Assistant Professor -Alaska Christian College
Chair Paraprofessional Education
MAT ECE - UAS 2012
Credentialed Montessori Directress (Owned: The Learning Tree Montessori 2003-2015)
Mom, wife, volunteer, community member
Tutor.com is an online tutoring cite that allows one on one tutoring, for students to submit papers to be edited, ask math questions, take a practice test or even prepare for professional exams and college entrance test. In Alaska the one on one live tutoring is open 12-2 am, but you can drop off a paper or ask a question 24/7. One of the reasons I encourage my students to use Tutor.com is that some are extremely shy and soft spoken,(will not use our student success center), it is fabulous to have a resource that you can drop in a question or have a paper reviewed and you never have to speak face to face. For me, I have always been challenged as a speller, it is super embarrassing, but I developed tools with people I trust to work through this hurdle. I would have loved to have a resource like this while I was in college to avoid a lot of humiliation. For students who are a little more bold in communication, the practice test features offer feedback and extra support in areas that are individualized.
Tutor.com claims that 96% of their students report an increase in their grades……..I can say for any of my students who have used this tool, that is 100% the case!
This past summer, I lead a group of students from my church to a Youth Gathering in Houston, Texas. One of my favorite parts of travel is learning the history of the area and hearing stories of local people. As I was speaking to a friend about various non tourist things to do, she shared that her daughter was in school at Houston University and I should check out some of the local digital story telling. I Googled digital story telling in Houston and I was locked in to these short 4-6 minute videos with historical and artist components that shared the history of Houston. Stories are timeless and are a good way to synthesize and apply knowledge that you are passionate about or want to research. As an educator, I wanted to learn more.
As I prepared to research this more thoroughly, I wondered what were the mechanics for building digital stories and could we affordably offer this to our students across age levels?
What do you need to set up a digital story?
Pictures, images or short video clips (captured from phone, camera or internet)
An idea
Script (many cites suggest using a note card to keep things concise and under 6 minutes)
A story board (visually lay out how your story will be set up and the flow)
A Computer with some kind of movie maker, click here to check out some recommendations
A good friend or colleague that will review, edit and provide feedback before publishing
Basically, the tools that are needed could be free with the basic programs found on your PC or Mac.
Research from Akyeampong (2018) states that digital storytelling “improves engagement, critical thinking skills and creativity”. The whole process of honing research skills, digesting and articulating stories to share that connect to a topic is certainly an out of the box assignment for any classroom. It inspires creativity, a sense of purpose, ownership and pride. I encourage you to look at The University of Houston’s work in all subject areas to be inspired to attempt something similar for a project you may have your students work on next term.
On planning a recent trip to Disney World, hysteria stirred when the magic bands arrived revealing our destination to a lifetime family getaway for our son’s graduation. What we didn’t realize was how powerful these little bands were. This magic unlocked almost unlimited access to anything we might need during our stay. These are a few features of the Magic Band:
Paid for Meals/Snacks/Purchases
Unlocked Doors
Reservations
Linked Special Dietary Alerts for Resturants
Allowed Acess to Account balances on meal plans
Gained access to parks (paired with biometrics)
Could be used as a location device (for missing bands or children……one of ours ended up in the bottom of a water park)
Provided access to secure areas (fast passes, special events)
Plus they are fun and customizable
As we were on our way home, I was thinking of the endless possibilities for educational institutions without the Disney mega-billion dollar budget. Reviewing a cost analyze from a 2015 report from the Information Technology Acess Knowledge they break down passive RFID, active RFID, and active RFID rack/locators. Passive systems range from 10 cents-$1 each tag, $3,000 to $20,000 in readers, installations and configuration. (you must hire a specialized installer to set up) These chips last forever but have to be within close proximity of a reader to work. Active systems range from $15-$20 a tag and readers that cover a 3000 square foot area range from $1000-$1500. (and do not need a specialized support person, can inventory/track huge pallets at a time, but do not last forever because they contain low powered batteries) The racks or locators are used in conjunction with the active systems that report all the assets in any one area up to 3000 square feet range $150-$200.
