A Successful Trip to the School Computer Lab

By Betsy Weigle

Teachers Pay Teachers Storefront: Classroom Caboodle

As the administrator of my building’s computer lab, I have learned a lot about  school technology management. Taking care of hardware is a very important skill for our children to learn--as important as managing programs once they have logged on.

Here are some best practice tips for a productive trip to the school computer lab:

Your second classroom

Ready, Set, Go!

Before leaving the home classroom, have students stand in "lunch-line order". Reinforce the rule that they get whichever computer they end up with. No scrambling for the "best" computer upon arrival in the lab is allowed. After all, cords do not fare well during "scrambling"!

Also, instruct students to bring other classwork, such as a book to read or unfinished assignments to complete, especially during testing days. Once students finish their computer work, they need to remain sitting quietly until class is over. Before long, students understand that using their time wisely in the computer lab is important.

Cord management is priority one!

Upon entering the computer lab, be sure to look over the stations before children sit down. This keeps students from being blamed for damages inflicted by prior classes. All necessary equipment, such as mouse and keyboard, should be present and plugged in. All problems with equipment should be taken care of before students take their seats.

Next, model how students should sit while they are at their computer stations. Demonstrate how to pull out chairs then open computers and select appropriate buttons to push. Also, show students how to properly hold their headphones with two hands then to adjust them to fit their heads. Finally, it's time to begin the task of the day, whether it is research or testing. Before students complete their assignments, model the steps for wrapping up their time in the lab. These instructions are just as important as the guidelines for getting started. Remember to give instructions slowly and to model one step at a time.

Tidying Up

Always build in some class time for clean up. The school computer lab is a classroom where others teach after you, and they expect technology to be ready to use. Instruct students to save their work and shut down computers five minutes before time to exit the lab.

Non-skid pads help keep everything in place

Repeat the steps in reversed order: start with headphones, which are removed with two hands. then save all work and close programs or web browsers. Finally,remind students of the proper shutdown procedures and process.


If laptops are being used, remind students to clear all cords from keyboards before they gently close the lids. I like to finish by having kids say, "Thank you!" to their partner, the computer, then pat the lids when done! Remind students to  stay seated until all computer lids are closed and the signal to move is given.

Final Steps

The last critical step in the computer lab is to properly push away from tables. Modeling this step for students reduces the risk of upsetting carefully-controlled tangles of cords that link computers to the Internet. Also, accidents, such as keyboards or laptops falling to the floor, are avoided. First, have students scoot forward in their chairs until their feet touch the floor. Then, they place their hands on the sides of their chairs rather than the edges of the tables and arise from their seats. Computer lab rules can be reinforced with a Computer Rules Poster. 

Success Is In the Details

When working around technology, details matter. To save time, use the pre-made Computer Lab Success Checklist. Ultimately, time in the computer lab becomes more productive when safety steps are demonstrated by teachers and followed by students. Follow the link to read more about computer lab safety rules.

Visit Betsy Weigle's resources at the Classroom Teacher Resources website and the Classroom Caboodle blog. 


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Answering your Assistive Technology Questions (That You Didn't Even Know You Had)

By: Anna Colley

Visit Anna's Teachers Pay Teachers Store

Think about a typical day in your classroom. You may stand in the front of the room and lecture, show a slide show, have students come to the board for interactive white board activities, ask students to work together in groups, and give reading assignments. You probably have directions, labels, and signs posted around your classroom. If you’re like most of us, you probably talk quite a lot during a typical day, and you ask your students to talk to you, to the whole group, and to each other. Your students probably put pencil or pen to paper several times throughout a day or class period.

All of this can be broken down into a typical model for learning that looks something like this:

Now ask yourself: What if a student does not have easy access to the input or the output?

Assistive Technology, or AT, is defined by the Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1988 as “any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of children with disabilities.” The oversimplified translation: AT helps students to receive the input or deliver the output.

What’s the difference between assistive technology and plain-old technology?
They may look exactly the same! AT is not so much defined by what the technology is as by its purpose. Is the technology being used as an enhancement, or as a necessity? As Mary Pat Radabauer so aptly put it, “For people with typical abilities, technology makes doing things easier. For people with disabilities, technology makes doing things possible.”

