Continue reading »]]>

The most common question I am asked when I speak at a local or national conference is “How do you stay up to date with all of this stuff?”  While it would be nice to be able to say that I travel the world going from classroom to classroom and lab to lab to find only the best products and practices, it really is much simpler than that.  There are two primary ways I stay up to date:

Conferences
There are 3 or 4 national conferences dedicated to Assistive Technology that I try to attend at least two of each year.  They are:

• ATIA Orlando and ATIA Chicago (January and October)
• Closing the Gap (October in Minneapolis)
• CSUN (March in California)

In addition, there are tons of state and regional conferences available all over the United States that are great ways to network and learn about new products and strategies.  This year, I will have the opportunity to visit Australia to speak at Spectronics’ Inclusive Learning Technologies Conference, which looks to be a great time and learning experience.  So in short, there is no shortage of opportunities to learn and network in this area.

Blogs
Traveling to one conference, much less multiple conferences isn’t easy for most folks.  And even if you do get the opportunity to attend one, you can never get around to every session available.  Because of this, I use blogs and news feeds from several sites to stay up to date.  If you aren’t familiar with a feed reader, now is the time to learn.  A feed reader basically takes any frequently updated content with an rss feed (think news sites and blogs) and puts them all in one place for you.  This way you don’t have to visit 10 or 20 different sites each time you want to see what’s new.

I personally use Google Reader and check it at least once a week.  It is a great way to pass time when flights are delayed or I am waiting somewhere.  I will typically have over a thousand items I can look through when I check it.  Not that I’ll ever have time to review everything, but it is always nice to just skim through and see what sticks out.  I can also sort it by date, topic, etc…  If you do decide to start using a feed reader, be sure to subscribe to this blog!

Bonus
I also like to read through the QIAT Listserv.  You can sign up at QIAT.org.  Note that is a very active listserv so you may want to setup the emails to go into a folder until you have time to read them.  I am also becoming more and more of a twitter fan.  If you follow the right people you can learn about tons of useful sites and products in no time.  Follow me at twitter.com/jkcarroll.

This may be a longer answer than those asking the question wanted, but hopefully it helps!

Continue reading »]]>

The use of graphic organizers in classrooms have been shown to be an effective practice for some time now.  Graphic organizers can be anything from a Venn diagram or KWL chart to an interactive web based support.  These types of supports help students make previously invisible connections visible.  Now before you get too excited, there isn’t any evidence that I am aware of that says if you walk into a classroom, hand out a “graphic organizer” worksheet and walk away that you will see a bump in achievement.  The goal here is to increase engagement, not bore kids to death.

So keeping engagement in mind, there is a particular type of graphic organizer that you may find beneficial: Time-lines.  Commonplace in many classrooms, time lines are created to show events, outline a story, develop a family tree and much more.  While this can all be done with paper and pencil or arts and crafts, web based software now allows students to not only add much more information to time lines, but also collaborate on them with other students, embed in blogs and forward out to others.

A few sites to check out that allow you to develop these types of time lines for free include:

• www.dipity.com
• www.tiki-toki.com
• www.timeglider.com

Continue reading »]]>

Continue reading »]]>

I’ve been messing with VoiceThread quite a bit lately and thought it would be a good time to post something about it.  An article in the March/April 2011 edition of Teaching Exceptional Children through CEC provides several practical ways to integrate it into a classroom setting, so I recommend you have a look at it as well.

Basically VoiceThread is another one of those web 2.0 technologies.  By definition, web 2.0 technologies allow for a 2 way flow of communication.  In other words, instead of a typical web page that provides information, web 2.0 sites also allow the page visitor to add their own ideas.   I suppose this could be a positive or negative thing.

The benefit of VoiceThread is that it creates an interactive discussion board.  You may have taken place in a discussion board in an online class before.  These are typically dominated by text and the occasional attachment.  VoiceThread is different however.  You start by uploading documents, images, videos, powerpoints or other media in your voicethread account.  This information is then posted online and you can provide a link to “collaborators” who you want to participate in your thread.  How collaborators participate in your thread is another nice feature.  Instead of just adding text, they can draw, type, add video, or record audio to the thread.  This creates a highly interactive environment.

There are an unlimited number of ways this can be used in the classroom, but in general any teacher can upload some images, videos and documents on voicethread and invite students to interact.  Students can have their own account, or the teacher can create multiple identities so that students do not have to create an account (great for students who may not have email).  From a Universal Design for Learning perspective, this increases engagement, supports multiple learning styles and offers numerous instructional supports (record your thoughts instead of typing them for example).  VoiceThread is also a great way to have students continue working on projects outside of the classroom.  There’s nothing to install and all that is required is a computer and internet connection.

For more information, check out www.voicethread.com.  They have how to videos and one-pagers dealing with a variety of topics and uses.

Continue reading »]]>

The long awaited Google eBookstore is now open (about 4 days after me buying an Amazon Kindle of course).  To access the store, simply visit http://books.google.com/ebooks.

Google’s bookstore is a bit different than other similar stores such as Apple’s iBooks or the Amazon Kindle store.  Basically, you choose the device you want to read the book on (iPhone, iPad, Sony eReader, internet, etc…) and then you can view the book in that format.  Upon first glance, there is an excellent selection of books available and the prices are very reasonable.  It’s still early to tell how accessibility will work out, but in my limited testing of a sample book, it was not accessible with a text reader.  However, there are almost always work arounds (such as Read&Write Gold’s screenshot reader), but that may be more trouble than what it’s worth.  I’m sure there will be much more to come on this topic as it progresses.

Continue reading »]]>

If you can’t tell from the name of this blog, I’m big on Universal Design for Learning.  The first principle of UDL is Multiple Means of Representation.  We have known for some time now that stand and deliver lecture is the primary way content is delivered in Middle and High Schools.  If we are lucky, many times this is mixed with PowerPoint or the occasional video.  Well, recently a literacy consultant told me to check out Flocabulary and let’s just say I am impressed.

Flocabulary uses  very high quality hip-hop music to explain concepts.  Hip-Hop music is popular among students, and it is very cool to see how engaged they become with the content when it is presented in this fashion.  In addition to the music, the lyrics are available in print and there are other activities and workbooks that accompany each song.

So if you haven’t already, check out Flocabulary.com today.  Many of the resources are free, but there is a paid option as well.