Enabling the differently able

I was most impressed with the article "Learning to write: Technology for students with disabilities in secondary inclusive classrooms." The article focussed on some of the powerful technology available for writing and organizing to assist children with disabilities. A graphic organizer of such technologies is shown below:

If we utilize these technologies, we can make a big difference in the lives of students who find difficulty to write because they are differently able.

What a Website!

I am amazed at the utility of some of these websites as reservoirs of really helpful resources. One such impressive website is "Readwritethink" It is a collaborative effort between the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council of Teachers of English(NCTE). What I particularly like about this site is the many lessons tailored made for different levels done in a similar format to what we have to do for the Lesson Portfolio. There is a database of actual lessons that state the standards use, number of sessions and instructions. Ready made resources may even accompany the lessons. Therefore, this facility can aid us in the Electronic Portfolio assignment.

Leading the Way

Educators now have at their fingertips powerful new technology that they can utilize to enhance literacy. Unfortunately many teachers, eager to use the technology, force it into the lessons without properly planning its integration. As a result, the technology is emphasized to the detriment of the content and skills that the children ought to learn. In other words, the technology becomes an obstruction to the lesson or worse - completely prevents learning of the content and skills!.

Thus I was most pleased to read the article "Instructional Planning Activity Types as Vehicles for Curriculum-Based TPACK Development" which discussed this very problem and offered an approach that can prevent such a dreadful mistake. TPACK stands for Technology pedagogy and content knowledge. The approach to technological integration is to first decide on the objectives of the curriculum and the instructional strategies to be used and then consider which is the best technology tool to use in the delivery of the lesson. In this way there is a proper balance between content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and technological knowledge. In so doing, reading specialist can reap the real benefits of technology. In addition, the article entitled "K-6 Literacy Learning Activity Types" is a handy tool for quickly linking "Activity Type" to the examples of technology that can be used. The information presented in a table facilitates ease of use. There are 11 tables that span principal literacy areas and thus will be very helpful in tackling the Web 2.0 and Portfolio assignments.

Making Learning Fun

This ICT course designed to sensitize budding Reading Specialists to the many forms of Web 2.0 technology and how it can specifically be used for literacy development has been most exciting and informative. I have become aware of the many forms of the manifestations of this technology and how they connect. Additionally, I have learned how to apply the technology to improve literacy. Knowledge is one thing but application is quite another! Application is the challenging part. Our lecturer and her team, in addition to making the course stimulating and enlightening, must be commended for the many useful resources that they provided such as free image databases, Youtube videos and WikiEducator workshop. These resources and the labs have made the technology easier to grasp and apply. The powerful Web 2.0 technology and the resources that I have received from this course will greatly assist me in using Social Networking as a tool and strategy for enhancing literacy.

WikiEducator - a great idea!

I became very excited when our lecturer of the ICT programme invited us to join the training workshop "WikiEducator". The goal of WikiEducator is to develop a free education curriculum using the wiki medium and the idea of the workshop as I understand it is to help people learn how to use wikis to collaborate and develop content by observing how contributors to the WikiEducator projects operate. Contributors accept different roles and develop content or assist in the various aspects of content development according to the roles that they have assumed. You the learner can interact with the contributors and participate in projects. This programme is new to me so I will see how it goes. However I think that the hands-on information will help a person develop the practical skills to use wikis effectively. Maybe in the end, you and I might become a valuable WikiEducator literacy contributor someday.

Reading Strategies - Not 1 but 50

In one of our reading courses the book "50 Content Area Strategies for Adolescent Literacy" was recommended to us. I bought the book and discovered how quick and easy it is to access tested research based strategies that are actually used in the classroom. I am exploring the notion that proven strategies can be enhanced when used with Web 2.0 technology. Each strategy provides the following information:

• Supporting research for the strategy
• Step-by-step strategy implementation
• Classroom example of strategy in action
• Strategy literacy focus before, during and after lesson
• Literacy component that the strategy develops, for example, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, writing or oral language.

Therefore, if you got stuck on doing your Web 2.0 paper, or lessons and you need some stimulation or ideas, this simple yet powerful book might do the trick.

It is not really gone until it is overwritten. Good or bad?

