Digital Badge #G

                Differentiated instruction is an instructional approach that teachers use to create different educational experiences that meets the learning of individual students (Maloy, 248). With this instruction teachers create different learning styles that benefit the students individually. Also, students are given the option to work on task according to their interest. What I like about differentiated instruction is that all of the students are learning from the same curriculum, but just in ways suited for them individually. The book gives an example on how students are split up into groups to learn about probability. Even though each group is doing different tasks, they all are still learning about probability. I think that differentiated instruction is good for both teachers and students because it gives them a sense of being comfortable when teaching and learning.The Differentiated Classroom is a book that I found that helps teachers with differentiated instruction. 

                I've learned about word clouds during this course, and find them to be fun and creative. A word cloud is a visual representation of text (Maloy, 253). Teachers and students can display written words visually on the computer. Word clouds can be effective when focusing on discussion openers and graphic organizers for students. What I liked about word cloud is that it gives an idea of what the topic will be about. I also like this because it interests those students who learn better visually. Tagxedo, a word cloud site, stood out to me the most because of its creativity. It lets you create cloud patterns in shapes of animals, famous people, and geographical maps. I liked that idea because not only does it interest the students, it enhances what they are learning about. I created an educational word map on Tagxedo.     

                Some students have a difficult time spelling words or understanding concepts. What’s good about electronic spellers and dictionaries is that they provide students with accurate spelling and meanings of words. Another good thing about these devices is that students that have hearing impairments, or are just learning English can use headphones to help benefit them. The Speaking Homework Wiz was a cool device I found in the book. It contains a 46,000 word dictionary and a spell checker with word pronunciation Maloy, 256). What I liked about this device was that you could also look up words within your definition of a word. I think that electronic speller and dictionaries are helpful to students. They are given the ability to learn how to spell correctly and know the meanings of words. 

photo credit to googleimages

                
















References Maloy, R. W. (2014). Transforming learning with new technologies (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson.