Deirdre+Clark-Garcia

This is Deirdre's Home Page

My intentions for this homepage are for others to gain an insight about me and who I am as a teacher.

My true love is to work with young children and to assit them in their learning by providing experiences for them to explore and discover through play. I love creating an environment that allows a student to learn and have fun. Young children are little explorers and this includes their willignes and want to explore technology. It is necessary to include technology into the classroom because students, even young, want to explore with technology. I feel that technology is an extremely important asset to the students and to a classroom. There are many reasons for technology to be integrated into education, but the basic need is for a student with disabilities to be able to reach their full potential in the educational system. Some students need the assistance of technology to reach their full potential in shcool. If this is the case, we have to do all it takes to assist that child in recieving what they need to grow. If technology was not included in the classroom many students would feel left out of their education.
 * PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT**

[|www.justoutofreach.com] This is a website that sells pullies for light switches. Most of the pullies are geared towards children with many fun designs, but there are also designs for adults. As a teacher, I would use this website to refer parents to or to purchase for the classroom. [|www.ncmedical.com] This is a wholesale ditributer of rehabilitation products and equipment. They sell anything you would need in assistive technology. This website would be useful to compare prices of other distrubuters. Sometimes, as a Special Educator, you are asked to look around for the best price for a specific device in order to purchase it for the student or to refer parents. [|www.simpleabilities.com] This is an online store with over 50 suppliers for people with temporary injuries, people with disabilities, seniors, etc. It offers adaptive clothing, assitive technology, living aids, hearing aids, mobility and workplace ergonomic supplies. [|www.textspeak.com] This is a website that offers only talking speech products. [|www.abledata.com] This is a website that offers information about assitive technology. It does not sell anything, but it does give great adivice for somebody interested in some extra information regarding a product. This is a great website for teachers to gain information about how assistive technology can help with a specific disability.
 * TECHNOLOGY WEBSITES**

[|www.literacy.uconn.edu] This is a good resource for all grades including preschool. It lists best practices, research about literacy, standards and ideas on literacy lessons. Even though this is not a website for students, It's a great resource for teachers because it gives links to WebQuests for every age. [|www.google.com/literacy] On this site students can create their own literature circle with students from all over the world. [|www.cartwrhttp://parentpals.com/gossamer/pages/Detailed/910.htmlight.k12.az.us/starlight/webstud] This is a great website for students because it provides games and other links for them to participate in.
 * LITERACY WEBSITES**

Boardmaker Write-out loud Speak Dynamically Wiggleworks WebQuests
 * SOFTWARE AND DEVICES TO USE IN THE CLASSROOM**

[|**http://www.gatfl.org/ldguide/read.htm**] I liked this article because it described terms anbd exactly what characteristics you may see if someone has a learning disability with reading or math. It also gave resources and advocacy groups to contact if you needed to. The literature is extremely easy to use and to navigate through and find the information that you need. http://parentpals.com/gossamer/pages/Detailed/910.htm I liked this article because it gave you the definition of assistive technology and then how you can apply it in the classroom. THis article also explains what materials you can use for specific disablities.
 * ARTICLES**

As a teacher, it is important to always take professional development classes. As we know, when we are working in a school, the principle is always asking us to participate in different workshops. Especially in Early Childhood, there are always some workshops that you need to attend. Unfortunately, technology and assistive technology are rarely ever offered. I think this is something we need to advocate in our each individual schools. This is a subject that is often left undiscovered. In my professional growth, I plan on attending workshops on technology in order to better include it ito my classroom.
 * PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT**

I found wikispaces to be interesting. I do like how easy it is to use, especially because I am a beginner. The thing I do not like about it is that you can not edit at the same time as another person. I also do not like that anything you may write can land on another computer. I think this would be a great project to use in the classroom because I think the students would have fun creating their own webpage.
 * ABOUT WIKISPACE**