So you placed all your reading resources on your flash drive or on your computer but something terrible happens. You deleted them by mistake or you accidentally formatted the hard drive. It may be possible that you can recover all your deleted files. Information is stored in unique patterns of 0's and 1's. When a file is deleted, the computer marks that area of the disk as being able to receive new data. The file remains until new information is saved to that area, replacing the deleted file for good. Recovering a file depends on whether or not it was overwritten. "Recuva" is a powerful freeware that can recover all your deleted files that are not overwritten. You can also set it to recover specific files such as pictures, music, videos.

If you inadvertently deleted a file, do not save anything to the disk. Run a recovery program.

But there are cases when you want deleted files to be unrecoverable, for instance, confidential information that you have deleted. There are powerful freeware programs that you can get off the internet that can destroy files for good. They operate by overwriting the whole drive with random patterns of 0's and 1's. If you are considering donating your hard drive which contained information for your eyes only make sure you run such a program before you part with your disk. For if it falls into the hands of some evil, opportunist or mischievous person, you may wake up one morning with all your business in the street. Scary thought indeed! So remember it is never really gone until it is overwritten. Good or bad?

Just click!

In one of my posts, I promised to reveal to you the secret that is responsible for those great screen shots. Screen shots are useful teaching aids that reading specialist can use to make reading instruction more appealing and easier to follow. For example, if you have to teach children how to create a Google account in preparation to use Google docs, you can create an e-book using Microsoft PowerPoint and screen photos to get the job done in a very attractive way.

“PrintScreen” is a user friendly program that takes screen shots of your entire desktop or a part of it. It is completely free so you can download it off the internet and you are on your way to taking cool pictures of your screen. Just click away and have fun.

Isn't that delicious?

I think that delicious website is such an amazing facility for reading specialists. This is one of the many resources that our lecturer of the ICT course placed on myelearning. Firstly it allows you to sort all your bookmarks by using tags. This means that you will have no trouble finding specific bookmarks of pages containing valuable reading resources especially when your bookmarks run up into the hundreds. Secondly, since it is on delicious website, it is not confined to your computer at home. Thus any where in the world where there is an internet connection you have access to your bookmarks. Finally, the one that perhaps is most appealing to me is that networked reading specialists can look at what their peers are reading. Thus if you are in my network, you can see all the resourceful websites that I have bookmarked and I can see yours. Thus we can quickly discover the beneficial sites of one another. Isn’t that delicious? For instance, if you are in my network and cannot access Ebscohost outside of UWI to download valuable resources, you can access it from my bookmark of Ebscohost website on delicious.

The Social Networking Approach

The article entitled “Techtalk: Web 2.0, Blogs, and Developmental Education” written by David et al has helped me understand what exactly is web 2.0 technology (loosely called Social Networking) and how its various forms are connected as shown below:

The essence of web2.0 technology is that it is designed for sharing multimedia, creating things together and discussion of ideas with easy-to-use tools. This design is greatly contrasted with the earlier 1.0 technology which requires a higher level of programming and does not create a space for this kind of interactive sharing and creating.

I believe that the right strategy is the key element in attacking any challenge. Struggling readers use various manifestations of web 2.0 technologies so it is a great approach to employ various forms of this technology in treating with reading issues. I want to revisit many of the traditional reading strategies in order to explore novel ways of adapting them to this new technology, thus enhancing their potency. I believe that packaging it in web 2.0 technology will create an even greater appeal to millennium children.

Enhancing Reading with e-books

I found the article “Teacher-Created Electronic Books: Integrating Technology to Support Readers With Disabilities” by Rhodes and Milby to be very enlightening. They discussed how to create and use an e-book to enhance vocabulary, text comprehension and reading fluency with children with physical and learning disabilities. I discovered that making an e-book is very easy and one major advantage is that the teacher has complete control over the design so that she can create e-books in step with the curriculum and the students’ needs. Another great thing about e-books is that children can be part of the creation which in itself is a great way to motivate them to read their own creation repeatedly.

Rhodes and Milby discussed the creation of e-books using the strategy of retelling. Thus the e-book enhanced with photographs, clip arts an animation effects is an electronic display of children’s retellings. This reminds me of the Language Experience Approach (LEA) – talk written down, where the children learn that what they say can be written down and read back to them. This is powerful for it gives them a working understanding of what reading is about and has the special appeal since it is their own creation. There is so much similarity between the LEA and Rhodes and Tammy’s use of the e-book with developmental readers that it supports my assumption that traditional strategies may be enhanced and become even more effective when transformed using web 2.0 technologies.

