Misunderstood Minds

Last week Barb introduced us to a series of PBS videos that she posted on a blog, Misunderstood Minds LD.  The blog can be found at: http://misunderstoodmindsld.blogspot.com/.  The eleven videos posted showcase the struggles and triumphs of students with learning differences and disabilities.  It was a great experience for us to gain perspective from students, parents, and doctors on this issue.  In class, we are better able to support our learning disabled students once we understand the strengths and challenges of their individual learning.

An Update on MyStudyBar - USB

I've had some frustration with MyStudyBar on the USB.  So, I went through each application, and gave a quick review.  I was pleased to find that more was working than I previously thought!

Planning

Xmind - Mind Mapping

*Good tool.  Can export and print.  Works well.

Sunbird - Portable Calendar

* Add events.  Can save, organize through colours.  Works well.

Hott Notes - Sticky Notes

* Post reminders, change colours, print.  Works well.

Reading

T-Bar - Screen Masking

* Rectangular overlay.  Okay.

Rapid Set - Change Colours

*Changes background and font colour of document.  Works.

Vu-Bar - Screen Ruler

* Overlay strip.  Okay.

SS Overlay - Screen Tint

* Colour tints whole screen.  Okay.

Orato - Text Reader 

* Different voices available on different machines.  Will work with MS Anna (good) and MS Michael (a slow, mechanical voice that ran together) if available.

Writing

Let Me Type - Word Prediction

* You have to create your own dictionary (good for specific topics).  Does not correct spelling.

Lingoes - Talking Dictionary

* Needs update.  Update failed.  

Balbolka - Writing Support - MP3

* Reads any text you type or paste in the box.  Again, limited voices.  (MS Michael, MS Michelle, MS Sam)  (Changing the pitch and rate options make it much better!) 

Tiny Spell - Spell Checking

* Little box w/ options for spelling stays active in any program.  Very good!

Rapid Typing - Touch Type Tutor

* Typing practice.  Okay.

Vision

Magnifier - Screen Magnifier

* Rectangular magnifier on screen.  Works well.

Sonar - Curser Ring

* A big, red outlined circle.  Okay.

Thunder - Screen Reader

* Literally reads everything you click on.  Again, limited voices, customization available.  Good!

Voice

* not supported

Depending on the computer, some things work, some things don't.  It really just seems to be trial and error!  With everything working on the netbooks though, that would be a good opportunity for students to familiarize themselves with MyStudyBar, then they could be introduced to the USB drive version.  This sequence would allow students to experience some success with the program first and eliminate minimize their frustration when introduced to the program on the USB drive.

My Study Bar

Our group has been working on developing a tutorial blog for 'My Study Bar.'  'My Study Bar' is a toolbar of support for learners with literacy-related challenges.

The free download provides comprehensive learning support from a PC's desktop, and is portable via a USB stick.

There are six categories of tools assembled into one convenient package. Categories include:

1) Planning,

2) Reading,

3) Writing,

4) Vision,

5) Voice, and

6) Help.

You can visit the tutorial blog at http://mystudybar.blogspot.com/.

Great AT Online

If you’ve got students with obstacles to learning, then you need to visit the Free Technology Toolkit for UDL in all Classrooms @ http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/.  This site has links to Graphic Organizers, Literacy Tools, Study Skills Tools, Research Tools, Audio Books, Math Tools, Writing Tools, Multimedia & Digital Storytelling Tools, Text-to-Speech/Speech-to-Text, Collaborative Tools, Useful Links, and Additional Strategies and Free Tools!

With thousands of great links, it was hard to narrow them down to a few I wanted to share with you!

Literacy Tools

60 Second Recap

- This site provides video recaps of classic literature read in middle and high schools.  You can even request recaps!

Writing Tools

ToonDoo

- An online comic strip/book creator w/ thousands of images in multiple categories.

Graphic Organizers

Scholastic Character Scrapbook

- Analyze characters with this organizer from Scholastic

Free Audio Books!

 I’ve been on a hunt lately for a list of audio books available for free to our students.  After some searching, I came across what appears to be a pretty comprehensive list at http://education-portal.com/articles/Free_Books_-_50_Places_to_Find_Free_Books_Online.html

Free Audio Books

      Books Should Be Free - This site is a great place to find free fiction and nonfiction. Users can download plain text files and MP3 audio books files.

      Free Classic Audio Books - A wonderful collection of free classics. All audio books are available in MP3 and in M4b formats for iTunes and iPods.

      Gutenberg Audio - The Gutenberg Audio Book Project has a wonderful collection of audio books read by both humans and computer generated voices.

      Internet Archive Audio - In addition to millions of free electronic texts, the Internet Archive offers over 6,000 audio books and poetry recordings for download.

      Kiddie Records Weekly - Hundreds of free recordings of classic children's albums. Kiddie Records features golden age characters like Bugs Bunny, Howdy Doody and Walt Disney's Robin Hood.

      Kids Audio Books - 200+ free audio books for kids in MP3 format. Most books are from the 40s and 50s.

