Week 3 Publishing / Leadership: Thinking Out Loud1

Week 3 Publishing / Leadership: Thinking Out Loud1

                                                            Noah Stemple on an iPod Touch

                                                            Photo by Richard Stemple

It is difficult to imagine that I am almost finished with the CBR (Challenged Based Research) project and the EMDT program at Full Sail University. Since I work with children with special needs, specifically children with severe autism, I thought it would be great to base my CBR project on something that would benefit me and my students. My project turned out to be.. Motivation. How to motivate my students and staff to use the communication device is more? The students require 100% supervision and sometimes full physical help to move and communicate. Technology has advanced so much that instead of using pictures and a picture book to communicate, students can now use an iPod Touch or a Dyna Vox to communicate. However students and staff are sometimes reluctant to use these devices in the classroom, at the residence

 (where the students live), and out in the community. I think it would be great to publish the results of  my CBR project in either an ABA Journal, Behavioral Journal, a Speech and Technology Journal, or an Educational Journal.

Free Blog, Week 4, Thoughts on Technology and Media History

I would love to talk about the Rise and Fall of the Music Industry, however having lived through it, I feel that is a discussion for another day. I enjoyed to the NPR interview, I but was surprised to learn that the music industry let the computer industry have the right copy files from hard drives to CDs or other computers. This is a giant loophole they can drive a truck through and the computer industry obviously took advantage of it. I believe this is not only the fall of the music industry but caught in its wake music education will also fall as well, this too is a discussion for another blog.

                                                            Picture from Full Sail University interview with Ron Smith

 This blog is about the interview with Ron Smith. The interview was about how to use any method to reach students. Within this interview Ron Smith a teacher in the Hollywood schools discussed how his students use programs like Google Sketch Up, and Blender. These are all free software that you can use to create three-dimensional drawings and three-dimensional animation. I am anxious not only to try this new software but to see what my students can come up with as well. Mr. Smith also discussed the software Scratch which is supposed to be an easier version of Flash. The tutorial for Scratch seemed complicated, I cannot imagine how the actual software is. That being said, Flash is even more complicated so maybe Scratch is a little easier. I am interested if anybody has used any of the software? Also, if you are successful in using this software with your students in the classroom? I look forward to our next blog.