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Jul
29

Podcasting and Podcatcher Options

by Jason Carroll

For those that aren’t aware, a podcatcher is a software application used to collect and play podcasts. By far, the most popular podcatcher is iTunes. However, not everyone wants to rely on only one software application. In addition, there are many schools or entire districts that do not allow the use of iTunes. So what exactly is a podcast and are there options for those wanting to subscribe to podcasts other than iTunes? That is what this post hopes to answer.

To start with, a podcast is simply an audio or video file that is syndicated, which means people are able to subscribe to it using a podcatcher. Why would you want to subscribe to a podcast? Let me use an example that I think will help. Imagine there are 5 podcasts that i am really interested in. They are on various topics, maybe Spanish lessons, technology, financial information, music, and math strategies. All of these podcasts contain great information, but it is a time consuming task for me to visit each site every day just to see if a new podcast has been posted. If I find that there is a new post, I then have to download and store it somewhere before I can listen to it on my computer or on a portable media player like an iPod.

Now let’s look at using a podcatcher, such as iTunes, to make this process more efficient. Instead of visiting each site everyday, I only visit it once. While there, I find the feed information for that podcast (usually by clicking on a link that says “subscribe to this podcast”). I take that link and copy and paste it into my podcatcher (if using iTunes go to Advanced – Subscribe to Podcast) and viola, I am now subscribed to that podcast. I do the same with the other four sites and now every time I open my podcatcher it searches to see if any new posts have been made. If so, it automatically downloads and organizes them for me. Is that cool or what! iTunes also offers an extensive list of podcasts you can search and subscribe to without ever leaving the application.

So moving on, are there other podcatcher options than iTunes? The answer to this is yes, but you may need to spend some time exploring the options to find which works for you. Below is a list of a few options you may want to try:

I figure this list will do you for awhile. I personally use iTunes, but if I didn’t I would probably give Juice, MediaFly or ZiePod a try.  If you have tried one of the options above feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think.

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Jul
25

Using Jott as a Writing Tool

by Jason Carroll

I know that I am not the first, and will surely not be the last to do a post on Jott, a free web based tool to convert speech into text, but I still feel the need to mention it here for my readers.

So what exactly is Jott, and how can it be used in your toolkit of Universally Designed activities for students? Well, to access Jott all you need to do is go to www.jott.com and setup an account. Once setup you will receive a verification code to use when you call 866-JOTT-123. After dialing the number and entering the code, you can choose to Jott yourself or someone in your contact list (which you can create after signing up for an account). To Jott is simply to speak a message. Once spoken, you can set up a reminder to go along with it if you wish. When finished, Jott will sent you an email or text message with the text of that voice note. How cool is that! You can use Jott to send yourself reminders while driving in the car, create lists, and even add dates to your Google calendar or make a blog post.

So how can this be used in Education? It just so happens that a colleague and I did a session titled “Ugh, I Hate to Write!: Innovative Ways to Use Technology to Motivate Reluctant and Struggling Writers” yesterday. A major component of it was using services like Jott to motivate writers. For example, one critical part of writing that is seldom done these days is writing to learn. These are the kind of things students do to help digest information. They are not graded, and the main audience are the students themselves. Activities typically seen in writing to learn activities include writing breaks (stop talking for 2 minutes and let students write what is on their mind), exit and admit slips, brainstorming or clustering, drawing and illustrations, write arounds and much more. So imagine next time you want your students to participate in a writing break you allow them to call Jott and speak what’s on their mind! This not only increases engagement, but is also much more accessible for students who may struggle with writing due to cognitive or physical disabilities.

The above is of course only one example. I can see students using Jott as an organization tool, a method for delivering admit and/or exit slips to teachers (remember that students can Jott to teachers and other students, not just themselves), brainstorming, and to take notes among many other things. Have an idea for using Jott? Write it in the comments section below.