      Learn Out Loud - Learn Out Load is the Internet's largest directory of free audio learning resources. The site also offers educational videos and podcasts.

      Librivox - There are nearly 2,000 free audio books available on this site. Librivox is attempting to make an audio recording of all of the books in the public domain, so new books are constantly being added.

      Lit 2 Go - A nice collection of free stories and poems from the Florida Educational Technology Clearinghouse. Users can download MP3 files or play MP3 files on their computer and read along as they listen.

      Literal Systems - A modest selection of free classics in audio format.

      Naropa Poetics Audio Archives - The Naropa University Archive Project features more than 5,000 hours of poetry recordings.

      Podio Books - Free serialized audio books that can be delivered to you on a schedule that you set up. More than 200 modern titles are currently available.

      Poet Scoop - Poet Scoop offers hundreds of free MP3 recordings from spoken word artists. The site also includes videos of poets reading their work.

      Simply Audio Books - This site offers free classic audio books. A new download is available every month.

Spoken Alexandria Project - This Creative Commons library provides free AAC, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 audio books. Classics and modern works are both available.

Apps in Action Webinar

I recently had the opportunity to check out two Webinars from the Assistive Technology Centre Society.  Both webinars were hosted by Barb Welsford and related to available apps on the iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhone.  The first webinar was ‘Apps in Action for Reluctant Writers’ and the second was ‘Apps in Action for Reluctant Readers.’

Apps highlighted in the ‘Apps in Action for Reluctant Writers’ webinar could be used for initiating, planning, organizing, writing, revising, and/or publishing as part of the writing process.  Apps mentioned included:

iThoughts, Instant Poerty, Pow!, Writing Toolkit, Storyteller, Story Cubes, iLanguage, Flat Stanley, Story Builder, ABC Letter, WritePad, Speak it!, VoiceMemo, DocToGo, TikiNotes, Dragon Dictation, Pictello, ReelDirector.

My favourite app in the writing webinar is the Writing Toolkit ($3.99).  This app is an all-in-one application for guiding a student through the process of writing a fictional story.  The Writing Toolkit includes the following icons that take you to different sections of the app:

Questions, Punctuation, WritingDef, Plots, People, Places, Things, Scenarios, Notes, Dialogue, Prepositions, iPod Control, Help, and Video Tutorial.  This app would be great for writers struggling with knowing where to start with their ideas. 

Apps highlighted in the ‘Apps in Action for Reluctant Readers’ webinar offer students opportunities to become more engaged in their reading.  Apps noted include:

Shmoop, CliffsNotes, vBookz, Stanza, Image to Text, Voice to Text Reader, Moving Tales books, Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries, Story Builder, Question Builder, ABC Pocket Phonics, Montessori Crossword, Itsy Bitsy Spider Interactive Book, Food Fight Interactive Book, and Pictello.

 

My favourite app in this webinar was vBookz!  vBookz, for just $2.99, is a voice reader that provides free access to over 30,000 books!  The books are stacked on your wooden bookshelf and you can even create your own book to add to the shelf. 

You're a Movie Director!

With the Reel Director app, you can be a movie director or star (or both!) in no time flat. By inputing your videos you can title, add sound, text, transitions, and music to your video. Once you've put everything together then you can email it and even upload it to YouTube! Check out our first shot at Reel Director by viewing our movie.



I can think of a thousand uses for this app in the courses that are taught at the high school where I work. From making a tourism video for Tourism to creating a movie for your favourite book, the options are endless!

Apps for Children with Special Needs

Apps for Children with Special Needs (http://a4cwsn.com/) is a site that I stumbled upon when searching online.  This site provides information, videos, and advice on products designed for educating students with special needs.  There is lots of great options to explore when visiting this site, including one that I’ve bookmarked: Featured App of the Day (http://a4cwsn.com/apps/featured-video-of-the-day/).  What a great way to see a new favourite every day!  Do check it out if you have a moment.  They also have lots of great videos on Pictello which is one of Barb’s favourite apps for making story books using your own pictures and voice.

Sharing Favourite Apps

Apps can be amazing tools for our students!  This week we got to share our favourite apps.  I appreciated this activity since there are so many apps out there that you could spend hours and hours browsing without finding the one that your neighbour thinks is worth a million bucks!

Favourite apps in the class included:

ü  Pocket Whiteboard (just as it states – a pocket sized whiteboard!)

ü  Collaborative Whiteboard (two people can work simultaneously on the same board)

ü  No Fear Shakespeare (learn Shakespeare in today's language)

ü  Audiobooks (free reading of classic books (lots of them!), does not follow along w/ the words)

ü  iScroll (free reading of books, lectures, more adult oriented content, does track the print)

ü  tapSpeak (works like a switch to provide preprogrammed words)

ü  flash cards (use for test study, pre-made ones available)

ü  Model me Going Places (provides social stories for going to different places)

ü  SpeechTutor (work to improve speech delays w/ pictures of mouth formation)

ü  OverDrive Media Console (borrow digital books w/ any library card (may put on computer to avoid due date), includes audio)

ü  Shakespeare in Bits (Hear it, See it, View it, define words, etc.)

