Tagxedo

Well, it was a BUSY week so I am going to make this brief. Sorry. I worked with Tagxedo this week. I just picked this one for no particular reason as I have not had any experience in Tagxedo or Wordle. I took an adapted newspaper I use in school and added the text. For my students, this year, this seems like too much going on. They would miss the point of what they were looking at and become overstimulated. I did look online and found a suggestion to make one that has just the students name. This might be useful for some of the students at my school, if not my classroom who have a difficult time with word recognition. I would love to see if I could use they symbols we use for common items and use that as the shape for a Tagxedo. That would give the word and shape more power and might work for some students where traditional methods have failed. Overall, I enjoyed my experience in trying out Tagxedo, I look forward to using it more and learning more about different Web 2.0 tools.

Until Next Week!

Web 2.0

Sadly, I have very little experience with Web 2.0 as a student or teacher. I was last a student over 10 years ago so we did not do too much in terms of technology. As a teacher I work with students with special needs in a 7:1+4 classroom. Technology is not always a priority. Let alone web 2.0 applications. For the students who do use the computer, we work on basic computer skills such as opening word documents, saving etc. We also work on basic internet skills such as looking up important information such as phone numbers for services they may need. I am very interested in learning how to use the different tools in the weeks to come, if not for my current classroom, then for something in the future.

Microsoft Access Part Deux

I hate to say it but I love Access! I found this project pretty easy. I had a hard time coming up with my different queries, forms and reports but actually doing them was a piece of cake. I figured there would be more than 1 table to work from with look up fields and data validation. With all that being said, I don't see myself using Access in this way with my students in my current position. I do think I will be able to continue to use it to help keep track of formal IEP goals and informal goals that students are working on from year to year. I'd love to hear how others are using it and if anyone else ran into difficulties.

Until next time :)

Microsoft Access Part I

This weeks technology topic was Microsoft office.  However, there was no project to go with this weeks lessons. Hence, the part one and shorter blog entry. I have played around with Access before on a project for work. I ended up borrowing a book from our IT dept. and teaching myself. I was putting together a database for recording and storing data for students 12 years and older on vocational activities. Furthermore, the project was to include ways to print individual reports for each student. Unfortunately, the project did not get finished, but I was able to teach myself a great deal of how to use Access and get to see some of the advantages firsthand. I loved spending time designing databases and using Access. That is one thing I have noticed using Access that could be noted as a disadvantage, it takes time and planning in order to make a good database. I am actually looking forward to finding out what next week's project is.

Until next week :)