Adaptive Technologies

Dawn Musso
April 22, 2009

1. Marilyn realizes how important it is to keep student’s learning styles in mind when planning instruction. What activities do you think will be helpful in addressing the learning styles of your students?

Scene 1

Of course it’s important to implement many different types of learning styles. There are a variety of different types of learn styles to help students learn better and more efficiently. One reason being is that each student learns on a different level and in order to reach your students one must try different scenarios. As educators we want to keep our students attention and give them the best education as possible. One way is through visual, kinetic, and audio. Visual is anything that can be seen on a board, paper, book, internet, intranet, video, cd’s, maps, puzzles, mazes or games. Kinetic is basically hands on which would have your students interact with the internet, intranet, video, multi-media, keyboard, mouse. Next is audio a lecture, video, music, movie, presentation, speech synthesis or tutorial. There are so many different options out there on how an educator and teach their students.


2. Marilyn felt comfortable consulting with Juanita’s expertise. How would this type of collaboration help your instruction and benefit your students?

Scene 2

For someone who may be just coming into the teaching field collaborating with an experienced colleague can be beneficial to an educator. Of course, coming into this new field we have ideas of how we think we might be able to get our students to learn but sometimes it can be difficult because not each student has an easy time of grasping a specific subject or it can be that they just don’t know how to study correctly. So speaking with a fellow colleague about some ideas that you might have or questioning a colleague about how they might go about something can help benefit. I feel that it can’t hurt it can only benefit the teacher, colleague and students. There is nothing wrong with asking for help and it’s important to have a good report with you fellow colleagues to feel comfortable to bounce ideas off one another.


3. How is Marilyn using graphic organizer to enhance the lesson? How will this use of graphic organizers help Oscar? From early in Scene one she didn’t know who to meet Oscar’s needs.

Scene 3

Marilyn obviously enjoys Eric Carle books about natural habitats and wild animals. So she read over his books and decided to give a project to her students. Of course she research on the internet what website would be related to Eric Carle as well as finding a video on Eric Carle. Marilyn gave a whole group lesson on Eric Carle book. So then she gave them an assignment to map out on graphic organizer. Graphic organizer is great because they can be used before a lesson so that the student can get prior knowledge of the subject, guides, their thinking, and helps with their vocabulary. It helps the students stay focused on the topic at hand and organizes their information correctly. It seems to be almost like a concept map but maybe better. Using the graphic organizer is fun way to learn, organize, retain, recall, and get facts and concepts about a topic. This is a great way to help a diverse group of student to get them to learn.

There is nothing about Oscar in this Scene. So I don’t know how it will help him.

4. A WebQuest was used to help students navigate the Eric Carle Website. Reflect upon your experiences using the Web to locate information. What difficulties have you encountered that might be addressed by using a WebQuest?

Scene 4

WebQuest is a very helpful program that is offered to student of any age. It is an easy way to navigate on the internet to information pertaining to subject such as Math, Science, English, Social Studies as well as Languages. Which I found pretty interesting because when I was in school the only language that was offered was Spanish and French. I wish back then they would have had this type of software to help me when I needed it. But as an adult I can use it now so that is pretty neat. As an educator you want to be careful on which website you have your students search information on because not all internet sites are reliable for example Wikipedia. There was lesson, text books on-line, practice tests, games all types of things to offer help and to advance a student in preparation of tests. It also was helpful not just for the student but for the teacher as well. One can view the each states requirement for students. The only things I really thought was that is were pretty expensive and must be upgraded yearly. So that can become costly for a school.

5. List and describe three benefits the students gained from being included in Oscar’s small group.

6. Do you think Oscar’s experience would have been as powerful if he would have worked in isolation with Juanita? Why or why not?

Scene 5

Juanita worked one on one with Oscar using the speech synthesis, graphic organizer, tiered assignments. She also took four other kids and put them in a group with Oscar. This was a great idea support from his fellow peers. Smaller groups are sometimes better because the kids start to put their heads together and this helps each child learn, retain and recall the information especially if they may be having problems learning.

I don’t think that Oscar’s experience would have been as powerful if he just worked with Juanita alone. Sometimes I feel that classes are too over crowed and the children who struggle in the class get left behind. I know this from experience. The teachers are trying to get through the lessons and the kids who grasp it great and the ones that do not get recognized and that is pretty sad. So having children break up into small groups and using the techniques that the teacher used help the child to learn because she can focus on the areas that are the weakest. The support of ones peers helps too because in a smaller group lots of ideas, discussions, concepts are brought about and this get the other students thinking and retaining what is being said and it can be applied.

7. Describe three ways in which Marilyn’s use of technology addresses the needs of her class and allowed all students to participate in the lesson?

Scene 6

Her students learned how to search for biographical data using WebQuest and her students learned the importance of writing elements and the artistic approach to Eric Carle as an illustrator. She used guide notes that she and Juanita develop and apply a video to it to keep the retention and focus of her students. All this was going to help the students write a book which would incorporate the wild animals and habitats they learned about in science. They did a WebQuest which is similar to a concept map that would lay out a story line with setting, characters, a problem, solution, and virtues in their map. It would have illustration, title, dedication page and information about the author. They also finger painted colored papers with textures to add to the book. Then it the book was created to iMovies and later on had to write a reflection on their learning experience that occurred as part of the process of creating a book. This was all very interesting and something that I think would be a great idea to get children to learn about a specific subject.