Articles

***ARTICLES***
 * [|Imitation as the Getaway to Early Learning] **

This article has instructed me on the importance of promoting and supporting imitation around the classroom. Students should be constantly motivated for positive and educational behavior. In addition, students should not only need to imitate, but to show actions that would encourage imitation. I think modeling is a great way to attract students’ attention, no matter if they are exceptional or not. It is very important to keep them motivated and interested on what they are learning since this enhances their learning experience as they are being inspired to explore. We often assume that imitating is innate in children; however, we do not teach them to identify what and when to imitate. On the other hand, few teachers use imitating as a strategy for instruction. In my opinion, this could be a good strategy to promote different skills among our exceptional students. In addition, we can accommodate activities to be more challenging as students develop different skills; for example, we can have them add their own even if they are imitating. I would encourage parents, teachers, and students to create and promote positive actions to imitate as these could be beneficial for our exceptional students, especially autistic people. The article mentions the importance of using this technique at a very early age to help children retain information as they have a visual image to associate it with. I personally think that imitating can also help students on making their own choices; students would normally choose what they may want to imitate or not. They key is to make it fun and interesting so they want to try it, and make it a habit in the classroom so they are constantly teaching and learning each other.  __** [|Teaching Children with Developmental Disabilities: Classroom Ideas] **__  Facilitating and supporting our students is every teacher’s purpose, especially with our exceptional ones. I love how this article provides cheap, easy, and creative ideas to promote positive behavior in the classroom. The idea of using boundary markers with different materials would definitely facilitate the movement around the classrooms and the use of different areas as well. Also I like the idea of using signs to anticipate the different activities occurring at different times, such as snack time. I think this kind of strategies would not only help create a positive environment, but would teach students to use different ways to communicate and be organized. One of the most interesting ideas that caught my attention was having students create their own schedule based on their needs and skills, using different materials that would facilitate their understanding. I would definitely consider using these in my classroom since it not only encourage all students to participate, but it is a fun and creative way to cooperate with their learning experience. Last but not least, variety and time were key concepts discussed in the article. These two are very important to consider when planning activities because we want students to be constantly motivated and we want these activities to meet their needs. Sometimes we may want students to work individually or in groups, in a big project, in centers, with music, manipulative; but always providing them choices and opportunities to explore and learn. Definitely a must read article!

 I was totally amazed and fascinated after I read this article. It provides many ways we can use technology to assist students with learning disabilities in different areas, such as listening, math, organization and memory, reading, and writing. Even though I knew about some of the tools they mentioned, there were others totally new for me. I like how they say that people often think of these technology tools as computers software. However, after reading the article I found some other online tools that are just amazing and useful as the software. Speech recognition, talking calculators, variable speed tape recording, and electronic math worksheets are just few of the fun and interactive ways to support our exceptional children. I will definitely consider saving a list of all these resources available to encourage our students with disabilities to participate and interact with technology. I can imagine how exiting and attractive can be using all these different tools to learn. This is something we can share with parents and students to use at home and explore, but must important a must have in now days classrooms. We would not limit our exceptional students; in contrast, we would enhance their learning experience by exposing them to new and positive learning.
 * __[|Assistive Technology for Kids with LD: An overview]__ **