Assisting Tweedledee and Tweedledum

The last time I checked in with you I had mentioned that I had run into two wild and crazy twins, named Tweedledee & Tweedledum. These two rollie pollie guys was so much fun and it turns out that I have a little in common with them. It was hard for me to believe that I would ever run into someone in Wonderland that I would have something in common with. First off I had met these two guys on a path that was leading me to, what seemed like, nowhere. I had turned a corner, by this huge tree, and saw these two guy having a argument with one another. As I got closer and closer I was able to hear what they were arguing about. It was one of the silliest arguments that I had ever heard. The were arguing about how to read a book. As I got closer to them I realized that one of them, I could not tell which as they were twins, was dyslexic. I knew this for two reasons first I myself am dyslexic. Second I have done a little research over the years, to find out about dyslexia and I have come across a few signs that point to dyslexia. The twins were misreading and sometimes leaving out short words. And when I saw short I mean short words, words like on, on, saw, and was (http://www.k12reader.com/dyslexia-symptoms/). They were also stumbling and just plain skipped some big words in the story they were reading.

When I got closer I really wanted to help them and I felt great about helping because I had a little knowledge about dyslexia. When I had reached the twins They welcomed me and asked If I would like to read with them. I was so happy to say yea. But, before we even got started I asked the twins if they have ever heard of assistive technology. By the looks on their face I guessed the answer was no. So I went on and explained that assistive technology was technology that is used by a variety of people who have disabilities that makes preforming tasks difficult or impossible, like dyslexia (http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?109). Their eyes lit up like two kids finding they were getting a puppy. So now I need to find a great assistive technology that can help out Tweedledee and Tweedledum. There are a lot of different assistive technologies, that will help with dyslexia some are: electronic dictionaries, audio books, reading pens/handheld scanners, voice recognition software and text to speech software. The coolest one, for the twins was, the reading pen. This thing is so cool, all the twins had to do was take the pen and highlight to word and the pen reads it out loud. So with a reading pen in hand I sat and read the book, Charlottes Web, with the twins.

Now before I left Tweedledee and Tweedledum I wanted to give them some advice on dyslexia and what they can do to keep up on the information about dyslexia. The easiest way for them to stay on top of it is to keep traveling through Wonderland/the internet. There is always new information popping up here and there that is always helpful. New techniques and technologies are coming out of the woodworks that people are saying is the new best thing for battling dyslexia. The best way to know if these things, or tricks, will work is to travel through Wonderland. No matter where you go you there is a good chance that you will meet or help someone, like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, that have dyslexia. As I was saying goodbye to the twins they thanked me profusely. They were telling me that they had delays in their speech, a lot of ear infections, had a hard time mastering tying their shoes, they were rambunctious, had a hard time sitting still, and the list went on and on. They were so happy to hear that these are signs of being dyslexic. It is important when a chid has these symptoms, they are not a troubled child, they just might be dyslexic and have trouble reading. So, as I told Tweedledee and Tweedledum, it is important to look past someones behavior and look deeply at them and it just might be a simple answer. This is a great thing to do when you meet people in Wonderland/students in your classroom

The Caterpillar and the Word Cloud

It has been awhile since my last note, to the people who are down here in Wonderland with me. Well it has been an interesting few days. I came across a two really fun but, a little odd twins.. If I remember right I think their names were Deetweedle and Dumtweedle. No, that's not right what were their names........ Oh I remember now they were Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They were a riot. So I hung out with them for a bit and they showed me a lot. But, I will get back to them at a later time. The most interesting thing that I came across was this caterpillar, and the strange thing was, he sounded like Professor Snape from Harry Potter, I hope you are smiling with that one. Anyway, this caterpillar was a laid back insect sitting on a leaf smoking up a cloud that just caught my eye. Now I know what some of you might be thinking at this point but, I assure you it was nothing bad at all. Every time this caterpillar blew out a cloud of smoke it was a different color. Well that at first made me want to go and check it out. As I was getting closer and closer the smoke did not look like smoke at all. It was the strangest thing I had seen in awhile. Now if you have been following my adventure now here in Wonderland you would know that was saying something. As I got closer and closer to the smoke I noticed that the caterpillar was not blowing smoke at all. The caterpillar was blowing words out of his tiny little pipe. Once I got close enough to talk to the caterpillar I asked, “Who are you!”. He took a big deep breath from his pipe and replied, “Who are you?”



