First, I’ve also spent quite a bit of time with the folks at Don Johnston discussing and working with Read:OutLoud 6.  I wanted to be sure to remind everyone that you have access to download this new version 6 of Read:OutLoud at no charge to you AND to put it on ALL of your school computers AS WELL as send it home wiht your students for their home computers!  Read more on this opportunity you have to move your educational space toward a more Universally Designed instructional environment:   www.icam.k12.in.us/ DRMs download ROL6 here: www.icam.k12.in.us/downloads.php

CRU’s:

…AND You can get 3 CRU’s just for learning how to use Read:OutLoud!   Here: www.donjohnston.com/state/indiana/indiana_readoutloud/index.html

UDL Blog: Some of you may know of Karen Janowski already.   If you don’t, you should!   One of the many great things Karen has is a real nice blog on UDL (Teaching Every Student)  http://teachingeverystudent.blogspot.com

Wikipedia Simple English Image

Wikipedia Tip: Many of you know my feelings on Wikipedia and if you don’t I’ll be happy to share.  In general, I am strongly in support of allowing the use of wikipedia and teaching students to cross reference and to truly evaluate their resources.  SO, I thought I’d share this little tip.  When performing a wikipedia search, there is a link along the left side of the screen that reads, “Simple English,” within the available languages.  Remember that access to the curriculum is certainly about physical and sensory access, but it’s also just as much about cognitive access.  Play with using this Simple English setting to get the same content presented in simpler terminology.

UDL Concept Map: Check here for a nice pdf of a UDL, AT, RTI, DI concept map from Brian Wojcik: http://59303.wikispaces.com/file/view/UDL+RTI+AT+Relationship.pdf See what you think.  I’d love to have discusison with Indiana folks on how these terms/concepts relate to one another.

Magify! I think I’ve blogged this one before, but certainly worth sharing again.  A MAGNIFIED search tool: http://big.com/home.php

Simplified Web Pages: Allows you to simplify and remove some distracting content on web pages.  There are also add-ins for firefox, apps for the iphone and bookmarklets.  http://tidyread.com/

OK… I have LOTS more to share and I promise I will… I have to make the journey back to Indiana RIGHT NOW, before Jim leaves me in Chicago, but I will try to post another entry perhaps tonight after Trick Or Treating! 

Greetings Indiana Educators! I hope everyone has had a relaxing and inspired Summer and are now settling back into the school routine.  No more Brussels Sprouts philosophy this week.  I’m back into the groove and ready for some new, exciting, free/cheap, and engaging 21st Century Accessible Technologies! …hope you are too!

PATINS Project Island Main

With limited time this summer, I decided to devote much of my free time to building on the PATINS Project Island in Second Life.  I’m pleased to let you know on this beautiful Friday morning that the Second Life PATINS Project Island is up and running and ALMOST ready for Indiana educators to come check out!  For much of the past 2 years, I’ve blogged about Second Life and many other online, immersive, 3D spaces available  for the purpose of professional learning networks, technical training, 3D workshops, etc., for educators as well as for student learning, role playing and social scripting.  It’s exciting now that PATINS is almost ready to open our island up to Indiana educators looking for a safe and secure space in which to do these things.  What I’m looking for NOW is a group of 5-10 educators interested in participating in some preliminary trainings/meetings as the facilities are developed and fine tuned.  If you are one of these educators, contact me via email, phone, skype, SL or simply leave a response here on the blog.

UDL:  For any of the current or former PATINS UDL Pilot Teams, here is a free training opportunity: BCSC UDL Flyer September 17-18.

Register Quick! The PATINS-Project Assistive/Accessible Technologies Overview Course tends to fill up fast!  Registration for the Fall 2009 Course is now open. As always, this course is free and provided by the PATINS Project.  It will run from 9/28 through 11/6.  More info here:
2009 AT Overview Coarse FAQ
2009 AT Overview Course REGISTRATION FORM

Scratch for SL Image

SCRATCH IT! Over the Summer I was introduced to a program called Scratch, or more specifically, Scratch for Second Life.  In short, what this FREE program does is allow you to create scripts or programs that you can attach to just about ANY object in Second Life, causing it to become animated and/or controlled by your commands.  This is very exciting news for educators in Second Life!  What this means is that you can create, buy or find any object in Second Life and use Scratch to animate it without having to know anything about programming!   It’s all drag & drop and copy & paste.  …Super simple and highly effective!  This brings modeling, teaching, learning and networking in an online environment to a whole new level!  Oh, and did I mention, it’s FREE?   Check it out for yourself:
http://web.mit.edu/~eric_r/Public/S4SL/

I’m planning to do a few workshops this year, both in Real Life and Second Life, where we’ll be working with Scratch to create some teaching and learning tools!  Keep a look out!