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Jun
24

UDL Guidelines Released by CAST

by Jason Carroll

The Center for Applied Special Technologies (CAST), the number one resource on Universal Design for Learning, has released version 1.0 of UDL Guidelines. According to cast:

As the UDL field has grown, so has the demand from stakeholders for Guidelines to help make applications of these principles and practices more concrete.

These UDL Guidelines will assist curriculum developers (these may include teachers, publishers, and others) in designing flexible curricula that reduce barriers to learning and provide robust learning supports to meet the needs of all learners. They will also help educators evaluate both new and existing curricula goals, media and materials, methods and assessments.

You can pick up your own copy of the guidelines from CAST’s website at http://www.cast.org/publications/UDLguidelines/version1.html

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Jun
01

Video Self Modeling Part 2 – The techy stuff – Updated June 2008

by Jason Carroll

This post is part 2 to my introduction to video self modeling (VSM). Part 1 is only a few paragraphs long so I recommend you read it first to gain a better understanding of what video self modeling is. You can access the post BY CLICKING HERE.

So now the fun part… What do you need in order to successfully use video self modeling? Well, first you will need a video camera. This is typically the most expensive part of the process. Go into any electronics store and you will likely find several different models of video cameras all saying they are the best. First, know that the price doesn’t always equal the best. It all depends on what you are wanting to use the camera for. For example, a popular video camera might allow you to burn your footage directly onto a DVD. This allows you to immediately take the DVD out of the camera, pop it in your DVD player and watch it. Sounds great right? Maybe, but probably not if you are wanting to use the camera for video self modeling because you need to be able to edit the video before you burn it on a DVD. Most other video cameras will work fine for VSM, but you need to be cautious and make sure it will work with whatever editing software you choose to use. I take the easy route and use a FLIP Video Camera that runs about $100. See it at http://www.theflip.com/. You can get a 30 minute or 60 minute camera that runs off AA batteries and plugs directly into your computer via usb just like a flash drive. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Now that you have your camera you are ready to start recording. I’m not a professional video person by any means so I only have a couple of pointers on this part. First, remember that you can get creative with your video when you get to the editing process. Many times I see a person go in and follow a student around for two days trying to catch them doing something for the tape. Instead, maybe you can piece a few things together later that gives the appearance of the student performing the behavior you are looking for. Second, don’t worry about getting the perfect shot. Some people try and shoot the whole thing over because they got someone or something in the video for a few seconds. You can just edit those kind of things out. Also remember that these videos do not need to be high quality. You are not making a major motion picture here, just a self modeling clip.

Once you have your video, it’s time to get to work on editing. This part is going to require you to do a little self learning, but I can give you information on the basic software you may want to look into using. If you are a PC user, Microsoft Movie Maker is free and comes installed on your computer by default. Just got to Start – All Programs – Accessories – and choose Windows Movie Maker. It will take you through the process of capturing and editing your video.  I use QuickTime Pro ($29.99) for most situations. It allows me to make quick edits and save them in different formats including an ipod format. QuickTime Pro will also work with a MAC, but MACs usually come with iMovie, which is also an excellent choice. Finally, I should mention that if you use an older video camera that takes VCR tapes, you can create most of your video editing either on the fly while you are filming (by rewinding and recording over bad parts) or by using two VCRs (one to play the original and the other to record only the parts you want to keep).

Once you have your video filmed and edited you will want to put it in whatever format you need for final viewing. This really just depends on how you plan on viewing it. If you have a DVD player, you will need to use your video editing software to put it in a DVD format (you will also need a DVD burner on your computer). If you’re editing software doesn’t allow for this, you may find that whatever software came on your computer for burning DVDs will convert to the proper format for you. If you are going to watch it on a computer you can put it in a .avi or a .mov (QuickTime) format. I occasionally like to use a .wmv or .avi format and imbed the video segments into a PowerPoint. Then I can set it up to where students click on a picture and the video will automatically start playing.

Hopefully this will give you enough information to get started with Video Self Modeling. I’ll try to put some specific tutorials up in the future on how to use some of the editing software.

