Monday, 11 July 2011
Kurzweil Demos
I was really impressed with the Kurzweil demos through the Elluminate sessions. The program looks relatively easy to use, but the visuals certainly will assist when I begin to play with the program this evening.
The bubble notes are something I have never seen before in a program. Very smart idea! I also like the different toolbars, with distinct purposes. I would assume they are easy to navigate. Off to play with Kurzweil!
The bubble notes are something I have never seen before in a program. Very smart idea! I also like the different toolbars, with distinct purposes. I would assume they are easy to navigate. Off to play with Kurzweil!
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