Mr. Glass

Great Teacher Featured: Last week I spent some time in Warsaw doing some hands-on trainings and came across a teacher named Rick Glass, who reminded me that there are so many incredible teachers out there doing amazing things who have so much to offer, but often don’t get to share beyond their own school district.  Mr. Glass made several comments in response to various questions I asked during the workshops and it became obvious to me that he’s had Brussels Sprouts on his grocery list for some time now.  So much of what he’s been doing in his classroom NEEDS to be shared with other educators.  When I asked Rick for permission to write a little about him in this week’s blog, he agreed and shared, “I am excited about the ways I have been permitted to teach my students.  What is most fulfilling is seeing their excitement grow as they take responsibility for their own learning.  I love teaching them to learn to love learning.  Please feel free to share anything I might be doing that could encourage others who read your blog. All the best, Rick” What I specifically wanted to share with you this week about Rick is the Global Virtual Classroom project he and his students are a collaborative part of.  Along with a school in Illinois and a school in Israel, Rick’s class works on this collaborative project-based learning initiative as a way to engage his students in reading, writing social, technology and community oriented skills.  Their website can be explored here: http://gvc0801.gvc08.virtualclassroom.org/

…I hope to include a little more from Rick next week and if YOU know of an Indiana educator doing amazing things with accessible technologies and Universal Design for Learning who’s ideas should be shared, please do let me know!

Article 7 Learning Opportunity: For those of you in the Anderson area, INSource will be offering some free training next week. 

Article 7–Getting a Fresh Start in the New School Year”, 7 on August 27, 2009. This is a 2.5 hour training and open to the public, but registration is requested.  More information and registration here: http://insource.org/forms/08-27-09MM-Gen.html

Remember to keep an eye on PATINS Statewide Training opportunities here: www.patinsproject.com/training.html

And, PATINS Regional Training Opportunities here: www.patinsproject.com/regional.html

Please keep in mind that if you take one of the limited spots by registering for a workshop, it is important that you attend or cancel early enough to allow those on the waiting lists to have a chance.  Thank you for your consideration in this regard.

Looking back at the posts from recent weeks and realizing it’s gotten pretty technical and also realizing recently that we have quite a few parents/families who read this blog, I thought it would be an appropriate time to share another great Indiana resource that you may not be aware of.  Last week I shared the Second Life resource for parents/families, Contact A Family. Well, this week, I’ve got a great Real Life resource for families!

Through a social networking site I recently came into contact with an old friend from middle and high school who now runs a website called Mom Advice.  Through this site, Amy shares a wealth of information for parents and families!

I got to talk with Amy a little bit about what the Mom Advice website has to offer for families of students both with and without disabilities and I thought it was well worth stepping outside of the usual tech-talk to share Mom Advice with you all, this Friday.

What is Mom Advice? -MomAdvice.com is a community for parents where you can find ideas for making your dollars stretch, recipes, organizing tips, and ideas for creative parenting on a shoestring.

What is the primary goal of Mom Advice and what you hope it offers to families?

To help families focus more on traditions and togetherness rather than spending money. Our main goal is to just show parents creative ways to save without feeling like they are missing out on the finer things in life. Our site really hopes to arm parents with an arsenal of ideas for things that they can make and do out of things they already have, rather than a focus on buying more.

What might be the ONE recommendation you’d offer today as the most important resource or tip for parents to include their children in as many activities as possible over the upcoming holidays?

We do a Christmas Jar of activities in our house with an activity for each day of December or you could do one for just the twelve days before Christmas. Decorate a simple Mason or recycled jar and write your activities on little strips of paper and tuck them inside. Each day, you can draw one and complete a small activity together.Try to think of fun and frugal activities like playing in the snow, riding around in your pajamas and seeing the Christmas lights at night, watching a holiday movie and popping popcorn, or sneaking one gift out before Christmas to keep the entertained. The activities can be as  elaborate or as simple as you would be willing to commit to. Our family favorite? Baking treats for the local fire department and delivering them to thank them for their hard work. If they have time, they might even give you a tour of the fire engine or fire department. It is all about making memories!