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May
22

What exactly is UDL anyway?

by Jason Carroll

Oddly enough, I don’t get asked this question much.  I find that most people believe they already know the answer and see no reason to ask or don’t care and assume if they ignore it long enough it will go away.  Whatever the reason is, I figured I should go ahead and create a post with a basic explanation of what Universal Design for Learning is.

For starters, the term Universal Design for Learning comes from Universal Design, an architectural term.  The idea behind Universal Design was to create things to accommodate the most users from the beginning.  Think of curb cuts as an example.  They help people in wheelchairs, right?  But who else uses curb cuts?  I know I do.  So do people with luggage, baby strollers, and bicycles.  This is an excellent example of designing things in the beginning with the end in mind.  Other examples include Closed Captioning and automatic doors.  Can you think of anything else?  If so, post in the comments section below.

Moving from architecture to education, the term Universal Design for Learning came about.  Its purpose, similar to Universal Design, is to make learning accessible to the largest group of students possible from the start.  The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) describes UDL in the following terms:

UDL provides a blueprint for creating flexible goals, methods, materials, and assessments that accommodate learner differences. – www.cast.org

One important thing to keep in mind that is often confusing for people is that UDL is not something you can touch.  I remember in Kentucky for example, when UDL was really gaining support, the state took the initiative of getting a special contract with a text reader software company to help make text more accessible in KY schools.  The text reader of choice was Read&Write Gold from Texthelp so for the next 3 or 4 years I think half of the state thought that UDL and Read&Write Gold were the same thing.  This of course was not the case, so during trainings I always started off with an explanation of each.  I’m not sure if this helped or not, but I always referred to UDL as a theory.  I believe CAST described it as an “educational approach,” which I always thought sounded good too.  CAST also laid out three principals to help people understand UDL.  They are as follows:

  1. Multiple Means of Representation – provide students information in multiple ways (lecture, audio, video, learning centers, etc…)
  2. Multiple Means of Expression – allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in multiple ways (instead of paper and pencil tests for example, allow students to create a powerpoint, make a blog post, etc…)
  3. Multiple Means of Engagement – motivate your students.

One misconception of Universal Design for Learning is that you must have technology for it to happen.  This is not always true.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a technology guy and technology really helps, but don’t think that you have to spend thousands on a smart board to have a universally designed classroom.  There was an article in CEC back in 2005 titled “Using Universal Design to Unlock the Potential for Academic Achievement of At-Risk Learners” by Cynthia Acrey, Christopher Johnstone, and Carolyn Milligan.   It had tons of useful information in it, but the main take away for me was that you don’t always need expensive equipment.  It talked about what paper color to use and how you should use bolded text instead of underlines because it is easier to read… Things that all of us can take note of and start implementing today.

Ideally new technology will make its way into your classroom over time and you can begin getting more creative with how you make class accessible for ALL of your students.  I’ll post ideas and resources as time goes on to help with this, but just wanted to give you a quick overview for now.

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May
07

CAST, Google Introduce UDL Editions

by Jason Carroll

I was just forwarded a link from a friend of mine to the new UDL Editions by CAST website. According to the press release:

Wakefield, MA, April 23, 2008—In partnership with Google, CAST today celebrated World Book Day by introducing two new online literacy tools that provide robust, embedded learning supports for readers at all levels. UDL Editions by CAST are world literature classics presented in a flexible online interface that supports and engages novice and expert readers alike. CAST Strategy Tutor offers adolescent readers customizable mentoring and support as they conduct Internet research and read websites.

In the limited amount of time I had to experiment with the site, I found it very user friendly providing you are familiar with Texthelp’s Read&Write Gold toolbar. You can choose from 7 books and be provided with 3 levels of support on each book depending on student specific needs. These levels are as follows:

  1. Maximum Support – “Stop and Think” prompts are multiple choice. Highlighting critical features, models, and hints available. Immediate feedback on responses.
  2. Moderate Support – “Stop and Think” prompts elicit constructed responses and text revisions to explore author’s craft. Highlighting critical features, models, and hints available. Immediate feedback on text revisions only.
  3. Minimal Support – “Stop and Think” prompts offer strategy choice and open responses. Students are guided to highlight and collect key elements in the text, thus actively highilghting critical features for themselves.

