Blog #3 - It's coming together.

At the time of my last post I was trying to use a website to connect with my students who aren't in school full time. Well, I've abandoned that for now as we are successfully using e-mail and chat.

I have however, narrowed my focus, refined my question and designed a project ... an experiment actually. Many of the students I support had a long list of missing assignments at the end of the term 2 and I think that using technology will help them increase the number of assignments handed. I realize that this will require teaching, support and easy access to a computer.

Originally, I was thinking specifically of students with a written output disorder, but I've expanded the trial group to include those who for a variety of reasons, are not getting much work handed in. In the group of 12, their learning disabilities include: written output disorder, attention problems, weak memory, poor organization, anxiety and low motivation.

As I am a non-enrolling support teacher, I've had to design my project so that the students can be pulled out of class for the teaching sessions and, when the training is over, have access to computers with as little disruption to the regular classroom and teacher as possible. After 6 training sessions, the students will get a laptop to use for three weeks (I've booked the mobile iBook lab). I'm hoping this will help motivate them to learn a useful system that will make the use of a laptop more effective than it is a distraction.

Using iGoogle, the students will set up a homepage that includes a Calendar, To Do List and a link to the Teacher's Homework Page. I'll teach them to use KeyNote to show their learning and how to hand in assignments electronically. I'd like them to learn to use Google Notebook, but I'm not sure how far I'll get. We'll keep a class blog for students to comment on the process.

I really think that for some of these kids, using a computer will make their school lives a lot better ... I'm curious if this will prove to be the case.