Now this was just plan awesome I mean it was more than awesome. It was redonkeylously awesome. So, the very next thing that I asked the caterpillar was, “How did you do that?” He looked up at me and said, “Well my good boy, it is easier than you thought. All you have to do is go and look for a website called Wordle.” So, what is wordle you ask he. Funny that was the same question that I asked the caterpillar. He told me that Wordle was a sight were I could create my very own word clouds. A word cloud is a type of text that helps people quickly preceive what the most prominent terms are. When I went to walking around Wonderland to find out more about Wordle, i found out that there are a number if cool ways to use Wordle in a classroom. The coolest way for younger kids to use Wordle is to use it to write an “All About Me” at the start of the year. Another way to use it is to create a learning poster with the weeks spelling words on it. One more way to use Wordle is to use them to help with self-esteem and improve relationships in the class. One of the best things about this site was that it was absolutely free. Last before I left the Wordle website I created my very first word cloud about my travels in Wonderland so far.

A Mad Hatter of a Tea Party

Throughout my journey there were a variety of people that I have run into with interesting views of what they think of Wonderland. In fact I recently found myself stumbling onto a tea party with a few of my favorite people that I have ran into, down here in Wonderland. This was one of the funnest things that I have done since I started this journey a few weeks ago. I was wandering around, to tell the truth I was a little lost because I was not paying attention to where I was going. This Internet Wonderland, is huge with so many different things to look at it is easy to get lost. But, I have been lucky to have run into a few blogs here and there that have made my travels a lot more fun. The tea party was probably the must interesting and awesomely random tea party that I have ever been to. But, to be honest I have never been to a tea party before. So for all I know this is how every tea part is. Now I bet you are wondering who was at this tea party. There were five people at the party: Peter, Jessica, Jeanell, and Tom from bionic teaching and myself and we are a little bit of a Mad Hatter. All four of these guest made the tea party so much fun. When they talked there was a lot of great information and a lot of randomness. Everyone really showed me their uniqueness of there own personality. Some of the guest at the party are straight to the point and some are going to the beat of their own drum: singing, dancing, telling jokes, and wearing crazy clothes. I think this is just the same reason why no two teachers are the same. This is why these blogs are so helpful to me and to anyone who visits them. They are all full of different information that can help me in my teaching career. Besides all the knowledge that is being passed from guest to guest (blog/blog) these guest were crazy. Tom talking about introducing randomness, or singing the Unbirthday Song. Then you have the other three guest sing and joking around along with passing on information about copyright and telling everyone about different blogs that we should check out. If anything that this crazy tea party taught me was everyone is unique and brings something valuable to the table, no pun intended. Well now with this tea party over I can not wait to see what I come across next.

The Cheshire Copyright Cat

Ok for those of you that are just now reading about my adventures into somewhat uncharted waters let me get you caught up. Well first I had been hearing rumors about a mysterious world were nothing is what it seems to be. So I took this little red pill to take me inside this “Wonderland”. Once I had taken the pill I was shown where the rabbit hole was that would lead me where I needed to go. So long story short I am now in Wonderland and I am chasing the elusive White Rabbit. I did get a glimpse of the rabbit playing with my iPhone, if you are confused just check out my last entry. Now that you are caught up, and I don’t think I will recap you in future blogs so make sure you keep up. I just kicked open the door to Wonderland and I was amazed to see what this extraordinary place has to offer. I looked left and right but the White Rabbit was now nowhere to be found. Just when I was about to decide which way to start my adventure, I heard a mischievous voice saying “That way has a copyright on it.” I could hear the voice but I could not see where it was coming from. I started to look around and then I thought I saw what was a pair of teeth. I had to rub I eyes and once I opened them again I saw what looked like a cat floating in the air. I had to ask who are you? The cat told me he was the Cheshire Copyright Cat. What or who is the Cheshire Copyright Cat you ask? Well at first this Cat is something that can be very tricky until they are on your side. Once on your side the Cheshire Copyright Cat will protect and give me exclusive rights to whatever I create, when I am in Wonderland.

“So why can’t I go down that path?” I asked

“Because it has a copyright on It my good sr.” he said in a high slick voice.

“So how do I get out of here?”

“Well my dear you must make your own path and make sure you have me copyright it so no one else can steal your path.”

So how do you get the Cheshire Copyright Cat on your side do you ask? Well I found that it is easier than I thought. All I had to do was fill out a form that the Cheshire Cat had. From there it went to the Great and Powerful OZ. Really all I had to do to make my path legally copyrighted was make sure that my signature had been authenticated.