So what is it, exactly?
The answer to that is very complex, because AT comes in such a wide variety of forms. Generally, it can be grouped into 4 categories: no-tech, low-tech, medium-tech, and high-tech.

No-Tech AT consists of procedures, services, and environmental conditions that do not require special equipment or devices. Think about services such as speech therapy, and accommodations such as preferential seating in this category.


Low-Tech AT would involve the use of devices or items that are simple and non-mechanical in nature. For instance, adapted spoons, no-spill cups, tinted transparency overlays for reading, clipboards, and Velcro can all be used for assistive purposes.


Medium-Tech AT are relatively complicated mechanical devices, like walkers and wheelchairs.

High-Tech AT uses electronics to provide assistance. This would include computer software, specialty digital devices, and consumer devices like iPads.

What can AT devices help people to do?
The tasks aided by the use of AT can be grouped into 10 categories, with some overlap between them.

• Daily living aids help people perform everyday tasks such as eating, sitting, moving, or toileting. Examples: adapted spoons, no-spill cups, adaptive toilet seats
  
• Assistive listening and amplification devices help individuals to hear or to attend to audio. Examples: Portable FM systems, hearing aids
  
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices are used for communication for individuals who have no speech or limited speech. Examples: Tech Talk 8, Little Step by Step Communicator with Levels, DynaVox
  
• Computer access devices and software provide assistance for using computers. This includes hardware that help individuals access the computer physically, and software that helps a person accomplish tasks on the computer. Examples: adapted mouse, trackball, or keyboard, PixWriter software, JAWS Screen Reader
  
• Environmental control devices allow a person to control some aspect of the environment, such as adjusting a thermostat or controlling the TV with a special remote. Examples: oversized TV remote, talking thermostat
  
• Mobility aids include walkers, wheelchairs, scooters, and crutches.
• Recreation and leisure aids are used to assist persons in participating in leisure activities, such as listening to music, watching TV, or reading a book. Examples: adapted toys, page fluffers, iPod remote control, adapted bowling
• Seating and positioning aids help individuals to maintain a certain position, or to be more comfortable or safer in a given position. Examples: scooters, pillows, adapted chairs
• Aids for vision impairments include a very wide variety of devices, adaptations, and software to help people with low vision or blindness to perform everyday tasks. Examples: Web Anywhere mobile screen reader, tactile learning materials, electronic magnifiers
• Cause and effect training devices help those with severe and profound disabilities, and very young children, to learn that their actions can change the environment and the behaviors of those around them. This is a necessary first step in teaching someone to use other devices such as switches or an electric wheelchair. Examples: switch-activated lights, switch-operated toys, devices for making choices

What AT are you likely to encounter in a school setting?
Low-tech and no-tech AT are in use at virtually every school, and many teachers use them every day without even realizing they are doing so! Any time a teacher allows an ADHD student to stand while working, provides extended time for an LD student to complete an assignment, hands out a pencil grip or lined paper to help a student improve handwriting, or gives a primary student a “spaceman” word spacer, the teacher is using AT. 

Medium- and high-tech AT are less prevalent, but you are likely to see mobility aids such as wheelchairs, AAC devices for communication, a variety of switches that are used to interact with anything from computers to electric pencil sharpeners, and specialized software. You’re more likely to see AT in a regular education classroom if you happen to have a student with a hearing or vision impairment, or if you have a mainstream student from a self-contained classroom.

How can I learn more?
I highly recommend the A.T.TIPScast podcast for easy ideas for implementing AT solutions in your classroom. Rather than focusing on specialty devices that most of us don’t have access to, podcaster Chris Bugaj helps teachers address the needs of students in regular education classrooms with tools and materials that are readily available to anyone. What’s more, he strives to do so in an entertaining way and in a short format of about 10 minutes per episode. He often highlights the use of Web 2.0 tools within the classroom, and that alone is reason for every educator to check it out! The podcast will be useful for any teacher who works with students with learning disabilities, attention issues, or students who read below grade level.