Give the site a look when you get a chance. The address is http://udleditions.cast.org. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Anytime you can get organizations like CAST together with companies like Texthelp and Google, you can expect great things to happen.

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Apr
25

The Writer Fusion Released

by Jason Carroll

Occasionally I like to highlight new devices that I believe could make an impact on many of our students. I recently had the opportunity to acquire the new Writer Fusion and am very impressed with what I’ve seen. Let me explain…

Many times I am asked to come in and evaluate a student for assistive technology. More times than I can count on both hands, parents or staff members believed the best solution for the student was to have his or her own laptop. Don’t get me wrong, computers a great and laptops are sometimes even better because of their portability, but they are not always the best answer.

When you really start looking at what the student needs, many times a simple portable word processor will do the job. You’ve seen them before… Neo (Alphasmarts), Dana or Dana Wireless, Writer, etc.. They offer many of the advantages of laptops without the disadvantages. For example, many of the students I met who were being considered for a laptop simply had writing issues that caused them to fall behind when the assignment required taking notes, journal writing, story writing, etc… Portable word processors offer many of the supports writers need without the extra (and expensive) stuff they can do without. Not to mention their battery life is much better!

FusionHaving said the above, my personal favorite portable word processor is the new Fusion from Advanced Keyboard Technologies (see pic on left). Not only does it offer your typical word processing supports, but it also includes word prediction and text-to-speech. Features that are not always available in similar devices. In addition, you can purchase a memory card for the Fusion that will allow you to transfer text to and from the device. This is great when teachers want to type up tests or reading assignments ahead of time and transfer them to the device where the student can have them read out loud using a headset. In the limited number of times I’ve used this with students, all enjoyed the device and I’ve yet to run into any trouble with it. Although I’m not sure if available yet, I just saw the newest version, which includes a speaker so a headset isn’t required, at a state conference last month.

Feel free to make a comment and let me know your experience with the Fusion or similar device.

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Mar
02

Developing a System for Engaging your Students

by Jason Carroll

Today’s post goes along with the third principle of Universal Design for Learning: Multiple Means of Engagement. It is critical to keep students engaged in your lessons if your goal is for them to retain the information you provide. To do this you must engage them. Engagement must be often and relevant. Relevant simply means something related to the content you are teaching. It should build on students background knowledge. Research shows time and time again that relating content to background knowledge increases retention, so why shouldn’t engaging activities do the same?

The picture above is something I picked up from a Bob Pike Group training a couple years ago. You will see me mention things from their trainings quite often as I think almost everything they teach relates to good teaching and Universal Design for Learning. It basically says this: In a 90 minute window of time (think block scheduling for some of us) we should chunk our content into 20 minute sections making sure to engage learners every 8 minutes or so. Simple, right? Let’s take a deeper look:

90 Minute Block – This may not work for some of you teaching 50 minute classes, but the remainder of the rule still holds true. In general, whether we provide training, teach a class, or anything else that involves holding a groups attention we should be sure to provide a break at least every 90 minutes. This has been the case time and time again. How do you think they came up with 90 minutes being the optimal time for block scheduling in the first place? I can assure you it wasn’t by accident

20 Minute Chunks - You must break your content up. No one can hold attention for 90 minutes straight. You must break this up into chunks. 20 minutes has been shown to be the optimal amount of time for any section of content.

