Apps Review

Google Documents

Google documents is an app that I have used many times in my career as a special education teacher. The app has worked well to create team reports on individual students after their special education evaluation is completed. The process we use is that one staff member creates a document with the report template and then shares it with the rest of the team members. Team members then input their test scores for the student on their own time. As each change is being made, the document is automatically saved. Once everyone has their part in, we are able to print the complete report. Another our school staff has found for Google documents is planning our social gatherings such as staff breakfasts and wedding showers. The event coordinator creates a list of needed items and shares it with the staff. Each staff member is then able to access the document to see what is still needed and sign up to bring something. Google documents is also useful because it is linked with Google drive which is a great way to store and access documents from any device that is connected to the internet. Another feature I like about the app is that you are able to use many of the same formatting tools that you would find on Microsoft Word. They are easy to find and user friendly.


PicMonkey

PicMonkey is an photo editing app that I had not previously used. The first thing I liked when accessing the app was that you didn't need to create an account or sign in to be able to use the photo editor. This made it quick and easy to get started. There were many different tools that could be used to enhance the photo including text, backgrounds, shapes and images that could be overlaid, and more. Photos could then be saved to the computer or shared on Facebook, Twitter, etc. When trying some of the different editing tools, I thought this app could be fun to use to create holiday cards for a family or even for students. Students could even edit a photo of themselves by adding text or holiday headings. These could be printed off on the regular classroom picture and then colored by the students. I think this would be a fun activity that both the students and their parents would love. One thing that I would have liked to see in the app that I didn't find was a way to store the edited photos online or create an album that could be shared with others. Either this option was not available through this app or if it was it was not user friendly or easy to find.

Google Sites

Here is a link to the classroom website I created on google sites. I included a map for parents to find the location of our school and a calendar with the national holidays on it. I also included our classroom handbook with information about our program. I included photos of some of the centers in our classroom for parents to get an idea of some of the activities we offer.

bubbl.us

This is a concept map that I could use to explain to parents or other teachers how students qualify for the Early Childhood Developmental Delay program for which I teach. Since my students are not readers, I would not use bubble.us with the students directly, but could use it with parents or the staff team.

Jing

This screencast video shows how I would use a social story on SMART notebook to teach my students about the rules for our center/play time. Since my 3-6 year old students don't yet use the computer independently, I chose to show how I would use the SMART board lesson with them. This is an activity I use for several days in a row at the beginning of each school year. I read the story to them and then demonstrate how to use the clips and point out the location of each center.

Flat Stanley Map Lesson

For my lesson, I would create a google map to go along with the story Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. In the story, a board falls on a boy named Stanley, making him flat. Stanley then mails himself around the world in envelopes to visit his friends.

For my lesson, my students would first read the story. They would then create paper portraits of themselves and name them "Flat (their name)". Each student would be asked to mail several copies of their flat self around the world to different cities or states. They would include a letter asking the recipients to send a return letter addressed to our class and perhaps include a photo or postcard of something from their part of the world. We would then document all of the locations that we received letters from on our google map by saving the locations. The map of all of the locations could be displayed on the SMART board each day or week to show the locations on the map that go along with the letters and photos we would be reading or looking at. We could then also interact with our map by going to street view or weather to explore the different places our flat selves have visited. The map below is just an example of a world map with several locations marked. Our map would be similar but would contain many more pegs.



View Nairobi in a larger map

Podcasts

Here is a link to the "Sid the Science Kid" podcast from PBS kids.  It can be found on iTunes. The episodes I listened to were "Summer Activities To Do With Your Preschooler" and "Science Centers." This would be an appropriate podcast to use to get ideas for my Early Childhood Special Education classroom. In the summer activities episode, they talk about ideas about integrating science activities during everyday summertime life. Some examples include learning about temperature after feeling cold coming out of a pool or doing some planting and gardening. In science center episode, they talk about the benefits of visiting science centers (or a museum). They give personal experiences of visiting these places with their own children and ideas for types of places to visit. Other topics that can be learned about on Sid's podcasts are libraries, play time, literature, or different holidays. This website could be useful for either parents our teachers working with preschool age children.

Multimedia

Early Signs of Autism

My nieces and nephew

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My School