This week we were asked to look at a list of web tools we could use in our classrooms to enhance our teaching practice, or to make life easier for our students. A lot of the items on the list of web tools are things I've used in the past to varying degrees. But I wanted to focus this post on a couple of things that weren't on the list. As a math teacher, one of my favorite web sites is Khan Academy. Sal Khan created Khan Academy and the website has evolved over the years to now include basically anything a kid could ever need to pass any math class. I've mostly used the site's videos as a form of flipping my classroom. A lot of the topics I cover in Algebra are presented the same way in his videos, so I use them from time to time. Khan Academy also has practice problems associated with each video so the students can practice the concepts just covered in the video they watched. The videos on Khan Academy are basically YouTube videos. In my AP Statistics class this year, most of the kids have struggled to adapt to the higher level of work. One of them (you know, instead of just reading the book) searched on YouTube for videos about the content. He came in to class the next day raving about "mathmanbillg" who apparently is an AP Stats teacher. He told me the videos made the concepts really clear to him, so I showed the video to the class and they thought it was "ehh, ok". They can never just admit when something's cool, right? I'm hopeful that the class will use these kinds of tutorial videos as a supplement to their learning if reading the book isn't clear enough to them. Here's one of the statistics video's from mathmanbillg:
Since we're talking about assistive technology this week, I thought I would comment on some of the things I've seen students use as well as what I think would be good technology to use. I think the only assistive technology I've seen used in my classroom is an electronic word processor. A few years ago I had a student who took notes on it because he took forever to take notes by hand. He was a really bright kid, but he just wrote slowly. Bringing up iPads again (which I'm probably going to do all the time), I spoke with one of the Special Education teachers at my school a couple weeks ago. She teaches English and just got an iPad cart earlier this year. She was telling me how she loves having them in her class because she can now use the iPads for students to have text read to them rather than having to read aloud to the class herself (and then repeat parts if one student falls behind). It frees her up to address each of the students on a more individual level, based on who needs the most help. I use my iPads similarly in math, by having students complete problems on a website that will walk the students through the solving process if they get stuck. It's basically impossible for 35 students to learn everything from me talking at the front of the room and then expect them to instantly understand everything I just covered. With iPads, I can "ignore" the ones who get it and let them work independently, and I can give more attention to those who are struggling with the concepts, or with staying on task! Some of the resources I've found for assistive technology, in working on my case study are MathTalk and AbleData. These sites allow students to complete math worksheets online and let text be read to them. Sometimes LD students have trouble reading (or focusing while reading) and benefit from hearing the text. AbleData makes calculators that give audible feedback to confirm the buttons that were pressed, so students can verify that they've pressed the series of keys they intended to press.