Thinking about technology that supports the whole institution, not just the classroom
Benefits of RFID For the whole Institution
Tracking and Inventory of library resources, IT, supplies, classroom materials, texts, furniture, food services, etc. without the cost of manual labor counting these goods.
Can unlock doors (track safety and location of students) and unlock lockers
Track Lunch balance accounts/pay for lunch without the need of having a personal present to manually input information
Track class, lab, and extracurricular fees
Can track/link transportation reservations and for Postsecondary institutions that might want to give the Disney experience; RFID can track and deliver suitcases to new students’ rooms with the right information
RFID can unlock/access assessments and specialized learning platforms along with supply the statistics for these (when they began the assessment, ended the assessment, how long did it take to complete, along with a complete breakdown )
Support Guided Instruction
Take effortless attendance and lunch reports without the need for staff
Make medical alerts for special dietary needs for lunchroom staff and medical alerts regarding medically fragile students for nurses (along with keeping up with immunization records)
Automate purchasing orders when supplies run low
Can allow access to games or special activities (prom, homecoming, dances, special trips…..may be coupled with biometrics)
There will always be concerns for people not wanting this information to be shared about their child, for these families, they can always opt out. As technology advances, we must not be afraid to think outside the box about how we will couple this with systems that have been reliable and efficient over the years, but we must be bold enough to let go of systems that are outdated and inefficient.
Images of Various RFIDs
Magic BandsRFID tagsRFID IDsSmall flat RFID stickers for inventory
In 1997 California State University developed Merlot from a grant by the National Science Foundation. The intent was to have free curriculum materials for higher education. Later, Utah state University proposed a license for free and open content as opposed to copyrighted work where there are strict guidelines and criminal penalties for stealing intellectual property. Open Educational Resources were born containing what is now known as “creative commons” license in which educators are free to use, modify, splice and recreate educational tools to be shared with the open public as long as you are not doing it for profit. This is very different than copyrighted materials where users must ask for expressed written consent from the author before using materials.
There was some huge conflict with major academic institutions that wanted to sell their academic content for profit, but that was exactly the reason California State University and Utah State dreamed of preventing. They wanted to eliminate this strong hold and provide more affordable text and curriculum to break financial barriers. Today, OER’s have gained popular interest in all realms of education ( early childhood, intermediate, secondary and even post-secondary classrooms).
Benefits to OER
FREE to educators and students (FREE books….no more expensive texts, articles, videos/DVDs, etc.)
Users can access the materials immediately
Users can retain access indefinitely
Super Flexible, you can take a paragraph from one resource, charts from another and create your own professional lesson creating your own unique
Users can have access to a broader range of resources to build lessons/courses
In our developmental language class at the college, we are constantly looking for text that are instructional level. Many of our students are ESL with emerging literacy skills. It has been a challenge to find appropriate materials that are fun, interesting while captivating our readers. The first problem was not knowing what lexile level was best fit for each individual. Our Learning Resource Center began testing lexiles as an entry assessment as well as lexiling each book in our library by color code. We are super careful to keep this information confidential and not equate this with intellectual/grade level. From this our faculty has students self-select genres that were most interesting to them to complete various assignments, but our instructors wanted more options.
Newslea
As my son (8th grade) was studying for history, I noticed that he was able to self-select popular current events from real news sources from a site called Newslea. Newslea is a free subscription (but of course, the paid features are slick and educators can use this as a grade to assess comprehension) that allow students to adjust their lexile reading level within 980, 820, 690, down to 480 on any given article. What I love most about this feature is that every student has the same capability so no one knows who needs the accommodation. It also has comprehension quizzes and writing prompts.
