I’ve been doing some twittering on the Techitup conference but wanted to switch back to the blog… You can see previous microblogging @jbellsd60 on twitter.
Bridges distributes edtech and assistive tech across Canada – looking at today how their tech and new tech (smartboards) integrate.
- Bridges conference this year is looking at RTI.
- As we move forward with technology we cannot leave students behind. Kids with special needs or socio-economically disadvantaged must not be left behind.
- We cannot reach the mind that we don’t engage!
- Extensively look at UDL
- UDL: framework that considers the diverse learning styles of all students prior to setting goals and designing curriculum and assessment materials
- UDL: essential for some, beneficial for all
- Google: CAST – http://www.google.ca/search?q=CAST&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
- CAST believes that “barriers to learning are not in fact, inherent in the capacities of learners, but instead arise in learners interactions with inflexible educational goals, materials, methods, and assessments”
- students have multiple means of representations, engagement, and expression
- Smartboards support auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Symbols for receptive and expressive communication modeling
- multiple examples are simple with digital technology
- smart notebook can capture the file as well as audio recorded
- -note that the mov file is large for smartboard recordings. It could be converted with versions of imovie to a smaller size, or a m4v file.
- little research of kids on IEP and the use of smartboards
- Robert Marzano looked at the Promethean board (kind of interactive white board: IWB) and found a gain of 17 percentile points
- -most successful scenario was experienced teachers using the smartboards for a two year period of time with training
- Smartboards are opening the door to technology in classrooms where there has been little use of technology before.
- Boardmaker cards combined with smartboard technology for students point to graphic symbols and having them speak their word (language aided stimulation)
- smartboards become the new “bib” for organizing the boardmaker cards
- Smart ideas – concept mapping software – amazing – possible replacement for inspirations. As long as we own a copy for school we have a site license. -need to check and see if own a copy means we have a smartboard… this will be done next year in all schools.
- Looked at Classroom Suite – great for smartboard as there is a repository on the companies website of pre-created resources. We are already using this in multiple schools.
- Boardmaker plus also have voice support now
- Clicker5 integrates reading and writing, smartboard helps model it