Educational Technology that Promotes Inclusion

I’ve attended a few conferences this month that have inspired me to explore educational technology more closely. I’m having so much fun considering all of the teaching and learning opportunities of these tools and wanted to share some of my ideas.

Podcasting

First of all, I think podcasting is an overlooked tool in the classroom. During the Educational Technology Summit at SOU this spring, I attended a session about using podcasting in the K-12 classroom setting. In small groups, education professionals and students explored Aviary and were prompted to create a quick podcast telling an immigration story. My group interviewed me and we ended up recording my experience in the Red Light District in Amsterdam! We even added background music that helped to set the tone of the story. We were all novices and it only took about 10 minutes!

This is a photo of the Aviary audio editing area. It may look a bit intimidating but it is extremely user friendly.

If you are interested in exploring podcasting, here is a link to Aviary’s podcasting tutorial: http://www.aviary.com/tutorial?tutorial=getting_started_with_myna&singlepageview=1

VoiceThread

I’ve also recently learned about VoiceThread from an article in CEC’s TEACHING Exceptional Children March/April 2011 magazine titled, “Using VoiceThread to Promote Learning Engagement and Success for All Students” by Stein Brunvand and Sara Byrd. Watch a introductory tutorial at http://voicethread.com/

I’m new to VoiceThread, so I’ll let them explain this tool:

“With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. All with no software to install.

A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.

Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities, and pick which comments are shown through moderation. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies.”

There are a zillion examples on the website for applications to higher ed and K-12 teaching and learning. 

Both podcasting and VoiceThread can make engaging in the general education curriculum more possible for diverse learners in our classrooms. Teachers can give students the option to create multimedia projects in lieu of the overused 5 paragraph essay. Many students have limited writing abilities. Other students have a difficult time giving oral presentations. And overall, I think students are bored with engaging in the same writing activities day in and day out in our schools. Why not offer students options for presenting and communicating their ideas, thoughts and projects?

-Students could create a VoiceThread as an alternative to writing book reports. 

A first grade student created a book report on The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss using hand drawn pictures and a voice recording.

-Students could podcast about their research projects. 

Go to http://www1.gcs.k12.al.us/~podcast/ to hear a wide variety of student made podcasts!  

-Students can present their poetry via VoiceThread or podcasting to make their work accessible to the world!

This VoiceThread is a collection of art and poetry created by a group of students.

-Student could synthesize units in social studies curriculum to show how they are connecting the information. 

-Students could show their process for completing math problems to eliminate math interviews that are so valuable but too time consuming to complete on a regular basis. 

This student explains her process for solving a math problem (and she uses a great strategy!).

I will be sharing Aviary and VoiceThread in my Inclusion Strategies course this term. This summer, I plan to offer my college students the choice to write a paper or create a podcast or VoiceThread to convey their project results and reflect on course content. I’m excited to model for my college students how important it is to offer choice to students when they are creating original projects. Students will select a project format that works best with their strengths plus they will get some practice using these tools that promote inclusion in the classroom!