Week 3 & Tech Explorations 7-10

Week 3

 

This week has been a real eye opener, I had actually never heard of any sites that converted text to speech.  Almost every site that I looked at this week covered a topic or an area that could be used in the special education classroom.  My favorite sites that I feel are most useful to me as a teacher would be GPAT, http://www.4teachers.org/tools/, and http://readthewords.com.  I really am so excited to start implementing so many of the technology resources I have learned in these 2 short weeks.

 

Why are visual images important?  Some students need a visual aid to help them learn a topic.  These visual learners can greatly benefit from today’s technology.  These visual aids can be as simple as a graph or as complex as flash animation or a smart phone/tablet application.

 

How do you use?  How have you used in the past, or are now using visuals?  Personal or work examples?  Although I don’t have a whole lot of experience creating these myself my school districts use publishing programs.  Our school has used publishing programs to create pamphlets and brochures for various academic and extra-curricular activities.  Flyers and weekly schedules are also generated each week for the student body and parents.

 

1.     What makes the item visually appealing? What distracts from the message you are trying to communicate?

 

I believe that a lot of people use way too many fonts, font sizes and clip art pieces in their flyers and pamphlets.  For example if it’s Halloween it’s acceptable to place a jack-o-lantern or a scarecrow on the flyer, but I have seen examples where there were 20 clipart pieces surrounding a flyer.  Fonts have a big impact on a flyers wow factor.  Important information needs to be placed at the right location and the right size to get your point across. If important details are written in too small a font or hidden in a corner they may be overlooked. 

 

2.    Use a word processor or desktop publishing program to recreate the item and make it more effective.  Save the file as a .jpg and upload it to your blog.

 

I did not have an example from this school year so I made up a simple flyer about a pool party to get my point across. 

 

Before

 

After 

 

 

 

 

 

Tech Exploration #7

Assistive Technologies – www.gpat.org  

and Zoho http://www.zoho.com  

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.  Be thorough in your response.
	GPAT, which stands for Georgia Project for Assistive Technology, provides professional learning and technical support services for students with disabilities.  By searching the website www.gpat.org I learned many things about this organization.  Being in special education I always knew that students with special needs were able to use assistive services, however, I didn’t realize there were so many available.  Some Assistive Technologies are computer access and instruction, environmental control, mobility aides, oral communication, seating and positioning, and visual aids.  The website did emphasize that the Assistive Technology be documented in the students’ IEP (Individual Education Program) so that every year it can be reviewed and revised for students with disabilities.  The Dolphin Easy Reader Software can be used by students with blindness, low vision, dyslexia, or print disabilities.  I am so pleased that even though a student may have a learning or physical disability that there are services available to them so that they can get the same chance to excel.   Zoho is a website that bundles together word processing, spreadsheets, databases, wikis, and many other applications all in one location.  The website is broken into three main categories: collaboration applications, business applications, and productivity applications.  In the collaboration area you have instant messaging, email, social media programs, and the ability to transfer files.  In the business area you have an accounting, marketing, and other business software.  On the productivity side there are spreadsheets and word processing programs much like Microsoft office.  This website is very intriguing as it gives you access to hundreds of dollars of software and you only pay for the level in which you need it.  This could be used by a single college student up to a medium sized business.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting?  It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	GPAT-In special education these resources are invaluable by enabling the student to learn no matter their disability.  Personally, I have worked with students with mobility aides, oral communication, and visual aids.  I have also been involved in looking over student’s IEP’s, which are evaluated each year in elementary school.  My son has an IEP for his speech.  This website is very informative and contains so much useful information for educator’s especially those in the special education field.    Since Zoho is a web based program you can use it at school or at home regardless of the brand of computer you have and files will be shared seamlessly between the two.  With its file sharing capabilities documents students can turn documents into teachers through this program easily.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.  Why or Why not?
	I definitely recommend the GPAT resource to other educations.  Being in education there are always special needs students and this information is invaluable in giving them services that enable them to learn like the other students.  The website is very easy to use and is free.  I know that in addition to the information available to me at my school I also plan to use this resource as a reference in the future.   Zoho is a novel idea in software applications.  Never before have you been able to have a web based office type suite with file sharing capabilities.  This can be used by a single user or collaboratively by a whole classroom and because of this I do recommend this to educators.  The cost depends on which programs you need and how many users.

