Digital Badge # G

For this post, we read chapter 10. Chapter 10 was about students with cultural, academic, and physical differences and they way technology can help them in everyday learning. The three things that I chose to talk about today are multicultural students and online language translation services, the digital accommodations of low-tech, mid-tech, and high-tech, and the use of interactive electronic storybooks.

The first thing I would like to elaborate on is multicultural students and online language translations services. I have said many times while on this blog, that I worked as a after school tutor for a local middle school. I have been very discreet about which middle school in which town because of this being on the internet and even though, these post are for grades, I realize that random people are looking at my blog. My Digital Badge #A has around 31 views and I am pretty sure my professor isn't viewing my first blog post that many times. But if my professor is familiar with the local schools in our area, she will know which town I am referring to when I say, I come from a migrant community. This town is a migrant farming community. Our main produce is tomatoes. The diversity of the students are Hispanic (being mainly Mexican and Guatemalan), Haitian, White, and Native American (in that order). All of that to say, As a tutor I am very familiar with online language translations services. By far the one that we used the most was Google translate. This allowed the Spanish speaking and Creole speaking students to communicate with me the problems they were having as well as I communicating with them on what I wanted them to do. The upside to this was that I got to learn a little Creole and Spanish as I went along (I brag that my first words in Creole were close your mouth and sit down.) A small side note, I also worked with a deaf/ hearing impaired student as well. My boss asked us if anyone knew American Sign Language. After no one said anything I told them I knew the alphabet and they sit me with the student. After a year of working closely with her, I was able to sign somewhat fluently with her. I won't go into much detail on it because I talked about it in my disscussion post, but we used a site called Signing Savvy. This sight was an online dictionary for ASL. It did great and I still use it today to look up a word. Going back to Google translate, they now have an app. So it's great to use in classrooms.

Another thing that stuck with me as I was reading this chapter was the low, mid, and high tech accommodations. It seems so simple, but it's really good information. I found myself really going back to the chart and taking notes of situations and their low, mid, and high tech accommodations were. I would also research and in some occasions look closely at some of the apps. These are great solutions to everyday things.

Lastly, I am going to talk about the use of interactive electronic storybooks. This isn't a huge surprise because it seems like I often talk about Reading Rainbow and the app that they have. I do plan on using this when I become a teacher and I am excited about this. But I have talked about Reading Rainbow too often in these blogs, so I will spare you the lecture on it. Instead, I will talk about the use of storybooks and ebooks in the classroom. I don't think that anyone is arguing that online storybooks or ebooks are ruining the classroom. They engage students both visually and audibly, they help students decipher words that they may not know the spelling of, but have heard the word said before, and they teach students to pronounce words phonically. I suppose some would consider it a lackadaisical approach to reading, but I don't see it that way. I see it doing more good than bad. I am not an advocate of ebooks only. I do believe students should be able to pick up an actual book from time to time, but ebooks in the classroom are a very smart decision.  Every post in this blog we have to add a digital tool. We have these tools to chose from and some that I have been looking at using (but haven't really found a good use for it yet) are two digital storytelling sites called Story Bird and Zoo Burst. My grandmother has a book published. Because we are of Christian faith the book is called  Children's Parables: Earthly Stories With Heavenly Lessons for Children. And my shameless plug is that you can buy it and order it from amazon here. So it's no wonder that I wrote a short story a few years ago. I lost it when my computer was stolen and I am rewriting it now. Everyone that had read it told me I should have it published. My dream of course is to get it published one day when it is ready. I believe that these sites (Story Bird and Zoo Burst) are great sites to make story books and have your students read them.

To recap I think that Google Translate is an amazing app and works great with students who speak a different language. The chart in the textbook that shows everyday situations and the low, mid, and high tech accommodations for them are very informative and I will be using these notes for when I am teacher. And lastly, digital storytelling and ebooks are a must for classroom technology.




 References:
Children's Parables: Earthly Stories with Heavenly Lessons for Children Paperback – December 5, 2013. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2014, from http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Parables-Earthly-Heavenly-Children/dp/1490816755/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413208276&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Christian Children Books Karen Frantz

Google Translate. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2014, from https://translate.google.com/

Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Storybird. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2014, from http://storybird.com/poetry/poem/48jq26brrw/published/