Story Jumper

I've chosen a web 2.0 tool to investigate from Larry Ferlazzo's blog list, The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2010.  The list included many interesting tools that would be very useful in a classroom.  I chose to play around with Story Jumper because I thought it might be a fun activity to do with my son.  Story jumper is a website that lets you write, design and edit your own children's story book.  You set up a user account allowing you to save the books you write and you may also purchase the book as well!


I found this website to be very user friendly and easy to use.  Along with Dylan's help I was able to use a story that was already started, tweaked some names and characters and completed an entirely new and unique story book.  You can check out our new story here.


I think this could be a very useful program in an inclusive classroom.  I really liked that you had an option to start completely from scratch, or begin with a pre-designed template.  Since I had no story line in mind when I visited the site, I chose to use a template that was already started.  This really helped me get the story going.  One of the hardest thing for many children, especially students with a learning disability, when asked to write is creativity.  I found this to really help facilitate creativity by giving an initial starting off point.


We really had fun with this one.  I'm sure we will be back to create more stories in the future!

A 2.0 World

UDL, Universal Design for Learning, is generally about educating each person to the best of their ability, using the tools that work best for them individually. I think that UDL fits in perfectly in a 2.0 world.  Web 2.0 is incredibly interactive, allowing everyone to participate in their own way, with their own technology.  Having so much technology at our finger tips really allows us so many opportunities for learning.  One drawback of web 2.0 is that information can sometimes be a little off, due to the fact that so many people are capable of adding, deleting and creating the information available, especially with sites like wikipedia.(Dina Rosen, Charles Nelson, 2008)   It does take some educated reasoning to decide whether the information you are reading is factual or not.  It may be easy for students to be misled, due to this information. 

1994: "Today": "What is the Internet, Anyway?"

I really appreciate this clip.  I think about it all the time, how I used to think "I don't really need a computer.", "Who needs the internet? It's just for silly emails!", "I will NEVER get a cell phone! If I'm not home, you don't need to get ahold of me."  Well,  needless to say my feelings have changed.  It's actually hard to remember life without all of these technologies we are so dependant on today.  When the internet first started to gain popularity it truly was a very confusing, foreign idea.  Now however, even Great Grandma is on Facebook!  Not just sending emails, but Facebook too!!!