Integrated
Technology Services
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Teacher
Feature
Andrea
Monroy at Rocky Run Middle School |
| Andrea
Monroy’s students in the MR program at Rocky
Run Middle School are reading The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn using the Start-to-Finish CD
and books from Don Johnston, Inc. Using the Start-to-Finish Series
in conjunction with authorable software programs,
communication boards, speech output devices,
and off-line manipulative materials, Andrea has
been able to design accessible reading and writing
activities, quizzes, and learning activities
for her students who have special needs and various
learning styles. |
| As
her students were introduced to the characters
and events in each chapter, she created opportunities
to make connections across the curriculum. Traveling
down the mighty Mississippi with Huck and Jim
has allowed her students to practice map reading
skills and to learn about timelines within a
functional framework. Their personal place on
the timeline became more relevant as they visually
compared it to the distant past of Huck’s
time and the Civil War era they had studied earlier. |
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Using
a presentation system, technology has become
a more interactive group experience for Ms. Monroy’s
entire class. They read and discuss each chapter
together and incorporate active participation
opportunities with a variety of software programs.
They have developed webs for character analysis
and event sequencing using Kidspiration,
learned to spell Mississippi by combining a song-and-dance
routine with a PowerPoint slide show,
and created customized river scenes with KidPix
Deluxe. Vocabulary words, picture/sentence
match “games” and cloze activities
created as IntelliTalk II software templates
allow Ms. Monroy to quickly customize for each
chapter. The IntelliKeys keyboard and chapter-related
overlays created with Overlay Maker provide
her students opportunities for many follow-up
Huck Finn writing activities using PixWriter and Writing
with Symbols 2000. |
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| The
pictures available on the Start-to-Finish CD
have been used to aid in story sequencing and
comprehension. Enlarged picture printouts are
cut out for the students to “Build-a-Scene” and
the character pictures are attached to popsicle
sticks for active dialoguing between characters
to recreate story events. BoardMaker is
used regularly to create overlays for communication
devices and simple communication boards to help
with the communication process as well as to
aid in story recall and vocabulary reinforcement. |
Future
plans include learning about the rain cycle
and flooding, building a raft from popsicle
sticks, researching and publishing a short
book on the life of Mark Twain, and discussing
the value of friendship. The students look
forward to having a portfolio of materials
to share with their parents at the end of the
year for an in-class presentation. |
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