Carolyn Eccleston

I think my biggest takeaway from chapter 8 brought me closer to determining how to individualize instruction for remedial learners. This idea was not mentioned in the text, but I think it has the wings of potential. Rather than having students who need individualized instruction fall behind in silence, podcasts, videos, and screencasts can help to bring them along. They could access these resources in the privacy of their own home, or the seclusion of a public place (i.e. public or school library without classmates invading or intruding on their space. As I am not suggesting that theses multimedia forms have no other use than to remediate individual learners, far from it. This idea just happened to pop into my head as an aha moment as I reviewed the chapter. In fact I can envision classes of groups of students creating the multimedia tutorials that can be shared via podcasts, videos, or screencasts. Ongoing live streaming tutorial sessions can consist of lessons created by students for students to promote continuity in subject matter presentation across grade levels. Additionally, these multimedia events can be posted and/or embedded in the class webpage, blog, or wiki for anytime and anywhere access. They can be archived as well. This approach to individualized remediation can also be helpful to parents by knowing what resources to access to assist their struggling student. I like the idea and will work to develop the instruments to put it in place. I can not honestly see any reason the resist this idea except for the cost of necessary equipment, which should be minimal. I even think this idea could be used to support the development of IEP’s if the supplemental materials for us during the multimedia applications are produced with the individual’s bench marks in mind.