Credo Reference
After sharing Newslea with our librarian she told me that we had features on Credo Reference and Credo Reference LibGuides that would read any title to students in over 60 languages (the only problem……not Alaska Native or American Indian). These features allow access to text that might be more challenging to read independently. Another feature of Credo is information literacy modules that offer read-aloud features while a cursor follows along with written text and a short informational multi-media video help illustrate the topic. Faculty can set this up to automatically sync to our grade book and we can adjust the attempts available to the class before finalizing grades. The last feature that I enjoy about Credo is that students can add permalinks to discussion boards or it will automatically cite your papers based on what type of citation the instructor requires (where was this when I was in Grad school?). All these features give better access to our students to increase their literacy skills.
What adaptive technology do you use for literacy skills in the classroom and what features do you enjoy most?
Assistive Technology is any item, or type of equipment, software, or system that is used to improve the functional capabilities of someone with disabilities.
AT can be low-tech: Pencil Grips, different types of paper, Different Textures of devices, communication boards made of cardboard or fuzzy felt.
AT can be high-tech: special-purpose computers.
AT can be computer software: screen readers and communication programs.
The first time I had ever heard of video conferencing software is when my son was a part of a “Classroom Without Walls” experience. He said, “Mom, we spoke to kids in Iraq.” I asked my husband, Casey Olson (Programmer/Analyst for the school district) how this worked. Our school district received two technology grants that funded over $300K worth of Polycom video conferencing equipment plus other districts funds. Through this purchase, the district was able to purchase 40-50 Polycom units, plus supportive data center infrastructure. With this capability, our students are able to connect with classrooms around the world in history, geography, music, science, math, you name it simply by calling in. It can also be used for medically fragile students so they can gain access to the classroom and their peers without leaving their homes/safe environments. It is also used for staff training, school board meetings, collaborating for professional development and conferences. It can be used from any technology device via the Polycom app and the meeting room number. The top reasons the IT department decided to expand (through grants) their Polycom system was it was the Premier Room System, they were able to manage the system in-house with their own servers, Polycom uses high-quality robotic HD cameras and it was a leader in the industry at that time.
You do not have to have a $300K+ video conferencing system to connect to classrooms/training around the world, but you will not find the quality of a whole room experience unless you contract out to a telecommunications company for a hefty price. If you want to use collaborative features that are slightly more limiting (bandwidth, drop calls, poor video/call reception)to expand the depth of your classroom, you might try:
Face identification, thumbprint ids, fit bit calculations are very useful for our Smartphones, exercise, and sleep patterns, but how can these things be used in schools?
With the rise of school security issues, many districts are trying to find more secure systems. The Kenai Peninsula School District(KPBSD) uses a surveillance system called Milesone Xprotect. This system has the capacity to integrate hand geometry, fingerprints, and iris identification. So far the school district has not implemented these features as it is currently cost prohibitive. They are, however, looking at more affordable options such as ID card readers for building access in conjunction with the surveillance cameras that capture live footage to match against IDs as well as back up saved footage for review. The features of the Milestone Xprotect would match the scanned ID of the person entering the building with the footage. The conversations that might come from this is, how do parents gain access to their kids? What happens if the school secretary is not in the office to let someone in?
Thumbprint reader for school lunch programs
Outside of security issues biometrics could be used for school lunch programs, access to computers, assessment security, attendance, measured physical activity to optimize brain function, efficiency statistics (how much time was spent on each assigned task), etc. So what is the cost of these luxuries?
Casey Olson (KPBSD Programmer/Analyst) says a practical way to consider integrating biometrics at some point in the future is by having these conversations as more computers in the district have this capacity already built in. The rotation cycle for KPBSD is normally to rotate 1/3 of the computers at a set number of schools each year, with the average age of a computer being 5-6 years. Olson says that many of the current computers have biometric capabilities, but they have not been activated because it requires accurate data points associated with each students’ account that would be entered by trained personnel. As newer models with these features are purchased, it would be more plausible to implement such features, but all students would have to have parental consent and availability to opt out.
School attendance personnel say biometrics save her 1-1/2 hours of work each day
References:
Olson, Casey. Personal Interview, January 29, 2019.
