Nafc - Tv's - Moving forward - January 17, 2014

welcome to moving forward i'm diane williamson the way children learn in our age of technology is vastly different then what people of my generation experienced. PCs iPad iPods tablets and other resources have merged with more traditional methods to create a new learning environment which enables more children to learn effectively and efficiently but that technology comes with a price thanks to a grant from the New Albany Floyd County Education Foundation more of those resources are reaching our classrooms take for instance the Carl and Mary Kay Wolford great classroom grant awarded to Highland Hills middle school to provide an audio library housed in a special room and named for the Wolfords and a mother of one of the grant writers who was a great supporter of public education that library called the Wolford Glaze audio library and is available to all students in grades five through eight and all teachers so how did it come to be? well I have teachers contact me all the time and they want books on different reading levels for their students and generally when they contact me they want lower reading levels because your students are struggling and this past year had more requests than I had books so a group of us teachers in the school decided to get together and write a grant for lower level books for students and when we started looking at what was new in reading we saw that it wasn't that teachers were just using regular books so we decided to embrace this technology and so the books that we purchased, we purchased books sets but we also purchased those on iPod and iPad - the audio version and the books I think teachers probably think if you haven't really done a lot with the technology that these are like books on CD and they're really not the new books on audible are really dramatic representations up the books and so we thought this would appeal to some of our students who do not like to read or who struggle with reading just a little bit but this allows kids to read books that are much higher reading levels than they would normally ever be able to do so one of the most popular ones that we have right now is the Hunger Games The Hunger Games you know it's on the movies and everything kids really want to be able to read it kids with lower reading levels just can't sorry so they are not able to access it so you want a way for the kids who are not really quite ready to read that on their own with a little bit of help they would be able to do it and yet they wouldn't necessarily have to be a teacher there with them so it's still independent reading we tried to make it away with the audible books a way that could be more enjoyable for them as well. They still have to read along with the book but having someone read to them while they're listening to it helps enable them to access that because there's a difference between kids who can read silently and understand and when kids listen to things they can often understand at a much higher level than they would normally be able to do on their own but with the text being read by actors and things it really captures their interest in ways that just normal books on CDs just didn't before all at this started with gifts from people just like you to the Education Foundation if you'd like more information on how you can help fund a great classroom project via a grateful heart gift simply go to the NAFC education Foundation's website at in NAFC ed foundation .org and click on grateful heart earlier this week we celebrated doctor martin luther king junior day with a dinner sponsored by the school corporation along with the Education Association at Northside Christian Church it featured keynote speaker doctor gloria Murray dean of education at IUS, entertainment by the Scribner middle school 6th grade choir and a buffet prepared by the prosecutor education centers culinary arts students this is the 19th year the event has taken place and just a reminder school will be in session on Martin Luther King Junior Day on Monday January 20th as a snow makeup day we are always looking for good stories to tell so if you have one please share it with and you can stay up to date by checking out our website liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter i'm diane williamson we'll see you next week on moving forward