Teacher Education: Online Instruction
By Smith, Sean, PhD; Journal of Special Education Technology, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 55-59Publication Date: Spring 2001
Paper discusses a number of online instructional resources for teachers of students with disabilities, which were presented at the Council for Exceptional Children’s Annual conference held in Kansas City, Missouri. Three main applications are discussed: (1) the Online Academy, (2) Math VIDS from the Video Instructional Development Source, and (3) TrackStar from researchers at the University of Kansas. The Online Academy features web-based modules and other technology innovations for moving educational interventions from research to practice. The resources were designed to provide teacher educators with support in areas such as reading, technology, and positive behavioral support. Math VIDS was created as a resource for teachers who are teaching math to students who are having difficulty learning mathematical concepts. The application contains three main information resources: (1) foundation information, (2) instructional strategies, and (3) teaching plans. Math VIDS also features video clips of teachers modeling instructional strategies and detailed text descriptions, as well as an interactive audio guide. TrackStar is another online resource that helps users to organize and annotate websites into lessons of resources. Users can organize favorite websites into specific topics, and make them accessible to anyone with access to the Internet. Visitors to TrackStar can also create a cache of their own favorite websites. The author contends that these are only a few of the online resources available to teacher education students.
Published by: Exceptional Innovations (Website:http://www.exinn.net)
Technology and Media Division (TAM) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) (Web Site: http://www.tamcec.org )
