Blog Post # 3

Peer Editing

I learned a lot watching What is Peer Editing? I have never thought about it that way. I have always just went straight into critiquing the thing that I was supposed to be proof reading. Complimenting can be hard sometimes, but you have to look for key points that you and that person may have in common. If you disagree with them still compliment the way that they wrote their paper or post.

Next is the critique part. You must read the student's work thoroughly looking for grammar mistakes, misspelled words, punctuation, and sentence structure. You may have to read it multiple times. It is difficult at times to constantly read something over and over looking for mistakes, sometimes its best to take a break for a little while and come back and do it again. When you correct the student's paper you must make sure you use the correct notations. You can find those here, Proofreading Marks.

After you critique someone's paper you must try to help them correct it. If you tell them that they have a poor choice of words or made grammar problems throughout their paper give them some advice on how to correct those problems. Do not give them the answer, give them suggestions on how to correct it. Using these three steps is a very strategic way in critiquing someone but not upsetting them or making them feel like they did poorly on their work. I learned a lot from this video and I will surely use it throughout my career as a teacher.

Assistive Technologies

The Mountbatten helps blind students type like seeing students type on laptops. The Mountbatten can transfer and save files just like a normal laptop. It spell checks for the student and it makes it possible for the blind students to write papers and do documents that other students are able to do. There is also a device that was made to help blind students with math, it helps the students with the difficulty of setting up problems the right way. Also Apple has come up with different settings that will help blind individuals on the ipad to work their way around the ipad and all the apps included. It talks to the person and tells them where they are and what they are typing. It is very advanced and extremely helpful to blind people. It makes it to where they are not left out in the technology era, it keeps them included. In the last video it showed us a teacher trying to teach a blind student's mother what her child is learning on the Ipad . She had difficulties with the entire process as the teacher was trying to talk her through it. The mother realized that the her child went through a lot more difficulties than the other students. I think everyone should have to do this in high school at least to understand what those children go through and the struggles they are challenged with.

Students' Digital Smarts

In the video Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts, the teacher Vicki Davis teaches her class about the latest kind of technology and how to use it. I think all teachers should implicate this. In the video Vicki made a statement, "Learning to learn", this statement is very essential in school. We as humans do not just automatically know how to learn. When we are children we do imitate, and some people confuse that with learning but its not. We must teach ourselves how to learn. The students have to open their mind and be critical thinkers on their own.

Like Dr. Strange has said from day one he is not going to use the burping method with us, he is going to make us learn on our own and I believe that is the best method for a teacher to use in his/her classroom. Vicki did not sit down on day one and tell the students how to do the work, she let them play around and explore it and learn how to use it on their own. Some students may need to be hands on and not have someone sit there and tell them everything, but the teacher is there for the ones that do need help. Vicki has used technology to let her students be part of international interaction. Technology like this in classrooms should be essential. Students can see other cultures and other ways of life, or maybe there is a teacher in India that can teach your students something new that you could not. Teachers are supposed to give students the best opportunities to learn and grow that they possibly can and I believe that this could be done by injecting more technology into schools all around the world.