Blog Post #3

Peer Editing

According to Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial, peer editing is working with someone your own age to help improve, revise, and edit his or her writing. The steps and rules this tutorial provided are great ways to peer edit papers and other writings. Having three rules and three easy steps is a great way to help elementary aged children learn how to peer edit. The first step is to compliment. I learned starting off with compliments about the writing will give the writing some confidence that they didn't do a terrible job, even though they may have a few errors. The second step is to suggest. Making suggestions on word choice or sentence structure could help the writer with decisions he or she weren't particularly sure with. Just saying "this is wrong" or "this was a bad word choice" isn't the way to go. Give the writing detailed suggestions on what they could change their errors to. The final step is to correct. Correcting grammar and spelling is a very important step to peer editing because some students might look past run-on sentences or misspelled words.

Peer editing is very important to me in schools. All students should be taught at a young age on how to peer edit papers correctly. Personally, I don't like when I work extremely hard on a paper and then my peer editor just writes "it was good" and "yes, you gave detail." That kind of editing isn't going to help me improve my paper at all. I believe students should give plenty of feedback when it comes to editing papers. The video "Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes" gave great examples on what not to do when peer editing papers. If students edit papers like that and are not corrected, they are going to need that much more help when they get in more advanced classes. Starting the peer editing techniques at a young age will help students tremendously.

Assistive Technologies

The Mountbatten
I think the Mountbatten is an excellent tool for all schools to have so that children that are hearing and vision impaired can have the same opportunity to do assignments and projects that the other children get to do. I would definitely use this tool in my classroom if I have the chance. It would make vision and hearing impaired students feel they have the same opportunity in learning as everyone else. I wouldn't want any of my students to be left behind.

Ipad for the Blind
In Wesley Majerus' "Ipad Usage for the Blind," he is giving a presentation on how to use the Apple Ipad for the blind. Wesley is blind himself. He explains how the ipad can read aloud everything you slide your finger across on the screen. He opened a book on the tablet and demonstrated how blind students could still read books using the ipad. This is a good tool for classrooms. Blind students need useful tools in this day and time to help them keep up in the classrooms so they can receive the same education as everyone else. In Denise Robinson's "Teaching Mom What Her Deaf/Blind Child is Learning on the Ipad," is showing an adult what her children can learn using an ipad. I have heard people say a thousand times, "Children know more about those ipad's and ipod's than I could ever know," but it is very important for adults to learn how to use them also. This is important because I believe in today's times, the use of ipads is only going to increase in the school systems throughout the world. Vision impaired children could use this tool severely in schools. It would be such a great help.

Vicki Davis

Wow! My favorite quote of this video was when Vicki Davis said "I wasn't teaching them how to do terraform, they were teaching me. I didn't even know how to do it until today." This classroom reminded me a lot of Dr. Strange's classroom in edm310. The teacher was allowing the students to figure things out on their own, with her assistance. The students were using google, twitter, and posting on a blog weekly. Interviewed students were proud of their work and discoveries they made. Other teachers were proud of Vicki Davis' teaching methods because they were not only connected to the students in their class, they were connected to students and teachers across the world. Teaching this way is an excellent tool in the classroom. No one is doing the work for you, your doing it on your own. I want to teach this way. I don't want to produce a "burp-back" education as a teacher. I want my students to take what they learned with them and remember it forever.