One of the projects we were recently asked to help with was a campus scavenger hunt for Niko Plakakis' class. Teaching students who have severe disabilities can be a very challenging -- and very rewarding -- profession, and Mr. Plakakis is taking Colony High School by storm with his genuine love and care for his students. Objective: Students will learn to locate different locations on campus using an interactive campus map. His goal is for all students to use a map and identify the essential components. What better way than to use your own campus?! Please take the time to watch this powerful display of learning: To create the tool, we worked with Niko to add the Colony High School map to Prezi, an online presentation tool. From there, we zoomed waaayyyyyyyy in and inserted an image of his class into each location where they had taken a picture. The reason for zooming in was to hide the picture, making the discovery even more special for the students. We even added a couple YouTube videos of his students swimming in the pool. This lesson had very little to do with the technology; this was a successful lesson because Mr. Plakakis cares for his students and they know that, so they'll take any risk he asks of them. In fact, it was an honor to get up in front of the class and guess where each place on the map was located. From Niko: I love using technology in my class. I use Doceri regularly. The students love showing off their skills using my iPad. Doceri has also allowed better access for those students in my class with vision problems. I absolutely treasure our interactive campus map we created using Prezi. The students are so excited to see pictures and video of themselves posing for shots around our campus. My students would never get the same thrill out of using a regular campus map. Our students struggle understanding a traditional map. This project has helped them greatly. This is a great example of how using technology can increase learning. My favorite technology quote is by John Dewey, "If we teach today's students, as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow." If you are at Colony High School, swing by and give Mr. Plakakis a high five. If you are a teacher around the district who is teaching students with severe disabilities, we would love to come by and create a similar project of your campus map and images of students from around the campus.
As technology coaches, we get asked to help with a lot of fun and crazy projects: Google Forms to email student feedback, test-prep website training, probeware demonstrations, and so much more. It's all fulfilling, and all very rewarding to see the work the teachers of CJUHSD are doing to improve instruction, achievement, and help students become college and career ready. Please schedule a time and date that works for you and we look forward to supporting you!
2 Comments
Amberleigh Burns
3/1/2016 06:54:00 am
We are lucky to have Mr. Plakakis at Colony! This is heart warming.
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Robert Delpino
3/4/2016 01:08:59 pm
Very impressive, thanks for sharing!
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AuthorsDemi, John Stevens, John Corrow, and Paula are excited to visit classrooms and meet with teachers to see some of the awesome things that are going on within CJUHSD. Archives
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