Online signup and OR code

Online sign up websites I feel can be very useful but they have their limits. It is a great way to organize an event and get information quickly and effectively. However it limits those who either don't have Internet access or know how to use this technology. If all parents/guardians can use this than by all means go for it. but sometimes the old fashion way is the only way. The OR code on a newsletter is cool and for some maybe easier to access the online sign up but its not necessary. You can access the same web page just by typing in the link so in the end its just a fancy thing to do with your phone. That's just how I feel about it. The newsletter is something I will use as a teacher. It is a great way to inform parents of upcoming events and it can also acknowledge the students accomplishments. I think it would be cool to create it like a news paper and have the students help design it and write their own articles for it.

Digital Stories

Social stories is a tool used to teach autistic children social skills/prepare them for a social interaction or convention. Although these stories are created for autistic children I feel that they could be used with all children. However you must be careful that the story is not culturally bias. "Care should be given to ensure targeted shills are culturally appropriate (Spence 2008). Digital stories are useful because they can be quickly relearned. Because it can be a video, it can be viewed over and over again, which is useful because a skill can be reviewed without the teacher or parent reteaching the lesson. The student can simply just watch the video again. Also social stories are a great way to differentiate instruction. For example, lets say that the class is having a hard time walking appropriately in the hallways. A digital social story could be created to teach the student what the appropriate behavior looks like. The benefit of this method opposed to just talking to the students is that it will appeal to the learning styles of ALL the students in the classroom.

I created a Digital story, you can check it out here. My wife is the one talking. I didn't like the sound of my own voice.

This digital story was easy to create, however i was not terribly impressed with the program I used. It was set up very strange and you could not make the window larger to see it better. I choose to do a story on "asking for help". I choose this because I have noticed that children often want to do thing on their own, which is great, except for the times where it could be a dangerous or frustrating situation. So I choose to do a social story about when you should ask for help.