AIM Navigator Released

Just got the following email:

The National Center of Accessible Instructional Materials is pleased to announce that the AIM Navigator, the latest in a series of tools developed under the auspices of the AIM Consortium, is now available at the National AIM Center website!  Please share this information with others. The AIM Navigator is an interactive online tool that facilitates the process of decision-making about accessible instructional materials for an individual student. The AIM Navigator guides teams through a step-by-step process and provides just-in-time support with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), resources, and links to other helpful tools at each of four major decision-points:

•  

  • Determining the need for accessible instructional materials;

  • Selecting format(s) that address student needs;

  • Acquiring needed formats; and,

  • Selecting supports for use (technology, training, instructional strategies, support services, and other accommodations and modifications)

We invite you to explore the AIM Navigator and try out the following features at http://aim.cast.org/experience/training/navigator

•  

  • Guiding Questions: A series of questions that guide teams through a four-step decision-making process about accessible instructional materials for an individual student

  • Help Me Decide: A brief set of questions and answers specifically linked to each screen that provide basic information needed for that screen

  • Tell Me More: A comprehensive set of questions, answers, and resources for all decision points within AIM Navigator.

  • Student Summary: A complete compilation of all decisions and supporting information teams enter into the Navigator that can be edited, printed and/or saved to a local computer.

  • To Do List: An optional place for the teams to keep track of actions that need and assign responsibilities that can be edited, printed and/or saved to a local computer.

 

While you are at the AIM Center site, have a look around at the vast array of information, supporting tools, learning opportunities, and communication options that are available from the AIM Center.

 

This tool promises to ease the confusion that exists in providing accessible instructional materials to students in K12 educational settings.  I look forward to trying it!

 

IL: One step forward...but one step back

I received this from a colleague recently:

TechAmerica Applauds Illinois Governor Pat Quinn for Digital Textbook Legislation

Governor signs legislative measure to encourage use of digital textbooks and materials in schools

Naperville, Ill. – TechAmerica applauds Governor Pat Quinn and the Illinois Legislature for signing into law Senate Bill 3547, which expands the definition of textbooks in all Illinois statutes to allow for the use of electronic textbooks and the technological equipment necessary to gain access to and use electronic textbooks. Senate Bill 3547 also expands the scope of textbook funding sources in Illinois to include electronic textbooks and related materials.

“We applaud Governor Quinn and Illinois legislators, including our Chief sponsors, Senate Majority Leader James F. Clayborne, Jr. and Representative LaShawn K. Ford, for supporting this important legislation,” said T. Kendall Hunt, Chairman, CEO, VASCO Data Security International, and Chair of TechAmerica Midwest. “TechAmerica is a strong advocate for educational initiatives that better prepare students, and our future leaders, for the 21st century.”

The educational, environmental, and financial benefits of using digital textbooks and materials in the classroom are numerous. Studies have shown increased attendance by students, improved writing scores, and greater depth of student research in schools using digital textbooks and related technologies. Digital literacy is the cornerstone of most professional and academic environments. These initiatives help familiarize students with the types of hardware, software and internet programs that they will be expected to use in the workplace. Senate Bill 3547 will also help put technology in the hands of the student groups least likely to have access to technology, including rural and minority students.

“We applaud Governor Quinn and Illinois legislators, including our Chief sponsors, Senate Majority Leader James F. Clayborne, Jr. and Representative LaShawn K. Ford, for supporting this important legislation,” said T. Kendall Hunt, Chairman, CEO, VASCO Data Security International, and Chair of TechAmerica Midwest. “TechAmerica is a strong advocate for educational initiatives that better prepare students, and our future leaders, for the 21st century.”

The educational, environmental, and financial benefits of using digital textbooks and materials in the classroom are numerous. Studies have shown increased attendance by students, improved writing scores, and greater depth of student research in schools using digital textbooks and related technologies. Digital literacy is the cornerstone of most professional and academic environments. These initiatives help familiarize students with the types of hardware, software and internet programs that they will be expected to use in the workplace. Senate Bill 3547 will also help put technology in the hands of the student groups least likely to have access to technology, including rural and minority students.

