Overwhelmed...but in a good way

     After having time to reflect on our first class I am feeling a wide variety of emotions. As I left Saturday I was feeling overwhelmed as I had never used an iPad before (I know, I know hard to believe I live in the 21st Century). When we were doing the activities during the day I felt great and excited to learn about all the possibilities that I could learn to bring into the classroom to increase the engagement of my students.
     Currently in New Brunswick, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the focus of our government's education policy. I believe that UDL is a compilation of best practices; where teachers enable, design, promote, encourage and support student learning in various ways that are best for each student.
     Another first for me in this class was creating and writing (blogging) this blog. I hope to change and enhance my blog site as the course progresses.
     The use of the synchronous blackboard is also very intriguing for me, as I enjoy online learning, not just because I won't have to drive for a total of eight hours. I am curious about how the interactions will be as I am primarily auditory extrovert, so content with others enhance my learning.
     The two introductory activities were very effective. By having us complete a task that we do regularly in ways that were not our 'normal'. As we were writing with our opposite hands and our mouths (or Whitney thinking outside the box and using her foot); it made me think back to when I had broken a bone in my hand and for years was only able to move my fingers about a centimetre. That experience showed me how I had taken many simple tasks for granted, everyday activities that require two functional hands.
     I have in my classes, especially in my MBA, done a variety of ice breaker introductions and class builders but this was the first time we had used shoes to create the partners. I thought it was good to pick people sitting together to 'donate' their shoes, as they are more likely to have some acquaintances with each other. This activity was also my first experience of the day with the iPad. Theresa was a great resource in creating our introductions with the cloudart app. Here are the two introductions that we created.

     The tooncamera was the other app that I thought my high school students would have enjoyed and used in this activity.
     The video Life on iPad that was shown in class was a fantastic representation of the versatility of the iPad.  The thoughts I had as I watched the video were: everywhere, versatile, easily accessible and in each part of my daily life. The video also made me consider purchasing an iPad as it seems like a great investment. I also found this commercial which was created for the iPad Air that spoke of the diversity of the iPad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiyIcz7wUH0&noredirect=1
     The use of the iPad to manipulate the textbook were fantastic as I cannot actually think of any text that is well designed when considering UDL principles. I also like that it will read the text to students, as texts often contain key terminology that is important to the lesson or unit and students should hear it pronounced properly. The accessibility options demonstrates to me that the company has made their product to be used by the greatest number of consumers.
     The creation of the book was an enlightening experience for me as it was fairly easy and did not require a great deal of skills and experience, which many programs do. I had never heard of app smashing before and enjoyed having a chance to explore the different apps with a partner. We did use cloudart again to produce a display of key words for the life cycle of a frog. Here is our key word cloudart creation:

     Overall, I thought our first class was terrific. I learned many different things that I would be able to use in my classroom. I am excited to start learning and exploring different assistive technologies.