DI and Technology

[Hayley D]

Technology and DI: Using Technology to Differentiate Instruction


Comic Creator
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/c omic/index.html

Readiness is one of the student-dependent ways to differentiate. By
varying the amount of direct instruction, practice and pace, educators
can reach students on their level of readiness. This resource is a
very basic comic creator. It can be utilized in a variety of ways.
During English Language Arts instruction, teachers could put this up
as a menu choice for creating a sentence/story starter. Students who
are new to using technology, younger students or children with special
needs could access and manipulate this program very easily. After
creating a “comic” picture, students could print it out and begin
writing their story. This would be much more effective than a teacher
created prompt. In addition, this resource could be used for English
Language Learners to build basic vocabulary. They could create their
own comic and label it with words from their second language. In a
dual-language classroom, the student pairs could each create one and
have their partner label theirs in his or her native language. Then,
they would be able to switch and have a good resource in their second
language. Another way to use this resource cross-curricular would be
to create math word problems using the pictures that are created from
the comic. There are a variety of ways to use this resource and a
number of ways to bring it higher level or lower level depending on
the grade level that you teach. This resource is easy to access and
great for emergent readers, ELLs or digital immigrants.

Virtual Field Trips
http://www.uen.org/tours/fieldtrips2.shtml

Every student seems to enjoy field trip day more than most
instructional days. Educators can tap into a student’s interest by
allowing them to take a virtual field trip on the topic of their
choice. This resource provides a variety of virtual field trips that
are sorted by subject area. Students can access these sites
independently, in a small group or whole group in a variety of subject
areas. One way to use this resource is to select a specific virtual
field trip that covers grade level material being taught in the class.
Displays this virtual field trip on one of the classroom computers for
a menu choice. Students can view the virtual field trip and create a
brochure in Pages that describes what someone would see if they go
here. They can then share this with their parents and transfer the
learning on to them. One way to extend this menu choice would be to
allow the students to create their own virtual field trip on a topic
of their choice.


Character Trading Cards
http://readwritethink.org/materials/tradin g_cards/

Students come into our classrooms with various learning styles and
profiles. This resource can be used to differentiate based on diverse
learning styles and profiles. Character Trading Cards are created
using this resource. The trading card can have one to five sections
with in depth information on various characters. In the classroom,
students can create these cards for a character than has already been
in a story. This would be a great resource for retelling a story or
character comparisons. In addition, students could create their own
character to begin writing their own story. In order to best utilize
this resource, students can view a digital storybook and then recreate
the character based upon what was read to them.

References
Hall, T., Strangman, N., & Meyer, A. (2003). Differentiated
instruction and implications for
UDL implementation. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_diffinstructudl.html

Smith, G., & Throne, S. (2007). Differentiating instruction with
technology in K-5 classrooms.
Belmont, CA: International Society for Technology in Education.
Retrieved from
Education Research Complete database.