The educational, environmental, and financial benefits of using digital textbooks and materials in the classroom are numerous. Studies have shown increased attendance by students, improved writing scores, and greater depth of student research in schools using digital textbooks and related technologies. Digital literacy is the cornerstone of most professional and academic environments. These initiatives help familiarize students with the types of hardware, software and internet programs that they will be expected to use in the workplace. Senate Bill 3547 will also help put technology in the hands of the student groups least likely to have access to technology, including rural and minority students.

While I applaud the efforts of moving forward with digital textbooks, I am concerned with the lack of mention regarding the design of those digital textbooks (or the way the digital textbooks are accessed) be accessible to ALL students. It is amazing to me that in the age where the National Educational Technology Plan (http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010) is peppered with language regarding UDL and NIMAS that local state legislation does not incorporate those concepts from the beginning.

Any thoughts on this?

Thinking about Relationships...

Anyone who has been around education knows that there are always initiatives....always. Some make sense while others don't. I have the privilege of working with a number of different future and practicing education professionals in helping them understand the role that technology could - or should - play in the education of students with disabilities and other diverse learning needs.

About three years ago, I was invited by a colleague, Dr. Maureen Angel, to do a guest presentation in her class. The class was comprised of future special education administrators and schools psychologists and focused on technology applications in special education. I was asked to help paint the 'big picture' of technology use with relation to the education of students with disabilities. My viewpoint is (albeit, perhaps a biased one) that technology has the potential to be beneficial in almost every aspect of educating students with disabilities. However, as I was presenting, questions started to arise as to how technology - specifically assistive technology - fit into various initiatives and mandates - Response to Intervention (RtI), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) and the Assistive Technology (AT) mandate within IDEA. We had some lively discussion about these but I decided to put together a graphic to begin fueling the discussion and think about the relationships between these various initiatives and mandates. The graphic has been revised several times as my thinking has changed over time.

Let me see if I can break this down.

UDL is predominantly made up of, in my opinion, two components - differentiated instruction and universally designed materials. I am using the term differentiated instruction loosely to refer not only to Tomlinson's concept of Differentiated Instruction but also to the concept that there is a pedagogical side to UDL. A teacher needs to know how to design and implement the tenets of UDL - multiple means of expression, representation and engagement - across a variety of learners. These strategies and techniques should be grounded in research based practices that have been shown to be effective with students.

UDL cannot be accomplished without access to universally designed materials. Universally designed materials are based not only accessibility guidelines and standards - leading to accessible instructional materials - but are flexible to provide multiple means of representation and engagement.

Assistive technology, by its nature, is a compensatory intervention that allows a student to do something that he or she would not be able to do without the assistive technology, ultimately resulting in enhanced performance on a given task. Universally designed materials and accessible instructional materials, by their natures, are ready to be use by individuals with a variety of needs. However, while universally designed materials and accessible instructional materials will meet the needs of many individuals, some individuals will still need to use additional assistive technologies to access these materials. The design elements of these materials are such that assistive technologies are able to work well with these materials. It is the difference between using assistive technology to approximate access and using assistive technology actually achieve it. I maintain that there continues to be a need for AT and that UDL does not, in itself, replace AT but make it easier for a user to use AT to interface with instruction and instructional materials. It is the combination of fully realized UDL (grounded in good pedagogy using materials that are truly universally designed) and the use of AT that provides access to the curriculum.

So what about Response to Intervention? Well, if the thought process behind RtI is to provide levels of support that are grounded in scientifically valid interventions to specifically target areas in which students are having difficulty, doesn't it make sense that those interventions also take into consideration UDL? In some way, UDL has an influence on RtI....but I am not sure the full picture of this influence has yet been realized or understood.

Now...some disclaimers. There is - or should be - a relationship between RtI and AT. However, again, this relationship, I think, is still not yet well defined. There is also a relationship between RtI and the curriculum. I just didn't note it here. UDL, as pointed out by Edyburn (2010), is a construct - one that is still being conceptualized and brought into practice. There is a lot we still need to learn about UDL (and that holds true for AT as well) before we can realize its full implications or understand its effectiveness.

