From the move + play + learn blog: iPod Touch in the Elementary Classroom

I recently came across the move + play + learn blog, maintained by Dr. Michael A. Evans, Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech, and graduate students in the instructional design and technology program. A recent post on the blog discussed how 40 iPod Touch devices were "air dropped" to an elementary school for a math and language art teacher to use with their students. The above picture shows how the teachers used their creativity to establish a space to store the iPods when not in use. He'll be posting more about the iPod Touch airdrop in the future.


Dr. Evans supports the use of games in educational settings and posted the following interview with Dr. James Paul Gee about ways videogames can be used for learning and ongoing assessment.


"Grading with Games: An Interview with James Paul Gee"

Dr. Gee is the author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003, Second Edition 2007), and Good Video Games + Good Learning: Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy

Children with Down Syndrome: Research about early literacy intervention approaches from the University of Denver

Via Science Daily Science News:

"Researchers at the University of Denver (DU) Morgridge College of Education are conducting a new study that will compare two early literacy intervention approaches to educating young children with Down syndrome."


"There has been little to no research on how our children with Down syndrome learn, especially regarding reading and language," says Michelle Sie Whitten, executive director of the Anna and John J. Sie Foundation and Advisory Committee Chair of The Rocky Mountain Down Syndrome Educational Fund. "There have been significant breakthroughs in terms of how children with other developmental disabilities learn, and I strongly believe that our kids deserve the same attention."

eSchool News: Response to Intervention (RTI) and related resources and links

If you haven't heard of eSchool News, take a look!

I subscribe to eSchool news and have found it very useful. The resource section includes information about topics such as Response to Intervention for reading and math, student data and information systems, and more.

Kevin McGrew's "Recent Literature of Interest 1-16-08"

If you are a school psychologist, you probably know that Dr. Kevin McGrew is an advocate of CHC, the Carroll-Horn-Cattell theory of intelligence. Kevin is the director of IAP, the Institute for Applied Psychometrics. He is also a visiting professor in the educational psychology department at the University of Minnesota.

Kevin posts an up-to-date list of recent professional articles and related literature on his IQ Corner Blog.

FYI:
Anyone interested in topics related to psychology, special education, or disabilities most likely will find the list interesting.Kevin McGrew's Concept Map of CHC and Reading
Kevin McGrew's Concept Map of CHC and Math
Kevin McGrew's Slideshow: "Beyond the CHC "Tipping Point" - Back to the Future"
Kevin McGrew's IQ Brain Clock
It will be interesting to see how RTI, UDL, and CHC will intermingle in the coming years!

Virtual reality field trips created by psychologists

(businessweek photo)

Over the years, school districts have cut back on field trips, limiting exposure to learning environments outside of the school door. To counter this trend, Psychologist Alicia Sanchez and Janis Cannon-Bowers were members of team at the University of Central Florida that developed virtual reality field trips to provide students with opportunities to explore environments, with the goal of supporting reading and vocabulary development.

According to an article that appeared in Science Daily, the researchers planned to make the field trips available on the web in the future. The article was written in 2005. If you know about this, please leave a comment.

Resources:

If you are looking for interesting video clips about psychology and related topics, take a look at Science Daily's "Mind and Brain" web page.

The BusinessWeek website has a slide-show with related articles about innovative classroom technologies, included the Virtual Field Trip.

Link to Scientific Learning, developers of Fast ForWord.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools recently announced that it will be spending $300,000.00 on Fast ForWord software (from Scientific Learning) to support reading and related skills. According to an article in the Charlotte Observer:

"The program is an exercise in neuroscience disguised as a game. Kids see animated figures, for example, and must indicate whether a sound's frequency and pitch is getting higher or lower. Or they play a version of Memory that forces them to match sounds such as bit and pit.

The games slow the speech so kids can succeed initially. As they answer more questions correctly, the difficulty increases. If kids make mistakes, the computer tailors the games to improve weaknesses.

The repetition improves the brain. After eight to 12 weeks, students' reading abilities make an average of at least a year's progress, the software's maker says."

If you are a school psychologist, special educator, speech/language pathologist, reading specialist, teacher, or parent who is familiar with this program, feel free to comment about this on this blog!

I am particularly interested to learn if you are a graduate student doing research in schools using Fast ForWord. What do you think? How does this method compare with other methods?

(Note: I do not own Fast ForWord software- - and I'm not affiliated with Scientific Learning. )