How can parents find out more about you, your site and all the great resources associated with your site? Just hop on the internet and type in MomAdvice.com. Our site offers a new article each month and then I blog five to seven times each week with frugal parenting tips and creative dishes to grace your dinner tables.

School Professionals; please feel free to pass on the Mom Advice Website to the families of your students!

A Few Quick Hits: You didn’t think you’d get away with no tech stuff this Friday did you?

MathType: MathType 6.5 is now shipping for windows.  “This version includes translators for Mathematica and Maple, MathML import, and enables users to type TeX/LaTeX equations directly into Microsoft Word.” Read more HERE

Image Manipulation: In preparation for several workshops coming up that involved digital image manipulation for classroom instruction, here are some free online image editors.  These are free web-based applications for those times when you might not be at your own computer, but need to quickly upload and edit a handful of images: Picnik, Pixenate, Fotoflexer, LunaPic, flauntr, picture2life, phixr, and easyphotoresize.  Of course, Google’s Picasa is one of my favorites! It’s free, has an easy interface, offers many web and sharing options and likely isn’t going away any time soon! Honestly, my 6 year old uses Picasa with her digital photos. It’s very user-friendly. For those who may be ready to get into a little more serious editing, but want to maintain the ‘free’ aspect, I’d recommend the application, Gimp.

Orator: Orator is a free Text to Speech and Text to Audio File application for the Mac OS.  Orator is simple and clean!  It’s a very light app that runs quickly and w/out problems.  It allows users to type into a window for text to speech/audio file OR to copy/paste text from other sources (docs, websites, accessible books, etc) into the window.  When producing an audio file, Orator creates an AIFF file, which of course goes straight into iTunes and onto your iPods!  You could also use iTunes to do a quick conversion of the AIFF file produced from Orator into another digital audio format like mp3 or AAC, etc. I’ve been using Orator to quickly and easily turn some of my text documents (that I don’t have time to read) into audio for my iPod to listen to in the car. Check it out:  http://homepage.mac.com/dougeverly/orator.html

Contact a Family (in SL): A new place I’ve come across in Second Life (SL) this week.  This is an advice center for parents with disabled children to meet others and access support and advice from a trained professional.  This organization is based in the UK and has been around for 30 years in Real Life (RL) and ventured into SL support for families just this year.   Definitely worth a visit!  The SL Slurl is: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aloft%20Nonprofit%20Commons/20/54/23

NeoOffice: Think of NeoOffice 2.2.5 as Free, Open-Source office-type software for your Mac!  Includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases and even a drawing program.  This is based on the very popular OpenOffice.org office suite, but runs natively on the Mac without the need for the X11 windowing system.  You can also exhange files with other popular applications such as Microsoft Office.  This is a free download, but donations (even very small ones) are encouraged!  I’ve been using NeoOffice a little bit this week and have found it to be easy, quick and full of features.  I haven’t really been unable to find any tool or feature I’ve needed yet!   In fact, I think I’m on my way to donate now.

Also, look for the NeoOffice 3.0 version mid-January ‘09!
www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/neooffice.html

Should I Forward This Email? If you’ve ever wondered when it’s appropriate to forward emails, here’s 5 rules that might help guide your decision.  Or, if you’ve got that colleague who is constantly flooding your inbox with hard-to-understand forwards, you might pass this link on to them!  This follows last week’s posting and the recently added online etiquette widget to the right side of this blog and the idea of trying to incorporate online etiquette into your lessons with students as they grow up in this increasingly ‘online’ world.  www.netmanners.com/email-etiquette/5-rules-of-forwarding-email

Is Banning iPods Cheating Our Kids? This week in the UDL Online Book Review for the newly selected UDL Pilot Schools, lead by Tina Jones, a familiar discussion came up about iPods and other devices coinciding with school policies.  So, I thought I’d link back to when I posted on this topic about a year ago.  There’s a great article here: http://nepatins.edublogs.org/2007/11/09/1192007-tech-security-in-our-schools/

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