Joanne Scott EDUC-5243 Blog

For this week's blog, I worked with two peers who had very similar goals. Both planned to use the Read&Write for Chrome extension tool to help students with their skills. Learning to use Google Read&Write supports the development of expressive language and written communication, both in person and in virtual learning environments. My own goal was a little broader since it involved multiple tools, but it was also about supporting students with learning disabilities using technology tools. We each gave feedback to each other, but for this blog, I will focus on one of the two. Sarah's smart goal was: Students will use the word prediction and speech-to-text features in the Google Read&Write Chrome extension to assist in composing complete sentences during virtual writing assignments. Students will independently write a 5-sentence paragraph using the tool, with 80% accuracy in grammar and sentence structure within 8 weeks, as evaluated by a weekly writing rubric.  Steps...

  A technology integration framework that could be used by my district, the Pittsburg Unified School District in California, is the Triple E Framework by Kolb (2020). This framework focuses on ways that technology will engage students, enhance learning beyond what could be done without it, and extend learning beyond the classroom. If technology does not do these things, it is likely not helpful to use it in a lesson. For example, if a teacher has students use technology to fill out an online worksheet instead of a paper one, that does not add much in terms of engaging them, enhancing the learning, or extending it. It simply provides a different format. There may be some small enhancements, such as the ability for students to access spell checking or other word processing tools. If they use technology to play an interactive game that engages students, or to use a tool that helps students model and manipulate a concept they are learning. If they use it to facilitate having student...