Now that I had my path copyrighted I now had a trail to see what and who I will meet next in Wonderland. You might think that this was all that the Cheshire Copyright Cat did to me but no. As I left he gave me some advice to think about on my journey. The Cat said, “Anything can be have a copyright on it especially when you are here in Wonderland and wherever you find yourself. You will come across things and images that you will want to use. So, make sure that you comply with the laws that are out there. This will make you a good role model to those around you. Last you need to know about TEACH ACT. This is important because it stands for Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization. This will let you use copyrighted material when you teach someone in a classroom setting. Enjoy your journey here in Wonderland and you will be seeing me soon.”

For one strange cat, that came out of nowhere, the Cheshire Copyright Cat was full of information that I had no idea about. Now that I am on my way deeper and deeper into Wonderland I can’t wait to see what and who I meet next. Until next time, see you in Wonderland.

The White Rabbit and the Iphone

So one of the first things I saw, once I kicked in the door to Wonderland, was the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit, or more commonly known as Parker my eleven month old son, was playing with my iPhone. It was fun watching the rabbit play with the phone. The most amazing thing was that the White Rabbit had figured out how to push in the middle button, on the bottom of the phone to turn it on. Once the White Rabbit did this I was impressed to see that he started to try and slide his whole hand on my iphone to unlock it. I know that this is an amazing task, some people may not believe me, for an eleven month old rabbit. But, it is true the White Rabbit had watched me and my wife play with our phones before I fell down the rabbit hole. Well I guess now that I am in Wonderland I am bound to see more amazing things than I would never believe. And now I am on the White Rabbits turf and people learn about technology at an early age I guess.

I have too taken the red pill

Ok now that you are reading this you, just like me, have taken the red pill and now we’re falling down the rabbit hole. The first thing that I am going to check out, as I am falling, is a few blogs on the web that deal with teachers and technology. I was pleased and lucky that the first blog I checked out, bionicteaching.com, was pretty funny. It is run by a guy named Tom. He kind of reminds me of myself. I mean his latest post is called “Introducing Randomness”. I mean if as a teacher that doesn’t catch your eye, what would? The really cool part of his blog is the digital story telling. What he did is go around where he lives and take pictures of strangers and asks them to tell him their story. It sounds kind of creepy, how many of us would think it wasn’t creepy if some guy came up to you and said, “Hey I don’t know you but can I take your picture and listen to your life story?”. Odd right? Anyway, I think it would be fun for my future students to create a digital history of their families. They can take some pictures of their family members, look up where they came from on the internet and even “borrow” some pictures form the web. The best part is I wont be asking them to be creepy and take pictures of strangers, you know what they say to young kids “stranger danger” I hope I didn’t just date myself.

I tried to keep the rest of my blog search to blogs that fit my personality. There was davidwarlick.com/2cents/ and in this blog he talks about his half baked and sometimes fully baked ideas that he has used in the classroom. I wasn’t always lucky as I kept falling down the rabbit hole. There were a few blogs that made me hit the walls of the rabbit hole. They were just not my cup of tea. When looking at Wes Fryer’s “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” I noticed that on the right his posts were rated by followers and the majority of them were no higher than a 7 out of 10. However, I looked around it and I was not impressed either. Last I looked at www.techfridge.com, this site was good. It had a lot of information for teachers. It ranged from things to do over the summer, such as Creating your own Comic. Now what kid wouldn’t think that is awesome.

So after checking out a few blogs I finally reached the end of the rabbit hole and my feet touched the ground. Now the question is what did I learn? Well I learned as you fall in the world of the internet/rabbit hole, it is ok to stick out you hand a touch a few different things/websites. Not all of them will be good but there will be a few that peak your interest. There are ideas that you can “borrow” like creating a digital story or a digital history. Or having Zero Tolerance when it comes to teaching these new technologies. New technologies are coming and we better get our kids out in front of it. A lot of these blogs just really made me think and I guess that was surprising. I thought they would be a lot of tips on what to do in your class. But as stated before there were a lot of cool ideas.

Now I find myself at another crossroad do I eat the bread a grow bigger or take a drink and shrink. In other words which blog do I follow, bionicteacher or 2 cents. In this case I will not pick just one I will bounce back and forth between the two. That means I will need to figure out another way to check through the tiny door into Wonderland. I guess I’ll just have to kick it in.