Leveraging the power of technology to transform teaching and learning
While facilitating a webinar series for MyInfinitec, an agency whose goal is to provide access to the core curriculum for all learners, I’ve taken another deep dive into the current accessibility features in Google Docs for Education. One of the best takeaways has been discovering the ability to present slides with captions for screen readers with Google Docs.
Continue reading “Present Slides with Captions for Screen Readers with Google Docs”
Are you looking for a user friendly and flexible tool to help you easily create engaging multimedia rich content to redefine teaching and learning? Are you interested in using technology to meet the personal learning needs of the students in your classroom? We invite you to attend our free webinar and explore the powerful possibilities that exist with ThingLink EDU.
ThingLink EDU is a digital tool that provides users with the ability to turn any image or video into a multimedia rich interactive learning tool. Start with an image or start with a video. Annotate it with audio, video, images and links to any content on the Internet with the click of a button.
Please join us for a free webinar as we explore inspiring examples and easy-to-follow instructions to help you transform teaching and redefine learning with ThingLink.
August 18th at 4:00 PM CST
An ePortfolio is a collection of student work that is used to document effort, progress, and achievement over time. Students become actively involved in their own learning as they engage in goal setting, decision making and self-reflection. ePortfolios are powerful tools for authentic assessment because they require teachers and students to dig deeper than a multiple choice test. As we scramble to fully implement the Common Core Standards, ePortfolios can be an extremely useful tool to help students develop skills necessary for success in school and beyond.
I have been an advocate for using ePortfolios for authentic assessment for quite some time. While I have made several attempts to help teachers learn to design and mange ePortfolios using a variety of digital tools to accomplish the task, I’ve discovered that teachers don’t always have the time or patience to see it through. I’ve come to the conclusion that if we are going to use ePortfolios as a standard assessment tool, the teacher buy-in needs to begin with a tool that is easy to use. Fortunately, I have recently discovered Open School ePortfolio and I am excited about the possibilities it offers.
Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences to address the diverse needs of all students. At the most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand, and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences that are fueled by essential questions and offer flexible learning paths, use of digital tools can break the learning barriers that exist in our classrooms.
Please join me and Simple K12 for an afternoon of webinars that will highlight digital tools and resources to help teachers design learning experiences that effectively incorporate Digital Differentiation.
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Learn more about each session on my Professional Development Blog or Sign up at Simple K12.
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This is part of a Digital Differentiation model, my way i of weaving a web of flexible tools together for teaching and learning. To keep the model relevant, frequent updates are required, as new tools and trends emerge.
To access the most current resources, please click on the tab at the top of this blog:
Ten months ago I published a Digital Differentiation model on this blog. I’ve been using the model to guide the work I do each day and I’ve been sharing it via webinars and hands-on training sessions.
Of course, ten months is a long time in the world of edtech, and I’ve added some new tools and resources to my personal teaching toolkit, so I decided it was time to update the model and tweak it just a bit. The original article and interactive graphic can still be found on this blog. Here is the new post:
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Inspired by Kathy Schrock’s Bloomin’ iPad, I decided to use Scoop.it to create a collection of visual resources to support Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. View the collection on Scoop.it.
Tag Galaxy is a Cool Tool to visually explore word relationships. Just type in a term and watch a 3D orbiting galaxy of words and their associations evolve Click on any word to move it to the center of the galaxy, then click on it again and watch the globe populate with tagged images from Flickr.
Uses in the Classroom:
In nearly every classroom there are a number of students who do not have the reading level needed to comprehend written content-based material. One of the biggest challenges teachers face is providing text for struggling readers. Technology is a tool that can help. Here are some tools for providing students with the support they need to succeed. Many thanks to Sheri Lenzo, assistive technology expert, for teaching me all of this and much more.
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Natural Reader
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Readability Bookmarklet
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Text Compactor
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Text to Speech for Mac
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Twurdy
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Wikipedia Simple English
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Hands-On Overview on JogTheWeb
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Text Compactor is a free online tool for summarizing and simplifying text. It is extremely user-friendly and requires no login so it’s a perfect tool for students to add to their own toolkits of resources.
Just copy and paste some digital text into the box, use the slider to determine the percentage of text you want to end up with, and view the simplified text.
Use it as a tool to help struggling readers of all ages. Try it at textcompactor.com.
Cool Tools for 21st Century Learners 