Differentiated Instruction with Smartpen Technology
When students arrive at a post secondary institution there is a lot of navigating in order to support accommodations they may have had in high school. Students are sometimes hesitant to ask for support for fear of standing out as different than other students. Some simply do not understand how the system works in order to have accommodations transfer from high school to college. Federal laws under section 504 and the American Disabilities Act (ADA) protect students and insure accommodations are anonymously in place.
What happens to students that do not come to orientation/enroll with the proper paperwork? Faculty differentiate to support their needs. In my class I try to have our online classroom accessible for students who are visual and auditory learners (screen cast, short youtube videos, hyperlinks for professional vocabulary), for students who are ESL or limited language learners (have recordings of required text reading), for linguistic students, I provide lecture outline notes on Google Docs (again with hyperlinks, short videos to better explain concepts) and allow them to integrate personal technology to capture important concepts of discussion (computers, kindles, smart phones). Even this is not always enough so that is when it is fun to introduce technology to the whole class. When instructors do not specify who gets to use the technology, everyone benefits from the discovery of a new tool. Smartpens are one tool that would help students with ADD/ADHD, autism and even students with arthritis.
There are tons of models of Smartpens varying in size and price, but I will share one that we use at the college and another for art/drawing/graphic design that I researched.
Livescribe is a little bulky, but packs in a lot of features. You must use a special notebook that tracks digital recordings and segments of lessons while integrating graph, charts and diagrams. You can even add tags to refer or organize your notes. The user must touch the record locator on the page and the infrared camera begins recording based on self explanatory commands located on the notebook. You can listen to the recording or you can upload it to your computer/phone to have the notes typed or replayed. The pen can hold up to 12,000 pages of memory, translates 22 languages and weighs approximately .96 oz. All these features allow the classroom to be recreated while studying content. This is helpful in my class as class-notes are a part of the weekly assignments. Amazon sells these pens around $135 plus notebook $17/each (150 pages per notebook). At my college, students can check these out free of charge and students could also collaborate and share notes to reinforce learning.
Neo Smartpen N2
The Neo Smartpen N2 is great for graphic design, mind mapping, brain storming, art or just doodling. You must first pair your pen with your phone then automatically everything you draw on the special dotted paper will appear on your phone. Later this can be saved into any file that you may be working with. The pen can also translate your writing into 13 different languages and only weighs 8 oz. These pens run about $170 with notebooks $20/each (approx 150 pages per notebook)
These options open up fun accommodations that support all students.
**References embedded in hyperlinks and researched on Amazon Prime.
This past week I found out that I have to have surgery on my dominate elbow/wrist. This means I need to work ahead and research as many tools to help support me professionally and academically to get me over the 4 1/2 week restriction. In a previous blog I shared the various features of Screen Cast O Matic. (See Blog) As the name implies it records voice recordings as you share your screen and a yellow cursor guides the viewer through the presentation. While this is my go to for flipped, blended and communication tool for my classroom, I am going to need something that will type for me during my recovery.
My first step in any research is to find out what is FREE reliable and easy to use with good reviews.
Google Voice Typing in Google Chrome Google has the best reviews I could find for accuracy (some say up to 95% ). This can be used for my emails, Google Docs/Slides/Sheets to help with my lecture outlines, it has auto saving and can be used from any computer in the world. Best of all it is FREE. To use for gmail: click on more tools at the top of your email (the three dots), select extensions, email detection (at the bottom of the list) add to Chrome and it automatically adds a microphone icon to your gmail tools.(Note: if the microphone does not automatically appear restart your computer…..that should solve the issue) For other Google applications you simply go to tools and select voice typing from your drop down menu. All dictations in Google must have specific commands for punctuation.
My plan will be to use voice typing features in Google, then paste them in my Blog and Populi (our online classroom). Maybe this week I should do a test run restricting my right arm to see what challenges I might face before this is my reality. Today, I am super grateful for this technology.
aksoldotnaedtech 