Using UWI's databases has just become easy

You get the assignment and you are ready to access the article online so you paste or type in the URL and you are sent to a site similar to the following asking you to log in:

You have to access it through UWI in order to get through. Well, don't start pulling out your hair in frustration! I finally figured out how to access the databases that UWI subscribes to and I have explained the steps in this post.

You might be aware that if you are using UWI's wireless internet you will automatically get into these databases. However the problem arises when you are at home using your personal computer. Here is the solution. First, determine the name of the database. From the login screen, you can see it is “Ebscohost". You could see it also in the URL that was given: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&N=27349103&site=ehost-live. Next, from UWI’s home page, "http://www.sta.uwi.edu/" click on Main Library, Databases, Click here to access our online databases (Metalib Search) and you will come to the page below:

Click on “Find Database” and you will see the following page:

The default is “By Title” so leave it as is. Then type in the name of the database. The example shows “Ebscohost”. Select “Start with” and click on “Go”. A list of databases that begins with the letter “E” is displayed.

Choose “Education Research Complete (EBSCO) and you will be taken to the page below. You are in! You can perform a basic search (the default) or an advance search. Under “Search modes” choose “Boolean/ Phrase” or "Find any of my search terms”:

You will be rewarded with access to your article as shown:

Now you can relax and download all you want. Have fun.

Restoring Your Computer

In the event that your system crashes as described in my previous posts, you can take out your magic wand. But wait! Before you wave it, you must first place the Operating System CD into the computer, switch it on and the computer will boot. Also, before it boots, it may prompt you to boot from the CD by pressing “any key”. If it does that, press any key on the keyboard and the system will run. After a few seconds, it will prompt you to press “F2” in order to run “Automated System Recovery”. So watch out for that prompt. You don’t want to miss it! When it comes up, Press “F2” at which point the system will instruct you to put in the “Windows Automated System Recovery Disk” that you have made. Now you can wave your magic wand. Slip in the floppy. The computer will read the information and restore your system state settings, create a partial windows installation and use the backup to restore your computer to its previous state.

If you think this post was useful, please write a comment.

Reading Specialists must know how to backup

You may access the backup program by clicking on Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Backup.



Then you will see the “Backup or Restore Wizard” dialogue box:


Click “Next” which brings you to a choice between “Back up files and settings” or “Restore files and settings”. Choose “Back up files and settings” and click “Next”. Then choose “All information on this computer” and click “Next”


Now you come to the place where you have to choose where to place the backup. You must choose a place where there is plenty of space because your backup may be many gigabytes. Saving it on your computer’s hard drive will be fine. You cannot use a DVD disk because this is not a burning program. Click on “Browse…”. The “Save as” window will come up. You will see all the places you can put your backup. I chose “desktop”. Then click “Save”. Now you must type a name for your backup. Any name will do. The box should look something like the following. Click “Next”.


Now you come to the following box. Click “Finish” and the computer will take it from there and complete the backup.

When it is finished, it will prompt you to put in a floppy diskette so that information about your system state can be written to it. Note: You can copy and paste the backup to your flash drive (if it has the space of course) or burn it to a DVD if it is very small. If you are wondering how I was able to get the screen shots for this post because you see that it can be a great teaching aid to help students with reading difficulties, I will blog about that another day.

Reading Specialists should back up their work

Your computer is as good as your last backup!

Just imagine that you are hustling to finish your project or have just completed it and confidently saved it on your computer and the unthinkable happens – yes, your computer crashes. It cuts off just like that and refuses to boot. Perhaps the project was your final thesis! Now you are desperate and wished you had a magic wand to wave your computer back up and running. Well there is such a magic wand. It is called a backup. You don’t have to purchase expensive backup software or spend hours searching for free software that can do the job. Right on your computer has a simple yet very powerful backup program that can backup your entire system with all your data. This backup can be used to restore your system to its prior state before the crash.

All you basically need is a floppy disk and a floppy drive to put it in, the CD that you used to create Windows Operating System (e.g. your windows Xp CD) and somewhere to store the backup. If you don’t have a floppy drive, because new computers and laptops don’t usually come with one, you can use a USB floppy drive. The backup procedure which I shall explain in my next post is specifically for Windows Xp.