Rhonda

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**Timeline for Project Completion**

**Unit 1** Get into the Project Wiki space. Complete Section 1 of your Final Project Template. **Unit 2** Determine the Unit standards and the ways in which your students can demonstrate those standards to you. **Unit 3** Develop one idea for incorporating the use of a wiki or blog in your unit. **Unit 4** Develop one idea for incorporating the use of podcasting in your unit. **Unit 5** Develop one idea for incorporating video and multimedia into your unit. **Unit 6** Develop one idea for using one or more Google Apps into your unit. **Unit 7** Develop one idea for incorporating instruction on digital citizenship and/or social networking into your unit plans.

Name: Rhonda Woodward Title: Para-educator SAU: 82 Grade Level: 4 District: Chester School District Content Area: all School: Chester Academy Content Domain:
 * Section 1: General Information **

Course Unit: Para/Professional Development Blog and Differentiated Instruction Team Wiki
 * Backward Design Unit Planning **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Unit 2: Standards and Learning Goals **

To start a Para Blog, I would first consult with Jana Ruiz as to what she feels would support the needs of the department. I might also conduct a survey of the paras to determine level of interest and ideas of interest. I would look into Blogger.com or Wordpress.com as supporting sites. To start a Team Wiki, I would explain, at the next Fourth Grade Differentiated Instruction Team Meeting, how a wiki would benefit all and see if team members agree that this would be helpful to them (again, in the short and long term). From what I understand, Wikispaces.com would support this.

**Unit 3**//**:**// **Instructional Design: Wikis and Blogs** **Develop an idea for a learning activity that uses either a wiki or a blog to provide students with experience and practice performing or producing what you indicated would convince you they learned the standard.** How will students use the wiki or blog? How will this activity connect to the performance or product you need to see students demonstrate?

The wiki will be used for team management of curriculum and modified curriculum. It will serve as one dynamic notebook that reflects original content and ideas and supporting modified materials in the form of links to videos, articles, online textbooks, printable worksheets, etc. Team members can provide updates on changes in lessons, can comment on the success or failure of modified lessons, and can use the wiki as a holding place for a given unit so that staffers doing the same lesson at a different time of year, with a different style student, or wanting to build on it the following year will, again, have archived access to that information.

The blog will be used as a “place” for paraprofessionals to share professional development experiences, common concerns and practices, contractual issues, and suggestions/requests for professional development workshops on half days. Each para participating in a workshop could make an entry explaining it, rate it on a certain scale, and provide a link to the provider of the workshop for those who might be interested. Since a blog is a collection of posts, it could serve as a calendar/timeline of workshops that come about at certain times of year so that paras could use it as an archived resource able to be accessed based on student/grade level assignment each year.

The wiki will be used for team management of curriculum and modified curriculum. It will serve as one dynamic notebook that reflects original content and ideas and supporting modified materials in the form of links to videos, articles, online textbooks, printable worksheets, etc. Team members can provide updates on changes in lessons, can comment on the success or failure of modified lessons, and can use the wiki as a holding place for a given unit so that staffers doing the same lesson at a different time of year, with a different style student, or wanting to build on it the following year will, again, have archived access to that information.

**Unit 4:** **Instructional Design: Podcasting** **Develop an idea for a learning activity that uses podcasting to provide students with experience and practice performing or producing what you indicated would convince you they learned the standard.** After spending many hours searching for podcasts that might be relevant to modified curriculum for my 1:1 student, I felt that this would not be a good use of time in supporting an individual student. I feel that in using podcasts, the aim is to impact as many students as possible, thus justifying the amount of time spent previewing podcasts. I would definitely utilize those podcasts that are recommended to me (I am not anti-pod), but I do feel that with this particular tool, in the case of one student the outcome does not offset the investment. If members of the paraprofessional staff or members of the fourth-grade differentiated instruction team found particular podcasts that were informational to us as individuals supporting students, I would eagerly include them in the PD blog or in the team Wiki.

**Unit 5:** **Instructional Design: Videos and Multimedia** **Develop an idea for a learning activity that uses video or multimedia resources to provide students with experience and practice performing or producing what you indicated would convince you they learned the standard.** YouTube videos -- particularly Cartoon Network ones -- are used as positive reinforcement for my student's appropriate behavior. He is VERY motivated to earn these rewards. Currently we are considering having him watch educational videos on an I-touch and, for time spent doing so, earning time watching his favorite CN videos. I think the student would also benefit, at some point, in making and watching videos of himself learning social skills -- first modeled by the speech and/or occupational therapist, then practiced by him. I think he would enjoy and grow from the experience.

//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Unit 6: //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> Instructional Design: Google Apps <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">//<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Develop an idea for a learning activity that uses one or more Google Apps to provide students with experience and practice performing or producing what you indicated would convince you they learned the standard. //

Google Earth is currently used by the student to navigate streets that are familiar to him. By sharing this experience with him, his teachers and support staff get a glimpse of his non-school world, which allows us to better understand his references to time spent outside of school, enabling __us__ to have more meaninful conversations with him, and enabling __him__ to communicate more effectively with __us__, as well as practice spatial skills. I think this app can be used to help the student better understand geographical places that are discussed in his Reading curriculum, social studies curriculum, and in upcoming field trips. Similarly, Picasa can utilize photos that the student takes, as well as archived photos, to create time lines, collages, and photo albums to better help him with visualization and context.

//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">An alternative to developing an idea for your students is to develop an idea for using one mkor more Google Apps with your colleague. //

**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">I am debating whether to use Google Sites or Wikipaces.com to set up the Differentiated Instruction Team Wiki. In either case, Google Calendar and Docs will be helpful in allowing the team members to schedule meetings, modify curriculum, edit modified curriculum, present supporting videos and podcasts, and share links to pertinent topics. **

**Unit 7:** **Instructional Design: Digital Citizenship** **Develop an idea for a learning activity that teaches some aspects of digital citizen ship that might apply to the student use of the various Web 2.0 tools you chose above and social networking.** I think sharing Youtube videos or Facebook postings of kids who have crossed the line, showing poor digital citizenship and poor life choices, might have a strong impact on middle school students. Perhaps make a game out of it to encourage discussion. For example, Do you think this video / posting is appropriate? Why or why not? What do you think the repercussions might be / were for this student and his/her family? Have the students rate them on a scale of 1-10 as to level of inappropriateness/appropriateness. Maybe ask what rules/ethics were broken in the creation of these images and postings. Ask the students to share personal experiences of the same. Obtain parental permission for this exercise, explaining the "shock value" and its long-term potential for preventing their own child's risk of creating their own "shocking" decisions. Having real students come in to explain their regrets / lost innocence over a cyber-related experience might have an even greater impact.

Both of these exercises would be consistent with policies to educate students about the hazards of the net, the long-term academic risks, and the anti-cyberbullying rules that have been recently put in place. One last idea is to have students, with their parents present, view a teacher-generated video (or something already created by NETS / the industry) about these topics in the privacy of their own home. The students and their parents could post their responses in blog format. This would be making effective use of many 2.0 tools, giving the students (and parents) a learning experience ABOUT the tools while they are UTILIZING them as well as SHOWING them what to avoid in using them.