For those that provide professional development, check out Chris’s easy to implement PD solution! He’s provided all you need to create self-study AT courses for teachers in your school or district with his free PD Kits—13 courses in all! I am excited to be using these at my school this year and providing participating educators 2 hours of staff development credit for each course completed. Chris is also available to teach workshops. His information is available on the website.

If you are interested in going deeper with assistive technology, you may want to check to see if your district has an AT department. Contact your district’s special education department to inquire. Our district’s AT department (which I never knew existed until a year ago) provides a monthly newsletter with ideas and training opportunities, and anyone in the system can request to be added to the distribution list.

Other resources are listed below.

Related Links:
Anna’s Prezi presentation for this topic: Feel free to use it for professional development or reference

AT.TIPScast blog: For regular, quick and easy tips to implementing assistive technology in every classroom. The blog also provides links to download the podcasts.

ATiA—Assistive Technology Industry Association: Includes information about their annual conference, as well as other resources.

The Practical (and Fun) Guide to Assistive Technology in Public Schools by Christopher Bugaj and Sally Norton-Darr: The authors of this book use pirates, monsters, and monkeys to keep you engaged in the topic of AT, but don't sacrifice the tips, strategies, and insight that will help improve your AT program.

Standards.gov Assistive Technology page: Overview of applicable U.S. laws related to AT, a list of categories, guidelines, and standards, and a list of links to other resources.

ISTE—International Society for Technology in Education: Search for assistive technology or RTI.

Many U.S. states and regions have educational technology associations which put on annual conferences, and many of these include AT resources. Try a Google search for educational technology conference and the name of your state to find one near you.

By: Anna Colley

Visit Anna's Teachers Pay Teachers Store

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Become Teacher 2.0 With These Tools!

Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers
By: Anna Colley
Visit Anna's Store on Teachers Pay Teachers

I remember well the first time that I accessed the World Wide Web in 1995. I got busy doing something else in my dorm room while I waited for the pictures from the NASA site to download, then gave up after the first two had come through. The Internet has changed a lot since the old days of my 1200 baud modem and my first excruciating page downloads. You may have heard the term Web 2.0 lately. What is Web 2.0, and how can you leverage it in your classroom?

The advent of the term Web 2.0 marked a shift in the purpose of the Web. Instead of pages that were focused on passively viewing information provided by others, Web 2.0 is about collaborating, interacting, and creating your own content. Instead of just looking at pictures or reading a website, you can now interact with the site itself and other users to create something new. Think about Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, Flikr, YouTube, Skype, and any other site or web service where you add to content or connect with others. Web 2.0 isn't a shift in technology so much as a shift in how technology is being used.

What does this mean for education? Since Web 2.0 sites allow users to connect with one another and to create their own content, they provide a great means for students to connect with educators, peers, and content-area experts. They're also a medium for students to report on what they have learned, or to create a product to show a solution to a complex problem. What's more, since Web 2.0 sites are designed to be user-friendly, they're easy to start using right away, with very little learning curve.

Okay, so let's get to the fun part! Here is a list of Web 2.0 tools you may find useful, and an idea or two about how to use each one in your classroom. Visit the sites, play around, and enjoy these toys for yourself first. Then, see what bright ideas surface for using them in your classroom. If you are using any of these sites already, or if your brain is alive with possibilities, I'd love to hear your ideas, success stories, and pointers in the comments!

VoiceThread
Voice Thread allows you to upload a series of images, and then accept voice and text comments about the images. You can also “mark up” the image as you comment, pointing out notable details. As a teacher you can limit the responses to just your students, or open it up to the world and have an option to moderate all responses before they appear. Imagine asking your students to upload drawings or photos and narrate a story; record responses or observations about a political cartoon you have added; upload photos that show examples of geometric figures and allow classmates to comment, marking up the photos to show the figures. Browse the site for some great examples of ways that students and teachers are already using it. You can try a free account, or get a paid account for more functionality. Free accounts require an email for sign up; the paid account allows you to set up student accounts without emails.

Tagxedo
You may be familiar with Tagxedo's predecessor, Wordle. Wordle is a great tool and has many creative applications in the classroom, but Tagxedo takes the word cloud to a whole new level! Enter in some text, tweak the (many) options, and out comes a customized word cloud with words sized by number of occurrences. Like Wordle you can get a quick snapshot of the important words in a document, or collect opinions and characteristics about a topic. Unlike Wordle, Tagxedo allows you to shape your word cloud into shapes like hearts, arrows, and stars, or even to a shape you upload yourself--like a photo! Check out this one I made from a photo of myself using the text from our family blog.

