Mike Marassa
Projects and Concerns
At the end of our third course, I feel I have moved forward immensely in my knowledge and confidence for integration of technology in the classroom.  These course not only have taught me the tools necessary for making these projects a success, but they have also caused me to reflect and evaluate on the why's and how's.  This section of my handbook will address student participation in web based activities, specifically how I can accommodate the needs of all students, regular and special education.

The place to start first is with hardware.  Will I have access to hardware that will meet the needs of my project ideas.  Currently, the answer to that is yes.  My school does have internet ready computer, with handicap accessible tables.  We also have multimedia needs: scanners, video still and digital video cameras.  This hardware is also matched with software for putting these projects together.  With these tools, my students successfully create multimedia presentation, do some web authoring for the Greek Mythology site I'm putting together, and some other activities with other teachers on team.

I guess the one area of weakness I've noticed is many times I think that I throw my students into the activities without enough planning.  Rick Langlois's chat really hit that home well for me.  His idea of SuperStoryBoards fit extremely well with my mythology site as well as for my class multimedia projects.  So many times I've seen my students pitter around and play with the application, not really moving in the direction I had hoped my media project was intended.  His idea will hopefully give my students more guidance as to the direction they need to take with these projects.

The next area is how can I best meet the need of my challenged learners when it comes to participating in and creating web projects.  I'll start first with participating.  Most web based activities involve reading, and this many times is a deficit area of students, not only special education.  I've spent some time researching this area, trying to find software applications that will take the text on a screen and read it back to the viewer.  This adaptation not only would aid the challenged learner, but would also meet the needs of the auditory learner.  The only one I've currently found for Apple is a program called SpellTools, found at the NewerTechnologies web site.  This application allows a user to highlight text on a browser page and have it read back to them.  The creator of this application also has his own web page at www.marciniak.com.  The second area of concern is with students creating web based materials.  Many times these students are just left behind, not accounted for, because we assume that they cannot adapt to the challenges that technology brings.  This is entirely untrue.  In my work with some of these students with my own multimedia projects, I have seen measurable successes.  Often these students just need simplified instructions, modified requirements, extra time (extended deadline), and one on one interaction with the instructor, aide, or peer.  The accomplishments of these projects brings a sense of pride to the student.  I would never recommend the exclusion, rather, give the student the accommodations and the time, and see what they will do.

I hope you have enjoyed this handbook.  It, and the others like it from this class, will be a great asset to our profession.  If you have comments or feedback, please feel free to send them to: vbcoach@soltec.net
 

last updated: 6.16.2000