PATINS PROJECT -Rapid Fire-

The Autism Fall Virtual Conference … was this week of course!  If you missed it or want to review any of the sessions, they have been recorded and made available here.  Additionally, my session on iPads was interrupted with internet connection troubles and I have offered to re-do that session next week on Tuesday (9/20/11) [...]

Last week I attended the Spring Leadership Development Program Seminar at Purdue University, which was all about “Working Smarter With Technology, Not Harder.”  I grabbed a bunch of great ideas and tools, some of which I knew, but many were new to me and all are worth sharing! Poll Everywhere (texting polls in class with [...]

PATINS Tech Expo 2011 took place this past Thursday at the Crown Plaza in Indianapolis!  Thank you to all who came and helped make it a success!  It was a great event with lots of information from many assistive technology vendors including many presentations and hands-on opportunities with both software and hardware! If you missed [...]

Textbooks No More? Several of you have probably heard me talk recently in-person about the future of textbooks and some ways to prepare.  Here’s an interesting article about Washington State and their redesigning of the textbook for the digital age, as a follow up: http://education.newsweek.com/2011/01/25/who-needs-textbooks.html VoiceThread for All Students: You’ve probably heard me talk about [...]

Upcoming Events: Remember there are FREE PATINS Trainings happening all the time and you can always request additional! For example, on Monday morning at 7:30am, for just one quick hour I’ll be covering Text To Speech and Audio Files Basics…. for Free! See them all here: www.patinsproject.com/training.html ISTE Second Life Events: Remember that the International [...]

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I hope you all are taking the time to NOT work today and to be with your loved ones.  I do have some cool stuff to share this week though! Text To Movie! They say that if you can type you can create a movie! …and I have to say they’re right!  [...]

Teaching in Second Life: (Thanks Colleen!) This is a program developed in New York City Schools District 75 using Second Life as a virtual world for training students – This course is for teachers of high school aged students in alternate assessment whose goals focus on expanding students’ communication, social and life skills.   Students selected [...]

NEW FREE Equipment! …to borrow! The  PATINS Lending Libraries have some brand new equipment you might want to know about: Dynavox Xpress AAC Device Next Generation Perkins Braille Icon Mobile Manager Go Talk Express 32 AAC Device In addition to the above, there are MANY other new devices available to borrow from the PATINS Lending [...]

Google & Autism Spectrum (thanks Chris B): Did you know about Google for Education?   …and that Google has a project for students on the autism spectrum and the educators working with them?  Check this out: www.google.com/educators/spectrum.html Collaborating and Presenting in Second Life Viewer 2!  As you may know, Viewer 2 for Second Life introduced [...]

New PATINS Staff Contact Info: Most PATINS Staff will have new contact information including email, phone, fax, physical address starting now!  I’ll keep you updated here as these changes are finalized.  Here are our new email addresses for now: Vicki Hershman (PATINS Director):  vhershman@ciesc.k12.in.us Glenda Thompson (Admin. Asst):  gthompson@ciesc.k12.in.us Daniel G. McNulty (NE PATINS): nepatins@ciesc.k12.in.us [...]