So, Boston is cool, windy and mostly sunny. The 2008 CEC Conference has been a great experience and it was nice to do some networking and learning from so many great special education teachers and directors and to hear about some great research that is going on. My presentation this morning on creating self-operated prompting systems with the video iPod or Zune Devices went really well. I’m sorry for being a day late with this week’s blog. I wanted to wait till after the presentation.
RTI and UDL: By now, you are probably aware that RTI (Response to Intervention) is now referred to as IFS (Integrated Focused System) in Indiana. However, a major theme/focus of this year’s CEC Conference was RTI and UDL. So, I will likely refer to the term, “RTI” during this blog posting and in upcoming weeks for the purpose of staying consistent with the content presented to me at CEC. So, just keep in mind that Indiana’s state version of the RTI concept is IFS. I am really starting to see how RTI (IFS) will intersect with UDL and on May 5th, I’ll be offering a 1/2-day workshop at the NE Site on UDL and RTI. Visit the PATINS website or call the NE office to register. Registration is free, but space is limited.
100 iPod Tools: You may remember the,”100 Educational Uses for Your iPod” link I posted last week that Jim found. This last week, I thought it was appropriate that I check into #15 on the list of 100: Pod City Guides. This is a cool tool! Only major cities are included at this point, but It allows you to download city information, like directions, events, restaurants, local attractions, hours of local business operation and more! It just puts the information for the city you select under the notes section on your iPod as text. And it’s free! It’s great if you are visiting a city, but could also be a wonderful tool to incorporate into a lesson or unit on a particular place in the world! Check into this one for sure. Let me know if you need help with it! It has become a new favorite of mine, for sure 
http://www.podcityguides.com/
I’ve posted in the past about a program called Anapod as a method of transfering content to/from your ipod w/out using iTunes. Well, I also had the opportunity to really spend some time with Anapod as I needed to do some transferring of content to/from my iPod while in Boston. Anapod is #39 on the list of 100. Anapod offers a free trial, but the full version is around $20-$25. It works well, BUT a word of caution! I’ve had this happen twice now; when using Anapod to transfer videos from my PC to an iPod, once ejected, the iPod no longer recognizes anything that is on the iPod! If this happens, the iPod has to be restored to factory condition and then all content put back on which is a pain. I have yet to figure out why this happens sometimes with Anapod and not other times. Check out Anapod, but be aware of this potential issue.
Pix-Yu: I posted back on January 8, 2008 about pix-yu as a cool and engaging way to motivate some students to write! Today I got an email from them notifying me that they have now included a way for users to include a long description (text) with their images and in this way the text can easily be read aloud with speech synthesizers or braille displays. Check out this new feature and let me know how/if it is working for you and your students! http://www.pix-yu.com/
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