This representation of relationships is one that is in constant development. I welcome thoughts and ideas to allow this continue to grow.

Towards a Systemization of Accessible Instructional Materials

I have the privilege of working with a great group of AT Coordinators in the local region.  This group is made of people who are truly passionate about using technology to meet the needs of students both with and without disabilities.  It is a bit of a unique group since they are comprised of several different entities, some of which are unified school districts and some of which include a number of districts linked together though a special education cooperative.  The goal of this group has always been to provide some guidance in the establishment of similar practices with regard to AT service delivery within the region.  Not a small feat!

Over the past year, discussions have been gearing up related to effectively providing Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) to students, both who do and do not receive special education services.  As awareness of AIM grew over the past year (and yes...we know that IL is behind the times on this), the need for a plan began to emerge.  Using the model of managing complex change in systems, a vision was set to work towards a system that would provide AIM to all students that needed it.  The group sat down and began developing a plan, realizing that development of knowledge and skills with regard to AIM would be critical to moving any change forward.  Several key groups were targeted for knowledge and skill development:

• Curriculum Purchaser/Decision Maker
• General Education Administrators
  
• Technology Directors
• Special Education Administrators
• AIMS Implementation Leaders
• Special Education Teachers
• General Education Teachers
• Families
  

Specific knowledge and skills indicators were then developed for each of these groups.  The only group that didn't currently exist was that of the AIMS Implementation Leaders.  This group was created to represent a group of individuals who would serve as a key contact for issues related to the provision of AIM.

While this is in the planning stage, I think the group may be onto something that may prove effective and, even, replicable in other systems. 

What are your thoughts?

Towards A Checklist Manifesto for Good Instruction

Every once in a while, in between coding and writing for my dissertation, I actually have time to work on cleaning off the DVR. Actually, the DVR many times threatens to explode and take my house out with it unless I clear some things off. Well, anyway, I was watching an episode of John Stewart and he had a guest - Dr. Atul Gawande - who authored the book, The Checklist Manifesto. This book, which I am in the process of reading, describes the process of developing the checklist to be used by surgeons and a study that evaluated the impact of using checklist within the operating room. The idea for the checklist was borrowed from the aviation industry referencing the checklist that pilots use to prepare the plane for takeoff. The idea was to develop a checklist that surgeons could use in the operating room to ensure that key steps were not omitted. After the checklist was developed and implemented, the study to examine the effectiveness of the checklists found significant drops in postsurgical complications and deaths. For more information on this book, I will refer you to the New York Times article entitled, A Hospital How-To Guide That Mother Would Love.

After watching the interview and beginning to read the book, I began thinking about the instructional planning process that teachers go through as they prepare their lessons. I believe that all teachers want their students to learn. I also believe that there is a pragmatic aspect to lesson planning and that, sometimes, even the best teachers may fall into a routine of using certain strategies or techniques repeatedly due to comfort, the pace of planning and implementing learning experiences, etc. I know, at least, that from time to time I have fallen into that trap. I have also experienced putting together and executing really good lessons where all students were engaged and 'got it' and other lessons that I felt 'if I only did these things differently' the precious time I had with the students would have been better spent. As I talk with other teachers, this phenomenon seems to be a shared experience.

In addition, teachers are bombarded with so many, well intentioned initiatives and models - Response to Intervention, Differentiated Instruction, Universal Design for Learning, Understanding by Design, Direct Instruction, 21st Century Learning, and so on. These initiatives and models have both similar attributes and some differences. Some have greater degrees of efficacy research supporting the initiative/model and others have less. Teachers also have different awareness and understanding of these initiatives and models and may or may not ascribe to one or more of these. Put in the words of one of my K-12 teaching colleagues as we were sitting in the start of the year meeting, "I wonder what the model for instruction will be this year?"

Suffice to say, the instructional planning process for teachers is complex.

So, that brings me to thinking about what a checklist might look like for good instruction. Would a checklist - say no more than 5-7 items - that teachers would consult every time they plan be a good thing? The checklist would contain the 'must haves' for each and every learning experience for which they are planning. The items on the checklist would result in learning experiences that allow every student to learn and be successful.