Engage every 8 Minutes – This is just a general rule of course, but it does have some research to back it up. Did you know that by the time your students graduate high school they have spent more time in front of a television than in a classroom? What happens about every 8 minutes when you are watching TV? If you guessed a commercial break you would be correct. So imagine how tough it is to hold attention for an entire class period with out some type of break in the action. This is where the engagement piece comes in. It doesn’t have to be complicated, in fact it can be as easy as having everyone stand up and sit back down. I would recommend putting a bit more thought into it than that however. For example, one social studies class I work with has a student be the timer. Every 8 minutes they ring a bell that signals time to throw a blow up globe. Whoever catches the globe must find whatever the person who threw it asks them to. The whole thing takes maybe a minute and instantly engages all students with something relevant to the content. Who should you make the timer? Doesn’t really matter, but any student who likes to make disruptions would be an excellent choice.

Hopefully this quick and easy strategy will help you design some of your lessons to be more engaging for your students. If you happen upon this post and try it, I would love to see comments about how you made it work in your classroom.

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Jan
25

Intro to Video Self Modeling – Part 1

by Jason Carroll

The idea of using images or videos of appropriate behavior in hopes to get individuals to replicate that behavior is a rather common strategy used today. We see it anywhere from exercise tapes to instructional videos. An adaptation of this strategy that you may not see as often is known as video self modeling (VSM), which allows individuals to see themselves perform a behavior. This behavior may be something the individual already knows how to do or a completely new skill set that he or she needs to learn.

According to Dowrick (Hitchcock, Dowrick & Prater, 2003) Video self modeling was first seen back in the 1970s when Creer and Miklich used it to help a boy improve his social skills. The idea was that role-playing would increase the boy’s social skills, so the researchers video taped their progress. To their surprise the role-playing had next to no effect, but when the boy viewed the video of himself doing the role-playing he started having success.

Much has been done with VSM since that point, but the outcomes continue to show the same promising results. VSM has been used successful with helping selectively mute students carry on conversations, helping autistic students to break out of their patterns, assisting with individuals and students transitioning to new places and much more.

Basically there are two types of video self modeling: Positive Self Review and Feedforward. The difference between the two is that positive self review is used to review a positive behavior that the student already knows how to do. Think following the directions, or getting to class on time and sitting down quietly. These are behaviors that a student has probably already performed several times before, just not repeatedly. By using positive self review, the teacher can catch the student performing the behavior correctly on video, then show the student the video of him or her performing the behavior.

Feedforward VSM is a bit different in that it is used to show a video of a student performing a behavior they currently have not done before. Sounds difficult huh? It can be, but doesn’t have to. All it requires is a little creativity. Let me give you an example. A friend of mine who works with VSM quite often went to assist with an autistic student who was bothered by several things. For example, if he were to hear a student screaming it would set him off. My friend, along with the student’s teachers, talked the student into sitting quietly and doing some work while the video camera was rolling. After catching a couple of minutes worth of footage, my friend was later able to capture audio of his daughter screaming and insert it into the video. After editing out any non-positive behavior, the autistic student was able to watch himself sit quietly and do his work even when loud screaming was occurring. Data was collected and the negative behavior was immediately reduced after the student watched the video.

Lucky for us, VSM has now become much more affordable and easy to do than ever before. There is no longer a need for thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Many times the result you are looking for is only a video camera and some free software away. To learn how to get started look for the Part 2 of this Video Self Modeling post.

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Jan
25

Free Screen Magnifier

by Jason Carroll

I just came across a free screen magnifier called iZoom for PC’s that looks like a great option for students with visual impairments and those of us over 40 who keep sliding back from the computer screen to read e-mail!

I used it for about an hour and it has a lot of the same features found in the expensive magnifier we typical buy for students. It is easy to control with hot key commands and also has a screen reader. The reader part is limited but I have not fully explored that option. You can download the free version 1.1 from Issist a company based in Ontario Canada.
They also have version 1.2 which has enhanced performance and cost $79. Another cool thing they have which seems to be the up and coming technology allowing people to have mobile USB access on a flash drive anywhere they go is called Zoom2Go, it cost $249.

I will be interested to see if anyone else has been using this magnifier and how it is working out, post a comment to this site or e-mail me at gerald.abner@jessamine.k12.ky.us

- Gerald Abner, AT Specialist, Jessamine County Schools

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