Blogs and Wikis are a very efficient and technologically interactive way for teachers to communicate information to, and with students. Of course, when considering how I would use wikis and blogs with my students; one must consider that I will be teaching students with special needs who range from mild to severe on a level of disability. Therefore, my strategies may differ from an educator of children without disability. For instance; blogs and wikis would be used in my class as a tool for communicating with students, as well as communicating with parents, and staff as well. For instance, I would imagine that I could use a wiki to develop, and explain lesson plans to my students. Specifically, I could use a wiki when a lesson plan involves basic operations such as vocabulary, (Ledesma, 2009). In essence, I could make a list of vocabulary words to be used for that week, or weeks, and adjust these words according to the student’s success in learning them, and so forth. In addition, I could use a blog in order to communicate with staff and parents by giving somewhat of a weekly newsletter that could be seen by a parent, and the necessary persons involved with areas such as ARD meetings, and so on. This information will give insight to the parents and the staff, which will allow both to provide feedback as to how they believe their child is doing, or feedback regarding what the school can do to improve the student’s success in my classroom.
On the other hand, I believe that social bookmarking is an exceptional way for educators to communicate ideas with each other, and I think that this method of collecting my favorite websites would be beneficial for my students, and I. To illustrate, special education teachers from my experience have been few, and far between. Therefore, sharing ideas and particular instructional strategies would be a daunting task for a special education teacher as opposed to a general education teacher because of the limit of special education teachers in our current school system. Nevertheless, I believe social bookmarking would be beneficial for special education teachers in general, as we are able to share ideas, and educational practices, and exercises without necessarily having to speak to each other in the same room, building, or city, (Jackson, 2009). In essence, this method would benefit our students while giving them variety when teaching practices are concerned and possible success when dealing with certain subjects. Of course, voice thread is an instructional strategy used in education as well. In fact, I do plan to use voice thread with my students. Of course, the voice threads may be from me while I am describing pictures, telling stories, or sounding out words. However, I could also engage my students by allowing them to do the same, and give them a chance to hear their own personal reactions to each picture, story, or word.
However, students in a special education setting are often somewhat isolated from many other students like them in the sense that most schools have a special education setting of perhaps no more than 6-10 children in their class at all times. Therefore, although I have not studied or researched into it much; I believe Tapped In is an exceptional way for my students who are able, to communicate with other students who perhaps have the same disability as they do, or who have other disabilities in other areas of the city, country or world for that matter. In addition, tapped in is also an exceptional way for special education teachers to share, or communicate their areas of thought and/or concern when considering exceptional students, ( Jonassen, Howland, Marra, and Crismond, 2008). Of course, this also gives teachers a way to communicate in real-time as well as opposed to having to wait until a teacher answers an e-mail, has a planning period, or any other time for that matter. In essence, the textbook has taught me that Tapped in is a social network for teachers from all areas of the educational and world spectrum to come together in order to improve, and learn several areas of educational procedures, and planning in order to ensure that all educators know that they are not alone, and that there is a community and people out there willing to help whenever possible.
References:
Jackson, L. (2009). Sites to See: Social Bookmarking. Education World. Retrieved from
Jonassen, D., Howland, J., & Marra, R. M., Crismond, D., (2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology (3rd ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Ledesma, P. (2009). NECC 2009 Presentation: Strategies for Using Blogs and....... Word Press. Retrieved
I agree that social bookmarking could be different with special ed teachers. I am a special ed aide and the teachers are few. I think more teachers should try and open up and create a broader environment for sped users!
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