Tech Exploration # 8
http://www.4teachers.org/tools/
and Dimio http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.  Be thorough in your response.
	The website, http://www.4teachers.org/tools/, is a wonderful and very useful website.  The academic skill builder has many educational games that students can play.  What better way to get a child involved in learning than to use something that nearly every student already is engaged in.  On this site the students are able to play against each other in school subjects such as math, language and geography.  There is also a safety feature so that the student’s information is not shared with anyone else.  It was great reading the success stories that many teachers had posted on the site as well.    QuizStar can also be a very usual tool to teachers by allowing the teacher to generate a quiz for the students and even have it graded.  Preparing for tests and quizzes can be very time consuming for teachers and this site can help in cutting down that preparation time.  This site also has a multimedia function where you can attach pictures and videos.   Web Poster Wizard is a program that offers students and teachers an easy way to set up a website that enables students and teachers to post projects and assignments.  I can envision this being used by students to turn in essays or maybe journal entries.  There is an archive function that can keep the work for up to a month so that the teacher has time to grade it.   Dimio, http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/, is a freeware site by Dimitrios Coutsoumbas.  There are three parts to this website DSpeech, DShutDown, and DSynchronize.  The latter two are programs that deal with windows issues such are keeping files synchronized on different devices and managing shut down and restart of computers.  DSpeech, however, is software that takes written text and turns it into spoken sound.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting?  It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	The link http://www.4teachers.org/tools/ is a website that offers many different programs and resources to aid the teacher.  The quizstar is one that I think many teachers would love and I look forward to using it soon in my classroom.  I think it is ingenuous to use games as a way to get them to learn.  As an aide in special needs I help out in many different subjects so I can see myself using this site every day to engage them into learning new and exciting things that they might otherwise be hesitant to learn.   Dimio-DShutDown and DSynchronize type software is included in a lot of today’s software.  These are a little different as they can be used as a stand-alone program.  DSpeech looks like a program that I may be able to use with my special needs students.  Many of my students are not able to read written text but do understand the spoken word.  This software might be able to help them be able to do assignments on their own.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.  Why or Why not?
	I definitely recommend http://www.4teachers.org/tools/ for educators to use in their classrooms.  This site has so many resources in one place and there are success stories on each module from real teachers that help you decide if that particular program is right for you.  I plan to utilize several of the programs myself when schools starts.   Dimio-Being freeware I would have to evaluate over a longer period of time but DSpeech seems to be worthwhile and I can tentatively recommend it.  DShutDown and DSynchronize, while I don’t have a lot of use for them, could potentially be what someone else is looking for.  That being said, I wouldn’t recommend them myself but I can see where someone else could if they were looking for this type of software.

Tech Exploration # 9
FullMeasure http:/fullmeasure.co.uk/powertalk/

 

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.  Be thorough in your response.
	The website,http://fullmeasure.co.uk/powertalk, is much like the DSpeech feature in Dimio.  However, it seems to be more polished.  This text to speech program works with Microsoft Power Point and verbally speaks written text from slides.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting?  It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	This resource would be a great asset to special needs children especially those that are struggling with presenting speeches orally.  The teacher can even use the software in class to verbally play a power point presentation.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.  Why or Why not?
	Even though this program wouldn’t be used all the time, I can see where it would be a great benefit to my special needs students.  The program seems very easy to use and is free.

 

 

 

Tech Exploration #10
WebQuest –http://www.webquest.org and ReadtheWords http://readthewords.com

 

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.  Be thorough in your response.
	The website, http://www.webquest.org, is in an inquiry-oriented lesson format with most of the information that the learner works with coming from the web.  A web quest can be created in word, PowerPoint, or even excel.  However, for it to be a true web quest it has to have all five of the following attributes.  Such as, an introduction that sets the stage and provides some background information, a task that is doable and interesting, a set of information sources needed to complete the task, a description of the process the learners go through in accomplishing the task, guidance on how to organize the information acquired, and a conclusion that brings closure to the quest.   ReadtheWords is a web company that converts text to speech in just minutes.  Text can be uploaded to their site from software such as Microsoft, PDF, txt, and html.  It can be spoken in Spanish or French, however, it must be written in that language before it is converted to speech.  Once converted it can even be embedded into a website or blog.  It can be saved onto an mp3 player or an iPod for listening to it repeatedly or at a later time.  This company started in 2008 mainly to assist students with learning disabilities using auditory learning and word processing.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting?  It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	A web quest can be a great tool for both students and teachers. You could use a web quest for special education students by giving a lesson on teaching addition and subtraction using posters. By using the poster in pairs of two the special needs students could help each other. Students could then be matched in varying ability so lower functioning students can learn from higher functioning students. By making sure the format is easy to read this could be an asset for the teacher as well as student.   I can use ReadtheWords in special education in almost all of their subjects that I collaborate in.  Many of my students have great difficulty in reading so being able to upload a text document from a teacher’s computer and have it converted verbally would greatly enhance their learning capabilities in the classroom.  On the readthewords.com site it states that a teacher had success in the students raising their letter grade one level higher by using the services from this website.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.  Why or Why not?
	I do recommend the site, http://www.webquest.org, to educators.  It is easy to use and has information on all aspects of a web quest. There is a link on how to create a web quest and what it needs to contain to be considered a web quest.  I do believe that web quests could be very useful to special needs students if the web quest is catered to their specific needs and learning capabilities.  There is a fee so depending on your classroom budget you may or may not be able to afford the resource.   Readthewords.com is a site that would be used by many teachers in special education because of the great needs of the services offered.  And it is a free site and free is always good when you are on a tight budget.  I recommend this site without hesitation and look forward to trying it with my students to see how well they respond to it.