Have students create a Tagxedo using the text from their writing to find overused words. Enter the text of a historical document to focus on main ideas and key vocabulary. Ask students to create a Tagxedo portrait of a famous historical figure or a fictional character. Use Tagxedo as a tool for creating shaped (concrete) poetry or keywords about an animal. Have fun with it!

Portraits can be difficult to do, so check out the custom shape and portrait tutorials for help. To see lots of examples of what you can do, visit the gallery. If you're having trouble making out the shape, try viewing from a distance or blurring your vision. You do not have to sign up for an account to use Tagxedo.

Glogster EDU
Glogster describes itself as a site for making multimedia posters. Students can import photos, videos, and sound files, as well as adding text and graphic elements like arrows and clip art. More importantly to students, Glogster's "posters," dubbed glogs, are cool. Glogster is great for all ages, from high school seniors to preschoolers. Students can use Glogster to showcase research, campaign for a cause (with persuasive writing, of course), show off their work for parents, or express themselves. Try a glog to introduce yourself to students during the first day of school, and then have your students create their own glogs to introduce themselves to each other! You can even save a glog to use on a web page or use it as a cool way to provide a list of links. How cool would your class blog or web page look with a glog on the front page? Check out the Glogpedia for the very best examples and a treasure trove of ideas.

Regular Glogster has all manner of content, including some that is inappropriate. Glogster EDU is controlled by the teacher. You can sign up for a free account and get 50 student accounts for no charge. With a subscription to the premium version, you can add additional students and also have access to advanced features. The free version is plenty to keep you and your students occupied for a semester or more. If you love it, or if you teach a large number of students, you may consider looking at the premium features. Students do not need an email to get an account; the teacher account allows you to set up accounts for your students.

Blabberize
I'm very excited about this tool for my preschoolers, but students of any age will enjoy this site! On Blabberize, students can upload an image, such as a photo of an armadillo or a portrait of Abe Lincoln, mark the location of the mouth on the image, and then add a sound recording. Blabberize makes the images talk! Imagine young students creating animal research reports where the animal itself tells you all about its habits. Older students' history reports will come alive (almost literally!) with historical figures giving a firstperson account. You can even have a funny character give review information for a test to keep students engaged. Not only does Blabberize give your students an alternate way of presenting, but you have opportunities for writing as well, as students prepare first-person scripts.

You must sign up for an account to create or comment on blabbers, and sign up requires an email address. Watch out for the comments section. I have seen inappropriate comments on some blabbers. Though there's an option to report inappropriate blabbers, there's no option to do so for comments. Users can delete comments that have been posted on their own blabbers, however.

My Fake Wall
I had actually seen a few examples of what My Fake Wall does before My Fake Wall actually came about, but this site makes it easy. Think of a famous historical figure or a fictional character. Now imagine that person had a Facebook page. Who would his friends be? What photos would she post? What status messages would come across? Where would the person "check in"? You can do this type of activity with students the hard way, where you meticulously recreate a Facebook page in an application like Publisher or on paper, or you can get students on Facebook where who-knows-what may happen (your students may or may not even be old enough), or you can do it the super-easy way with My Fake Wall. Just follow the prompts to create a fake wall for anyone! The best part is that My Fake Wall is focused on learning, so it's student- (and teacher-) friendly. You must sign up for an account to create a wall, and account sign up requires an email address.

There are many, many more Web 2.0 tools that you can use for learning. Maybe I will write a follow-up article at some point with another batch of favorites! In the meantime, I’d love for you to post a comment about sites you are using, or your ideas for using those listed here. Which one is your favorite?

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You Tube's Search On Tool & Effective Teaching Solutions

I made this video in about 3 minutes using You Tube's new Search On tool. I can imagine a lot of fun teaching opportunities here. A safe Google search? A Google bibliography? Use your imagination. I'm sure some clever teacher out there will find a way to use this fun, new tool. Watch my video!