What would be the components of such a checklist?

Technorati Tags: instructional planning, checklist, UDL

Get the word out!

As some of you know, I work at the Special Education Assistive Technology Center (SEAT) Center at Illinois State Univeristy. A couple colleagues of mine have been engaged in research related to using technology with young children who are either at-risk or have been identified as having a disability. They have recently launched a survey to further this line of research. From their survey:

The purpose of this project is to examine the experiences and needs of parents having young children with disabilities with a focus on technology tools that can support them. We hope to learn about fathers' experiences and needs to help us develop recommendations and guidelines for professionals who work with parents of young children with disabilities.

They are looking for parents of young children with disabilities to complete this survey. This is a good opportunity to ensure that the voice of families with young children with disabilities can be heard and, potentially, have influence over policy and practice.

The link to the survey is https://forms.coe.ilstu.edu/sed/TakeSurvey.aspx?PageNumber=1&SurveyID=86L1872.

Please share this link with others to get the word out!

Intel Reader...accessiblity in the palm of your hand?

At ATIA a couple weeks ago, the Intel Reader created a bit of a buzz. A number of people now know about the KReader and KNFB Reader from Kurzweil which allow a person to use a Nokia phone to take a picture of a piece of text, process the picture using OCR, and then use text to speech to have the text read to the user. The Intel reader does all of that and a bit more. While a bit bigger and bulkier, there are some really nice features. Check out the video below:

What are your thoughts?

Are we outpacing ourselves?

I just got back from Disney World and, while I was there, I went to "The Land" in EPCOT (which incidentally stands for Every Person Comes Out Tired).  While I was in line waiting for one of the rides, I was reading a bunch of quotes on the wall that all had to do with saving the environment.  One quote, in particular, got my attention:

While I know this quote is not about the landscape of education, it does have relevance to what we are currently experiencing in education.  The citizens we are preparing to enter this world must have skills that are very different that students we were preparing even 5 to 10 years ago.  Think about it.  I know this is nothing new but it does cause me to ponder the total systemic impact of this change.  It reminds me of poster I had in my dorm during college with the quote:

We shall require a substantially new way of thinking if mankind is to survive.

I thought for a long time that this quote was anonymous.  It was years later that I linked it to Albert Einstein.  Amazing how these quotes...made so many years ago...have such applicability to what we face today!

How will you keep up?  How will you survive?

What happens when innovation outpaces accessibility?

I was presenting to a group of higher education faculty the other day on Universal Design for Learning and how they could move forward on creating creating course that were more aligned with the principles of UDL.  The morning was presented largely by a colleague of mine and she worked to establish the foundation of UDL in higher education settings specifically focusing on Multiple Means of Expression, Engagement, and Representation.  The afternoon was my part and focused on using technology-based tools to help integrate these principles within courses and discussions ensued as to how each of these tools could achieve multiple means of expression, engagement and representation.  As part of the discussion, we also talked about accessibility.  We talked about accessibility for two reasons.  First, part of being 'universal' is ensuring that everyone can access and interact with the content being provided.  Second, Illinois passed the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act whcih requires Illinois agencies and Universities to ensure their various information technologies are accessible to people with disabilities.  This law extends ADA and Section 508 compliance within the state of Illinois.  The point of discussion that ensued thereafter is what really got me thinking.  A number of the tools that I presented are accessible and/or increase the accessibility of content only in part or only for specific populations.  For example, I spoke about using the tool VozMe, which is a little widget that can be put on a page and, when a person highlights the text of a web page and clicks on the button, there is a speech equivalent version generated.  However, when we tried to work this through a popular screen reader, the tool was not accessible.  I know this sounds redundant (using a screen reader tool to access a tool/service that provides text to speech) but similar cases could be made for embedding audio, video, VoiceThreads and many other tools/services as well.  If only partial accessibility is provided by the use of these tools, can they be considered to be 'universal'?  I would suggest that they are not.

I would propose, at this point and time, that UDL is a philosophical construct...a vision of 'what could be', if you will.  There are a number of things that are preventing UDL from being truly realized currently.  Copyright law prevents standard print from being truly accessible to all.  To access print in an accessible form, individuals often need to be 'certified' as being eligible to access the print in a form that meets their individual needs.  The explosion of user generated web content has left a plethora of online resources with limited or no accessibility.  There are a number of concerns with the degree to whcih Web 2.0 technologies are meeting the standards of accessiblity.  Even emerging technologies such as the Kindle DX are not exempt.  Truth be told, accessibility is still an afterthought of innovation.  Until accessibility is proactively integrated into tool development,  UDL can not  be fully achieved.

Until this time, however, we are left to approximate UDL by using a number of different tools to move towards multiple means of expression, engagement and representation, some with more accessibility than others.  The questions that I am left with, however, from both an ethical and legal perspective, are:

1. Do we use a variety of tools, some fully accessible and some partially accessible, to approximate UDL or do we only use those tools that are currently accessible to all? 
   
2. If we only use those tools that are fully accessible, knowing that in doing so we are placing limits on the use of other innovative tools, do we limit the degree to which UDL can be provided?  Is this an acceptible practice?

What do you think?

Thinking about AT Consideration and Implementation

I was in a meeting the other day and a colleague of mine had shared something that she had heard a teacher say.  "I don't want to write down that the student needs AT - its available in my class.  If I write it down, then I will have to do one of those forms!"  Let me pause to explain something here - The district...about a year or so back...had implemented the use of an AT Implementation Plan 'form' within their IEP software.  The idea behind the implementation plan was to document a number and help teams plan for a number of things including -

• Training - who needed training and on what specifically did each party need to be trained and in what time frame
  
• Location - where was the item to be used and how would it be stored or transitioned from location to location
• Programming/Customization - who would be responsible for 'tweaking' the AT to meet the student's individual needs and what type of 'tweaking' needed to occur
• Maintenance Plan - document routine maintenance (e.g., charging) and how other incidental maintanance would occur
• Contingency Planning - a plan should the AT ever fail so that the student's needs were being met

This plan is done annually as part of the annual review process.  Now, I firmly believe, and policy and the literature would support, that these types of things need to be considered, documented and followed as part of the provision and implementation of AT.  However, as I began talking with other teachers, I started noticing some commonalities in their thinking.  Of course, as one may have guessed, the idea of doing additional paperwork was not received well by many of the teachers.  Even so, the teachers felt this was a necessary part of the process to ensure the bases were covered.  The notion that I found more interesting related to the 'Annual Review'.  Going back to undergrad, and even grad school, it was drilled into my head that an IEP needed to be reviewed at least annually.  However, as many of the teachers with whom I spoke also noted, the pragmatic interpretation of this is 'the IEP must be reviewed annually - leaving out the 'at least' portion of the requirement. 

This begged the question for me,

If teachers were only revieiwing the IEP annually, is this frequency at which they were also thinking about AT? 

When I started speaking to the teacher and asking thsi question, the answer was 'yes'.  Now, let me qualify that a bit.  Many of the teachers did focus on AT throughout the year - the AT that was already within the student's IEP. In other words, they implemented the IEP including any AT provisions that were documented within.   However, they reported really only thinking about AT more critically as part of the annual review because this is when they are required to do so.  My follow up questions was, What happens to the AT if it is not proving to be effective?  A number reported that they 'wait' until the next annual review to make changes to the AT.  Some of the teachers reported trying out different tools that they had available in their classrooms and even, in some instances, begain using the tools en lieu of the non-effective AT on the IEP but never went back to update the IEP. Several of these teacher reported never listing these tools on the IEP because the tools had not gone through the AT Consideration Process.  The teachers explained that in thier districts, there was a defined process that they had to go through as part of the AT Consideration process.   Most of the teachers described some variation of the SETT Framework, though it was treated more as a SETT process.  Some of the teachers had different 'pathways' to 'getting AT' for their students.  For these teachers, common AT or AT readily available in their school district could be accessed through a specific individual.  More expensive AT or less available AT had a more extensive process of meetings and discussions.  Regardless of the situation, many of the teachers reported that these processes and pathways were strongly associated with the annual review and served as 'gateways' to getting AT.

It strikes me that, for these teachers, AT is something that must be considered, where the consideration of AT is associated with some protocol and is prompted by the annual review process.  I worry that, in the best of intentions, schools have created a beaurocracy out of the acquisition and implmentation of AT.   Teachers - good teachers - make hundreds, if not thousands, of instructional decisions every day to help faciliate student success in the classroom.  Teachers envoke the use of a number of strategies to help move a student from point A in their learning to Point B.  They draw upon their pedagogical knowledge and the tools they have readily available to them to help students achieve. I wonder the extent to which teachers feel empowered to consider and implement AT at the same frequency that they use so many other techniques and tools in their classroom or does the mandate to use a formal protocol (either real or perceived) get in the way?

Closing the Digital Divide...

I was coming into work today and was met with a ton of graffiti. I thought to myself. 'Here, we go again!' You see, working on a college campus, there is always 'sidewalk art' as well as various other messages appearing everyday. It was not until I read the messages there were so largely placed in front of my building that I became intrigued. Take a look for yourself:

I knew that a colleague of mine, Emily Watts, routinely discusses the concept of the digital divide, especially with regard to students with disabilities, and that she taught last night. We talked on the phone earlier and she told me that after their class discussion, the class went out to 'spread the message'. How very cool!

ZAC Browser...A Web Browser for Children with Autism

I just downloaded the ZAC Browser. This browser has been designed with children with autism in mind. Quoting some from their website:

ZAC is the first web browser developed specifically for children with autism, and autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), and PDD-NOS. We have made this browser for the children - for their enjoyment, enrichment, and freedom. Children touch it, use it, play it, interact with it, and experience independence through ZAC.

ZAC is the zone that will permit your child to interact directly with games (a LOT of games) and activities (focused on MANY interests) that cater specifically to kids who display the characteristics of autism spectrum disorders, like impairments in social interaction, impairments in communication, restricted interests and repetitive behavior. ZAC has been an effective tool for kids with low, medium and high functioning autism.

ZAC focuses on the children and their interaction - But we also provide an excellent forum for parents, caretakers, teachers, and others to share their experiences, tools and resources and to unite as a caring, compassionate, and extremely knowledgeable community. It is said that "it takes a village to raise a child", and that is exponentially true for raising a child with autistic spectrum disorders. The power of your experience yesterday is going to be instrumental in helping someone successfully tackle the circumstances of today.

The user interface is very visual and very interactive. It provides links to a number of different places on the web related to videos, stories, games, and music. The interface makes a great browser for many young children. I did some further investigation with the browser and noticed that it would be fairly easy to configure the browser for switch access as well. Check out the preview below:



So....what do you think?

Why aren't all schools using Firefox?

I was just reading an article written by Steve Lee enititled "Mozilla Firefox helping to make the web accessible to all". It discussion many different accessibility features that are built into Firefox that are aimed at providing access to the web as well as different extensions that can be added to Firefox (at no charge) to improve the accessibility of the browser. There is ongoing committment by the Firefox developers to increase the accessibility of Firefox as well.

Firefox is not only free and working towards good accessibility, but just like the extensions (also called add-ons) mentioned above, there are a number of extensions that can support students in a variety of ways. Here are a few of my favorites beyond those that can be added for accessibility:

• Clipmarks - Allows a person to clip all or part of the web page and organize into various collections while retaining URL info. Great for research!
• Duplicate Tab - A person can duplicate a current tab along with its browsing history.
  
• Del.icio.us - A quick access to posing links to one's own del.icio.us account.
  
• Diigo Toolbar- A quick access to posting links, organizing links, highlighting and annotating web content through one's own diigo service.
  
• FireShot - FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages.
  Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and
  annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert
  text and graphical annotations.
• Image Zoom - Allows images to be viewed independenly of the webpage and enlarged.
  
• Google Notebook - Great tool for quickly creating and sharing Google Notebooks.
  
• Hyperwords - Select any word or words on any web page. A menu pops-up. Choose from
  any one of the many powerful commands. Fully customizable menu and
  behavior.
• PicLens - Allows browesing of online photos and videos in a very unique way! Much easier than standard browsing methods.
  
• Scribefire - ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your
  browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop
  formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, upload images,
  and post to multiple blogs.
• Tab Catalog - By hovering over an icon, the user get a thumbnail array of all of the open tabs. Nice way to find the tab for which one is looking!
  
• WOT - Warns users about risky websites that try to scam visitors, deliver malware, or send spam.
• Zotero - Great for those of use doing research. This tool allow for the collection and organization of many different content types. It will even capture the necessary information for correct citations and produce those citations in the correct format (e.g., APA, MLA, etc.).
  

There are so many more extensions that can be used to help students explore and interact with web content. When I have had the fortune to present and work with educators, I often speak highly about different ways in which Firefox can be used. I am shocked and amazed how many times I am told that their schools have policies that prohibit Firefox from being installed on school computers. I hope more teachers will advocate for access to Firefox within schools.

Given all of the power and flexibility of Firefox...why aren't all school using it? Talk about Universal Design....

Getting Speech Recognition Back into MS Office 2007 on Windows XP

We have been conducting fresh installations of Office 2007 on Windows XP systems. As I went to test things to make sure everything was OK, I noticed (despite the many layout changes in Office 2007) that the 'Speech' option (formerly located on MS Word 2003 under Tools) was no where to be found. I went through many different blogs and tech forums to conclude that Office 2007 does not have speech recognition. I believe the intent is to allow Office 2007 to rely on the speech recognition features that are built into Windows Vista. However, this does not help those of us who are running Office 2007 on Windows XP. So, I began tinkering...

I discovered that, after one installs Office 2007, one can add components that were found in Office 2003, which includes the speech recognition components. Simply after installing Office 2007, put the Office 2003 CD into the drive and start the installation procedure. Choose to do a custom install and then disable the installation of everything except the Office Components (which should run all from disk). Then complete the installation. Voila...speech recognition is back.

Hope this helps!

ADHD...from a child's perspective...in a song

I came across a great little video featuring a song that was sung by a young man describing his experiences with ADHD. Honestly, I am not sure it was based on his experience but the song makes some nice points anyway. It is captioned with English subtitles so, be prepared. This could be a great introduction on ADHD for students as well as educators!

Website offers text to speech services!

I love new applications of technology...especially when they are free. In my surfing over lunch, I discovered a new web service that enables users to access text to speech support for a variety of documents. The web service is readthewords.com.

Basically, the web service allows a person to take written text, a word document, a pdf document, a web page or an RSS feed and have it converted, using a text to speech engine, into an audio format. There are 14 different voices from which to choose including those that support English, Spanish and French. A person can control the rate and pitch of the voice being used. The voices available are of good quality which is unusual for a free product. Once the audio format is generated (which is relatively quick), a person can add it to his or her mp3 player, put it into Itunes, listen to it on the computer or even post the file to a web page or blog.

What a fabulous resource!

Pocket-able Math Supports

I love aimless surfing! It always seems to result in finding something that I never expected to come across...

In this episode of aimless surfing, I came across the website "Fantastic Flexible Foldables" by Carol DeFreese. This site contains seven different foldable activities for math. The one that I had a chance to explore in depth was the Fraction Mini Book which provides a number of hints and rules for working with fractions and mixed numbers. The ingenious part of this is that it literally allows a students to have all of these rules at their fingertips. Just print out the PDF or Word file, follow the directions cutting and folding it and then VOILA!, an instant resource on fractions.

The site also contains Factors and Multiples Mini Book, Fortune Teller Game, Geometry Tetfraflexagon, Integer Infinity Square, Fraction Flipper/Decimal Flipper/Music Flipper, and Lines Trihexaflexagon. While some of these are resources like the Fractions Mini Book, others are designed to be used to help teach various mathematical concepts.

The Fraction Mini Book reminds me of a concept I heard a long time ago as I was listening to a presentation from Dave Edyburn called Cognitive Credit Cards. A Cognitive Credit Card is an intervention that involved having a credit card sized laminated card that contains different cues for a specific topic. The intervention was received by students, teachers, and parents.

I bet one can do something similiar using PocketMod as well.

21st Century Tools

Find more videos like this on Illinois Technology Conference For Educators


I just came across this video and thought I'd share...

I have to say the video makes an important point. There has been much discussion on issues of differentiated instruction, 21st Century Skills, and Response to Intervention...all of which are important. However, each of these requires our schools to have the necessary infrastructure to realize these initiatives...

Bookshare.org goes free of charge!

According to their website, Bookshare.org, which is a repository and supplier of digital texts for individuals with print disabilities will no longer be charging schools for access to its repository. A Department of Education grant in the ballpark of 32 million dollars over a 5 year period allows for this to occur. This funding will support all students in K-12 schools that qualify as having a print disability.

This has tremendous implications for students in K-12. Bookshare.org has traditionally taken a liberal stance on print disability eligibility. Some other alternate text organizations have viewed the requirement for a 'qualified individual' that can determine whether or not a person has a print disability as being a member of the medical profession. As stated on their website, Bookshare.org accepts different proof of a print disability from different professionals, based on the nature of the disability.

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Thinking about UDL...

I was approached by an administrator the other day who asked me to explain 'UDL' to him. I began explaining that UDL is a shift in thinking and curriculum material design that allows teachers to meet students at the individual level and offer tailored scaffolded instruction while hooking into those things that engage the each student. I gave some brief examples, all of which, involved some integration of technology and spoke to the UDL tenets of Multiple Means of Expression, Engagement and Representation. He listened intently and then said, "Well UDL is basically a rehash of differentiated instruction with technology, right?" I paused, sighed (I have heard this perception before) and tried to explain it again. However, I'm not sure that I was successful.

Since that experience, I have been sincerely thinking about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) with respect to bringing it from a theoretical level to a pragmatic level that is easily understood by teachers to implement in their classrooms. In thinking about UDL, it struck me this morning (in the shower...where the best thinking occurs) that the problem with UDL is that it is a goal, a state of being, that has not yet been reached and, consequently, has not been experienced. This, I think, or at least is my thinking at this point, is the crux of the issue. We are in the process of moving towards this UDL utopia and, therefore, filling in the blanks. So, please indulge me as I ramble and try to add some thoughts to those blanks.

UDL, I believe, has two major components: universally designed materials and universally designed instruction. I will try to speak to both in turn.

UDL, as many people know, came from UD, or Universal Design. UD comes from the field of architecture. No new news there. However, this piece, I believe, plays a crucial point in realizing UDL. The key here is that curriculum materials used in the provision of instructions must be designed in a way that meets students 'where they are at'. A couple years ago, I heard Dave Edyburn describe UDL as a built in control panel for curriculum materials where teachers would just have to choose the right setting based on the student (e.g., readability, prior experiences, degree of pictoral support, etc.) and the curriculum material with automatically adjust to meet the student's needs. Well, I think it is safe to say that we have a long way to go here. However, steps, like NIMAS, are being taken to move in this direction. This 'design' level has much to do with establishing and setting policy as well as law. But since we do not currently have UDL designed curriculum materials, that leaves us in a sort of UDL primordial ooze.

In the interim, we look to existing and emergent technologies to adapt existing materials to, hopefully, approximate UDL designed materials. Text readers and the addition of picture supports to text, multimedia adaptations or integrations into various academic experiences add depth and provide differentiated experiences for students. The incorporation of various Web 2.0 and other digital technologies allow students to express themselves in a multitude of ways.

However, regardless of whether teachers are using UDL designed materials or attempting to approximate UDL designed materials through adaptation, there is a pedagogical component to UDL. Specifically, a teacher needs to:

• Differentiate instruction for diverse learners.
• Know strategies, resources and tools that can be used to differentiate instructional experiences for students.
• Know how to use these strategies, resources, and tools.
• Know how to teach the students to use these strategies, resources and tools.

To this end, there is an interesting line of study that discusses the relationships between technology knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge. Quoting from www.tpck.org:

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge. At the heart of the TPCK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK).

I believe that it is only with universally designed curriculum materials and the use of the those materials within sound pedagogy that has been influenced by UDL tenets that UDL will be realized.

Just some thoughts...