EDLD 5364 Teaching w/ Technology Embedded Course Hours 2 of 2

Sharron Bills, Jeron Ricks, and I, Shannon Copeland, chose each other based on differing specialties. Sharron is a federal programs director, with a principal’s certification and several other endorsements. Jeron is a computer teacher and school technologist, while I am District TAKS/Technology Coordinator, computer teacher and taught special education for 14 years. Based on these areas of expertise, we chose to create a 7th grade ELA lesson using the contemporary novel, Hunger Games. I chose my activities based on the multitude of apps for a cutting-edge adaptive technology source, the iPad. My activities were completed as pre-teaching activities in the content mastery class by the special education teacher, while my team created lessons for the special population of students they were assigned. I plan to use iPads with "Hunger Games" loaded on a Kindle app for the hearing impaired student and the low level readers so that the large print and colored backgrounds features can be used if needed. The Kindle app has the built-in feature of allowing unknown words to be highlighted and defined immediately on the reading screen. I will use the iPad as an audiobook reader for the visually-impaired student. As noted in one of my discussion posts, special education teachers rely on methods outlined in the Rose and Myer (2002) text when planning for and teaching students with learning disabilities. The recognition, strategic and affective networks outline how learners plan, understand and evaluate new concepts and special ed. teachers know this even if they cannot attribute them to Rose’s and Meyer’s specific terms. Special ed. teachers teach learning disable students to identify patterns of previous knowledge to link with new concepts, identify goals and create a plan to achieve them and because all students have different interpretations of what they see, their learning styles will be different. (Rose and Meyers, 2002)

Professional development will take the form of one-on-one training between the special education teacher and the technology coordinator. The teacher must have an iPad with these apps loaded so she can become comfortable with using them. She will be instructed on the uses of the Kindle and audiobook apps in a short professional development. Also, StoryPatch, GlowDraw and Dragon Dictation will be loaded for the students and teacher.

The URL for my book is http://bookbuilder.cast.org/view.php?op=view&book=40656&page=1 It was a little confusing in that after creating the cover that you couldn't just choose another page and begin. I found after a little frustration that "new page" must be chosen and then a dialogue box will ask what content is desired on the page. This program isn't as intuitive as some that I have used. I was able to add html titles from flamingtext.com to create some flashy titles instead of simply using the font tools provided. One drawback of this is that the pages with html take too long to load. I was able to locate and upload free mp3 sounds to enhance the project. My topic is The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan and I was able to find free thunder and lightning sounds for background audio. The steps to actually upload images and sounds were straightforward and worked easily. This could be used a teaching tool for students to "read" an eBook instructing them how to complete an assignment or it could be a tool they used to "compose" a summary of a book they've read. We saw examples of both while perusing the examples in the model books section. It was interesting that model books were created to help visitors create their own books, as well as, example of books that teachers and students had created.



Rose, D., & Meyer, A., (2002) Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology web site. Chapter 6. Retrieved March 7, 2011 from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes