Assistive Technology

There are several different Assistive Technology Options on Windows Vista that can help visually or audio impaired people. Students with any sort of disabilities can change these options on the computer so that they can see the screen more clearly, read instead of listen, and have visual cues when neccessary.

One of these options is called "Optimize Visual Display," which makes the computer screen easier to see. This option is especially helpful for people who are visually impaired.
-It has options for changing the contrast of the screen so a student who has trouble differentiating between colors and shades can change their screen display to a higher contrast and can see the screen much more clearly.
-It also has an option so students who cannot see small text or images on the screen can turn on a Magnifier that makes the entire screen larger so someone with a visual impairment can read text and see images more clearly.
-This option can also make the focus of the screen sharper for students to see. It can take out all unneccessary background images that distract from what a student is looking at on the screen. There is also an option for turning off all unneccessary animations that might be distracting for a student with a visual impairment that can only focus on one thing at a time.

Here's a screenshot of what this Assisstive Technology option called "Optimize Visual Display"
















Another Assisstive Technology Tool available in Windows Vista is called "Replace Sounds With Visual Cues."
-This tool mainly helps students with hearing problems. Instead of having sounds as indicators and cues on the computer, this tool enables visual cues that a student can see on the screen instead of listening for a sound to tell him or her what to do.
-This tool offers several different options for visual warnings that students can choose from. They include: None, Flash active caption bar, Flash active window, and Flash desktop. Students can choose which of these they prefer.
-This tool also includes an option to turn on text captions for spoken dialog. So, when students need to watch something online or some kind of video on the computer, they can read what is being said instead of trying to listen to the video with their hearing impairment.
-Here is a screenshot of the Assisstive Technology Tool called "Replace Sounds with Visual Cues."

Formative and Summative Assessments

This blog post discusses the difference between Formative and Summative assessments. This post is for my Professional Development Plan.

Formative Assessments are part of the teaching process. They should be incorporated into class time so that students can be evaluated while they are learning new material. These types of assessments are important because they allow teachers to adjust their teaching style and the material being taught in order for students to learn more effectively.

-Formative assessments should be thought of as "practice", not as a test. Students are not expected to know all of the information they just learned, but it is important for teachers to be able to measure how much information their students have retained in a short amount of time.

-Formative assessments also measure student involvement in new material. If students are fully engaged and interested during the learning process, they will perform much better on a formative assessment. Teachers need to create a positive and interesting environment for students to learn in if they want their students to pay attention and take an interest in the material being taught.

On the other hand, Summative Assessments are the actual tests and formal quizzes given to students. These assessments serve to measure students' overall progress in a course and can give the teacher an accurate depiction of what his or her students know and do not know.

-Summative assessments are given at particular periods of time in order to gauge students' knowledge.

-Summative assessments are not always effective because they are so far spread out. Students can be likely to forget material they've learned earlier in a course if teachers do not review the material enough.

-These type of assessments do not always accurately measure how much students have learned because they have not had the type of practice that they would get with formative assessments.

Formative Assessment Blog Post (In-Class workout #10)

Part 1: Description of the workout

This quiz is about how different kinds of sports can be beneficial to an athlete.

It addresses the Indiana Academic Health Standard: 9.7.1 Identify positive aspects of participation in several different physical activities. Each question requires students to think about the different kind of sports, what kind of qualities they require, and what kind of values they encourage for athletes. There are six questions in this quiz.

Part 2: The quiz results

Overall, the results of the quiz were successful. Most students did not miss more than one question while taking the quiz, and they were able to answer all of the questions fairly quickly. Some students simply did not read through all the choices on the first question and put "teamwork" or "cooperation" instead of the correct answer: "all the above" for that question. All students answered the text question correctly because they were able to give evidence for why they thought their answer was correct. The rest of the questions on the quiz were only missed by one or two students and most of them just needed to change one of their answers that they checked to get full credit.

The students have all known that cooperation and teamwork are encouraged in team sports, but some did not realize that sportsmanship is also a value that athletes learn while playing team sports.

The students all knew that children should learn to play sports while they are young, but some cited different reasons of the importance of playing sports at a young age. However, all answers were correct for this question because each student was able to back up their answer with some kind of explanation.

The majority of students knew that individualized sports teach athletes the value of self-trust. Only two students misunderstood the question and put listening skills instead.

The majority of students also knew the correct answers to the next two questions about endurance. Only one student got the first endurance question wrong. That was probably because the student had a misunderstanding of what the term endurance means.

The last question was a pretty easy one for most students. Only one student answered incorrectly because he or she included all of the sports. Another student just forgot to check Dance long with Cheerleading and Gymnastics. I think most students have a good understanding of flexibility and can identify which sports require it most.

Part 3: Reflection

Based on the results of the quiz, I think the focus of the class should be on reminding students the meaning of basic terms such as sportsmanship and endurance that some of them struggled with. Just a simple reminder of the terms and examples of what each term means would freshen up their memories and I think they would do much better on a quiz if they had some more review.

The quiz helped me make decisions because it was easy for me to identify which parts of class the students did not understand or were not paying attention to. It helped me choose on what to focus on in the future and it also showed me that some students learn differently than others. It showed me that some students need to be reminded to read the questions more carefully so that they answer the questions in the right way and can receive full credit for their answers. I also realized that most students do well on questions where they can write out their own answers in text because they have the opportunity to back up their answers and explain their reasoning.

Here is the link to the actual quiz:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dHhIcGo5Q3NWTlg3b1FIMG1KMFFqNVE6MA

Station 9: Our Teeth and What We Drink

Part 1: About the Station
-Title: Our Teeth and What We Drink
-Group Members: Kara Epperson, Sandra Little, Samantha Ginther
-Station Description: The module measured the pH of four different liquids that people commonly drink (cranberry juice, tea, soda, tap water). A pH sensor and Logger Lite (a computer program) were used to measure and read the pH of each liquid.
-What our group did: We hooked up the necessary equipment and dipped the pH sensor in one liquid, used Logger Lite to take a measurement of the substance's pH value, took a screenshot of the data that Logger Lite showed, then put the pH sensor in a rinsing liquid so that the rest of the data would be accurate. We did this same process for all four liquids.
-Individually, I was in charge of dipping the pH sensor into each liquid when Sandra was ready to begin the Logger Lite program and take a screen shot of the data. After we measured the data for at least 20 seconds, I took the pH sensor out of the liquid. Next, I put the sensor into the rinsing liquid so the rest of the data could be read accurately. I repeated this process for all four liquids in this order: Cranberry juice, tea, soda, tap water.

Part 2: Our Work

In laymen's terms, pH is the measurement of how acidic or basic a substance is. The typical range for pH that is healthy for human teeth is 6.2-7.4. This range is neither too acidic or too basic for teeth and will not cause damage to teeth. Basic beverages (any that have a pH of above 7) do not normally have adverse effects on teeth. These beverages include any variation of milk (regular, soy, rice) and usually contribute to stronger teeth because they normally contain calcium. On the other hand, acidic beverages (fruit juices and sodas) often contribute to tooth decay because the acidity of the liquids eats away at the tooth's enamel. This matters because if we limit the amount of acidic beverages in our diet, we can improve the overall health of our teeth and avoid damaging them even further.

The following pictures are screen shots of each of the graphs our group obtained.

Cranberry Juice is acidic and can be potentially harmful to teeth if drank 1-2 times per day.



Tea is also an acidic beverage and can eat away at the enamel of our teeth if we drink it 1-2 times per day.



Soda is extremely acidic and can be very dangerous to the health of our teeth if we drink it 1-2 times everyday.













Tap Water is safe for us to drink daily, even though it is slightly acidic. It is safe for us to drink because it is very close to being in the healthy pH range for teeth (6.2-7.4).














Part 3:

As a student, I would like that this activity is very hands-on and entertaining because I like to do the work for myself to learn instead of just watching someone else do it or getting data from a book. As a teacher, I would like this activity because it helps students gather data on their own and gives them a lot of experience with new technology because they get to use the pH sensor and Logger Lite to collect their data.

As a student, I would not like this activity because the equipment was very fragile and it needed to be handled very carefully, which not all students would be able to do. As a teacher, I would not like this activity because it only lets students test acidic beverages. None of the 4 beverages tested had a basic pH (above 7). I think the students need to be able to measure the pH of both acidic and basic beverages to get the most out of this activity.

The most interesting and suprising parts of this activity was how easy it was to use the equipment. Although it seemed very confusing and technological at first, it surprised me at how simple it was to use the pH sensor and Logger Lite together in order to gather the data we needed. The activity was simple to do because we were able to use technology to measure the data.

Here are a few websites I referenced to find some of the information about pH:

http://ask.metafilter.com/58903/What-are-some-Basic-higherpH-beverages

http://www.cocoonnutrition.org/catalog/page_teeth_NL.php

http://affordable-dental.net/how-does-ph-in-juice-affect-your-teeth

http://www.ehow.com/about_5191580_ph-saliva_.html

Production Tool (Scrapblog)

I chose the following Indiana Academic Standard: 7.6.4 Discuss how personal health goals can vary with changing abilities or responsibilities. This is a health and wellness standard. This standard fits with the production tool I used because it allows students to creatively express their ideas and the information they find in an interesting way.

I chose Scrapblog as my production tool. I chose this tool because a lot of students enjoy presenting information in other ways than just reading it off to the class. With this production tool, students can use various templates to create their scrapblog. They can find pictures and information online and use it in their scrapblog along with the creative features that scrapblog offers to present their information in a unique way.

For this project, I would have my students pick their favorite athlete from the Winter Olympics to research. Then, they would look up the daily eating habits and activities of that athlete in order to determine what the athletes to do achieve their goals (going for Gold!). Next, the students would find pictures of the athlete competing and in his or her everyday life to put in their scrapblog. They would then combine the pictures with the information they found about the athlete in their scrapblog and present their findings to the class.

This production tool helps address this Indiana Academic Standard because students can compare and contrast the goals and habits of professional Olympic athletes with their own in order to see how health goals can vary with different responsibilities and abilities. Also, students can compare their favorite athlete's eating habits and daily activities with other students' favorite athletes in order to address the standard.

This is the link to an example scrapblog that I made for Apolo Ohno: http://www.scrapblog.com/892b6eff4e/066F9CED-D31B

Here is a screenshot of the cover of the scrapblog:

Mission Nutrition

This tool is called "Mission Nutrition." It is from kidshealth.org, which is a website for kids can explore and learn about their health.

This Content Exploration tool is a Drill-and-Practice tool. It is drill and practice because students use this tool to review knowledge they already have on nutrition. This activity seems like a game to kids because it is fun to answer the questions and see how many they can answer correctly. The students are shown a picture of an interactive kitchen where they can click around on objects and select answers. They are given one question/task to complete at a time such as: "Open the fridge and find the drink that contains the most added sugar." Students simply click on the fridge to open it, then click the drink they think contains the most added sugar based on information they have already learned about nutrition. Students are given feedback on their answer immediately and if they are wrong, they are given the chance to try again. If they select the correct answer, a follow-up question is provided for them to answer and then they can move on to the next part of the activity (next question).

This tool is very valuable for Health Education because teachers can tell their students to go to this site and play this game after a lecture or a reading in order to see how much of the material they actually learned. Students can use this game to practice and quiz themselves on what they have learned in class and to get feedback on how well they know the material. This tool keeps kids entertained while they test their knowledge.

This drill-and-practice tool makes learning more effective because students are able to practice the information they have already learned. It reinforces their previous knowledge and helps them retain the information more effectively because it causes them to answer questions about the material. It also enhances learning by creating an interactive game that entertains students and makes them want to learn so they can perform well in the game.

Here's the link to this Content Exploration Tool: http://kidshealth.org/kid/closet/games/game_nutrition.html

Exercise Podcast

I found this podcast online and it interested me a lot. The video doesn't contain a whole lot of information, but it does add some humor to the podcast. The rest of the document contains a lot more information that is very useful and important to read before or after watching each part's different podcast. The point of the podcast is to first of all inform and educate students about the obesity epidemic that is occurring in our country today. Also, the podcast gives a lesson to those students through the use of interactive activities in physical education class. The lesson consists of students formulating a goal for their target heart rate. The experiment/activity lasts one month and the students also get to learn about technology using this podcast because the lesson involves the use of the Nike + iPod Sport Kit, which is a new technological tool that has recently been developed. Throughout the month, students go through various checkpoints to see what kind of progress they have made. At the end of the month, a final evaluation is taken to see if the students have achieved their goal for the class.