ü  Cookie Doodle (use the recipe to make virtual cookies)

Apps for Student w/ Anxiety

One evening this week, I spent an hour looking up apps for one of my students with high anxiety, particularly noise anxiety.  My student is working on strategies to avoid feeling anxious from noise and also for ways to bring his anxiety back down.  One of his strategies is to listen to music or white noise, and another is to use an app to refocus.  The following were apps that I recommended to him this week:

1.     Eye Tricks ($0.99) – optical illusions

2.     Collision Effect ($0.99) – puzzle/action game

3.     Sound Massage (free) – sounds of nature

4.     Fluid Monkey (free) – use your fingers to create

5.     Bubble Wrap ($0.99) – pop the bubbles

6.     Kid Fireworks (free) – tap to ignite

7.     Pocket Pond (free) – manage your own fish pond

8.     Virtual Earplugs (free) – neutral soundscapes

9.     Improve Your Attention (free) – improve fast reasoning skills

10.  Insect Smasher (free) – squash the bugs

11.  Fluid (free) – liquid surface w/ rocks

Favourite Apps for Reading

	Top Ten!	App	Cost	Uses
1		Shmoop	Free	This app is similar to Coles Notes; it provides users with notes on many classics used in high school English classes.  It provides a wide range of text overviews, summaries, plot& character analysis, study questions and quizzes to help students review their knowledge.
2		Prizmo	$9.99	This app allows you to scan text and have it read to you.  It can translate into fifteen different languages.  It recognizes printed text, whiteboards, etc… It includes image processing and text-to-speech is available in 10 languages with 35 voices to choose from.
3		QuickVoice	Free	This app allows you to record for seconds to hours students can save their recorded files as an MP3, and then be able to email their work to the teacher.  It is available for use in 6 different languages.  It offers students another method of sharing their knowledge.
4		vBookz	$3.99	This app comes with over 30,000 copyrighted books, it reads it chapter to chapter while highlighting the text, and it comes with a magnifying glass interface.  You can scan a text into Kurzweil (save as ePub format - Pages) and put this into vBookz.  You can also adjust the speed of reading and the voice.
5		Body Talk	$1.99	This app is a body language guide to help you to read other people and situations.  It includes text, photos and videos to help the user.  You can search by body part, motivation or significance of movements.  This app is great for anyone, especially those who struggle in social situations.
6		No Fear Shakespeare	Free ($0.99 for each play or $4.99 for all 18 plays)	With modern-English language translation of each play, side-by-side of the original version, students can read the play and understand it too!
7		Canada Driver’s Ed	$1.99	Students can read the manual, study topic-by-topic, take a mock test, and get detailed results that indicate areas for further study.  The ‘Progress Meter’ is a great motivator!
8		Conversation English	$4.99	Common idioms and expressions are worked into 20 English conversation lessons.  Each lesson incorporates listening, reading, comprehension, vocabulary, and sentence completion skills through matching, fill-in-the blanks, and other activities.
9		English at Work	$4.99	The sister app to ‘Conversation English,’ this app provides 14 lessons for English in the workplace.  Common idioms, phrases, and expressions are worked into lessons on listening skills, telephone skills, email skills, conversation skills, and more!
10		English Grammar In Use Activities	$9.99	This app is full of grammar activities that are designed to be fun for students.  With imagery, audio, recording, and instant feedback, students will be engaged in the 16 areas of grammar.  There is also a sister app with tests!

Reading Process

Wow!  Completing a task analysis of the 'Reading Process' was not an easy task.  Trying to think through every step of the reading process provided challenges.  I understand some aspects of the process, but certainly am not an expert in this area, so through reading a few articles and viewing other's maps of the process, my partner and I were able to piece together all that we learned to create our own version of the steps in the reading process.  I am hoping to use this map in my class with students that are struggling to read.  Hopefully it will be helpful to students in understanding why they may be having difficulties.  There are so many elements that have to be 'just right' in order for reading and comprehension to occur - it is easy to see how the process may go astray!

Thinking about Reading

On Tuesday night, we had our first class of EDUC 5163: Assistive Technology - Access to Literacy w/ instructor Barb Welsford.  One of the things that we spent a bit of time on, and are going to continue to look into is the process of reading.  It is essential that we understanding the process of reading if we are going to be helpful to our students that are struggling with reading.  In our task of creating a preliminary task analysis of reading, I was shocked by how little time I have ever spent thinking about reading!  Since it is something that most of us learn and master at a young age, it is not something that I, as a high school teacher, have investigated.  One site that I came across that provided a more general, but still somewhat detailed examination of the reading process was that of "Teaching Language and Literacy K-6: Dr. Janette M. Hughes" (http://faculty.uoit.ca/hughes/Reading/ReadingProcess.html).  The site provide me with a taste of the process so now I am looking forward to diving deeper into this task analysis and learning how to support my students effectively!