Post #8

Last week, our class toured the Student Disabilities Resource Center (SDRC) in the Student Services Building (SSB). This tour was very informative and I learned a great deal about the resources that are provided for students with a wide range of disabilities.
One resource that I thought was very beneficial to students who are blind are the brail textbooks. In particular I really liked the brail anatomy textbook. The technology used to produce these textbooks are brail printers, which are useful in schools to make copies of textbooks in brail for students who need to be accommodated due to their impaired vision.
Another technology resource that I liked was the Pen Recorder Pro and notepad, which could be beneficial to students in school for effective note taking. The pen records the lecture once the students start to write, and upon reviewing notes, students can tap on a specific word written in the notebook and it will playback the lecture at that particular starting point.

In a particular lesson such as Geography of the United States of America, each level of Bloom's Taxonomy can be used to promote student learning using Power Point. Starting from the bottom up, students can remember information by recalling facts and basic concepts such as the number of states that make up the USA, and memorizing each state. On the PowerPoint Slide I will add a YouTube video clip of a song of all 50 States that the students can memorize 50 States Song. 

Using PowerPoint I can help students understand by explaining  ideas or concepts to students by helping them identify state capitals, and add researched text to the PowerPoint explaining the history as to why a particular city was deemed the capital. 

I will help students apply information by using information they have learned in new situations. I will have riddles on a PowerPoint that describes a particular state, and students will apply what they have learned to interpret what state the riddle is describing.
Using Bloom's Taxonomy students can analyze information by drawing connections among ideas. For example, using PowerPoint I will have an outline of the United States and test students by pointing to different states, and ask students to name the state and its capital. Also, I will have students make connections to selected states by asking them to think of a famous person that is from a particular state. For example, Beyoncé is from Texas, and the capital of Texas is Austin.
To help evaluate the progress of the students understanding of the material, on the PowerPoint I will create a Jeopardy game to judge how well the students are grasping the information.
Lastly, I will have post an assignment of the PowerPoint slide stating that the students must get into group a create a visual board on an assigned state.

Website Link

Refdesk is a website that is useful for teachers who wish to stay abreast with technology for the classroom. Everyday the website is updated with a site of the day which teachers can check out and implement in the classroom. The website also has archives of past featured websites if teachers are unable to visit the site daily. There are also newspaper articles listed by state and country that can be a great resource for current events for ELL students.