CLD Students and Technology When technology is used to support culturally and linguistically diverse students, it is often remedial. Some students find themselves using technology that has been designed for younger learners simply because the vocabulary level matches their current language acquisition. This types of remediation via technology can be frustrating to use. Imagine yourself living in another country, trying to learn its language, and being asked to learn via remedial software. What concerns would you have about this instructional approach? What other options might be found to avoid remediation when it is instructionally unnecessary? This is an interesting situation that can be solved for, however it does require that proper technology resources are available. When I taught the Cisco Networking Academy, I was very fortunate that both the curriculum and assessments were available in over 20 languages. This was because Cisco had taken the time to localize the curriculum for those languages. Students enrolled in my class were able to take the class in their native language which they were very grateful for. My class was one of the very few classes that had curriculum available in languages other than English and the students enrolled routinely requested the same accommodations for their other classes without success. I can understand the student's frustration level as their cognitive level was equal or greater than that of their peers, but the language barrier made the material much harder for them to acquire. The cognitive level of the learner should always be considered for CLD students when choosing the appropriate materials for courses. Remediation software would be extremely frustrating to a Gifted student for example that had a cognitive ability much higher than that of a student needing remediation. Teachers could help mitigate these problems by choosing digital books for the students to use that have the ability to translate languages on the fly. Technologies that allow for speech to text can also assist students learning English as a second language. These students are often referred to as ESL students or Culturally Diverse Learners. The Apple Book Store for example allows for publishers to make their textbooks available in multiple languages. The school district could provide the texts in CDL students native language along with the English version. Cloud Storage Discuss the cloud storage. Why is it advantageous for educators to share resources and programs on a network? What concerns are associated with program sharing? Cloud storage has really been a boon to both students and teachers alike. Cloud storage allows users to access their information across a multitude of devices. This allows users to work on projects and collaborate on topics without always having a specific device with them. Cloud storage allows consumers to carry smaller and lighter weight devices on trips because a majority of their data can be stored in the cloud. It also allows photographers to create digital portfolios to share via the cloud with potential customers. Cloud storage is also a great way to achieve the 3-2-1 methodology of backing up critical data. I feel that data is always at risk unless there are three copies of the data, on two different types of media, and one of the backups has to be offsite. Cloud storage makes the offsite backup much easier. Cloud storage also has a few negative attributes as well. Typically cloud storage is more costly than traditional hardware based storage. Cloud storage is also heavily network dependent. If your network access to the Internet is slow or if you have bandwidth caps, cloud storage can be time prohibitive, cost prohibitive, or both. Another thing that should be considered is if the data being stored is sensitive in nature. Cloud storage has an increased attack vector when compared to local storage techniques. Customer should only use companies with strong track records of protecting data and should read all user agreements carefully to fully understand how their data is stored and if the data is shared with any third party entities. Classroom Wishlist After considering the various types of digital technologies presented in this chapter, what three pieces of equipment do you think you would most want for your future or current classroom? Explain why you selected these three and how you would use them for teaching and learning. The three devices that I would want for my classroom would be an iPad, an AppleTV, and a large screen TV. The AppleTV and large screen TV are both primarily conduits through which I would display the screen for the iPad. The iPad has replaced almost every single use device in the classroom and in a much smaller and more convenient form factor. The iPad has a very high quality camera that can be used as a document camera. The camera can also be used by teachers and students to record videos of presentations or experiments. It can be used with applications like LeafSnap can be utilized by students to classify trees in the wild while on field trips. The camera can even be used along with Augmented Reality to teach concepts. Check out the JigSpace application and how Augmented Reality is being used to teach concepts about topics ranging from heart stints to how to repair dry wall. Applications like Explain Everything allow teachers and students to use iPads as interactive white boards eliminating the need for expensive interactive boards in the classroom. You can check out my tutorial on Explain Everything to learn more about it . Managing a classroom is also very important for teachers and the iPad excels in this area as well. Teachers can use the free Classroom application on their iPad to manage student devices. You can view my project on Apple Classroom here. Add to the above all of the over 100 thousand educational apps for iPads, and I can not think of a better single device for teaching in a classroom environment. Shane Seal
3 Comments
Gina Pepperman
6/27/2019 01:16:46 pm
I think cloud storage definitely is the wave of the future. But I did not consider that it is more susceptible to hackers. I guess I am a little naive in that area, I know that it places my docs and information on a platform that is housed somewhere I just did not think about the technical aspects which are costly that are associated with it. Your wish list is very short and of course comprised of Apple products. I wish I had 1/2 of your knowledge when it comes to the Apple line. Apple has made so many great products and they are so user friendly. I wish my school was not so afraid to mix interfaces, I would love to use some of Apples technology in my classroom.
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Merita Swan
6/27/2019 01:31:59 pm
Hi Shane, I do not think my world would work well without the cloud storage. I hardly ever get to finish a project I start in the same place I finish it. And the auto save has saved me on countless times. Funny thing is yesterday, while at USM working, the power went out and stayed out for over an hour, while I was in the middle of a work project. If it had not been for the auto save on Microsoft Office, 3 hours of work would have been gone.
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Brandon Warden
6/27/2019 01:54:35 pm
Shane,
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AuthorShane Seal
Systems Engineer Apple, Inc. Blogroll |