My PLN

Within this PD I went to three workshops. First, I attended the web 2.0 workshop which focused on web based technology and their use in the computer. Next, I went to assistive technology, which gave an overview of various assistive technologies to help students with different needs and abilities. Lastly, I attended the kindergarten workshop, which discussed an assessment tool that kindergarten teachers could use called CLIC. This stands for Capturing Learning in the Classroom. The assistive technology was very helpful as it gave us numerous tools that were free and ones to buy for teachers to help students. They also, discussed how these technologies have helped specific students in their learning which I thought was great as it gave real life testimonies. By being given this information I was able to expand my understanding of different uses of technology. For the kindergarten presentation I thought it was really neat the use of CLIC in a kindergarten classroom as it provided so much feedback for each students and was cohesive with the Ontario curriculum. This tool was used for assessment purposes and the teacher was able to upload text, audio and pictures to each students file to assist with the assessment. Also, within each assessment the teacher is able to tag the curriculum expectation that is covered. The teacher can also look at the bar chart and check out what expectations they have covered for each child and which ones she/he hasn’t yet. This is helpful as the teacher is able to track what she needs to keep an eye open for in each student. I really enjoyed learning about the tool and I hope that they expand it so it can be incorporated for all grades as I feel it can be very useful for teachers