Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Free Blogs for Students and Teachers

Edublogs offers cost free, ad free blogs for teachers and students. The learner blogs are hosted at learnerblogs, uniblogs or eslblogs. Each Edublog includes a free wiki space and free assessment software. The blogs use the open source Wordpress platform. There are endless possibilities for using these blogs and wiki spaces limited only by your imagination.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Free Online Videos for Education

I believe my students have the right to be exposed to the same curriculum as others their age, maybe not at the same level of complexity but the same topics. Therefore, I frequently teach using video clips. Video gives my students access to complex ideas and concepts. My year long history curriculum is "a decade a month", so I have shown clips of silent films from the twenties, 1930s cartoons, the Hindenberg Disaster, Apollo landing on the moon and peace protests in the seventies. I usually bring my 17" laptop right up to my horseshoe table to do this.

Last week, however, I discovered my primary source for video clips, You Tube, was blocked by the school firewall (as "tasteless"). Google Video is still working, but it is probably only a matter of time until that is blocked as well.

Therefore, to prepare myself and help out my fellow teachers I thought I'd better line up our video options.

The first option is to download the video clips, then you can play them when ever, where ever. You can put them on a flash drive and pop them in any computer. This can be done easily on Google Video by choosing "download" for mac/windows or even for iPod (and then show it in iTunes). For You Tube on Firefox you can install the VideoDownloader extension, on Opera you can install the VideoDownloader widget. If you use Internet Explorer, or something else, or if You Tube has changed their preferences recently you will need to use the VideoDownloader Website.

If you don't want to download videos or if you just want some new places to explore for educational videos, then here are some sites to try:

Enjoy your video teaching!

P.S. A free video player you may want to explore (an alternative to Real Player, Windows Media Player, etc.), which plays all types of videos and is high definition is the Democracy Player.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

How is it? Abuse Prevention Picture Symbols

Seeing a need and filling it is how most of special education works and this web resource is no different. How Is It is a website that offers 383 picture symbols that can be used to teach learners with disabilities about abuse prevention and to aid child protection services in working with children suspected of being abused. Disabled children are much more likely than their typical peers to be abused. It is our job as their teachers to do what we can to prevent this tragedy from happening. How Is It is a resource we can use to help us. This is what the their website says:

"How it is is an image vocabulary that has been developed to help children communicate about a range of important issues. It has been developed by Triangle and funded and supported by the NSPCC. The project was led by Ruth Marchant and Merry Cross of Triangle.

More than 100 children and young people contributed by drawing or commenting on images. The project was also supported by a multi-disciplinary group of professionals and parents.

How it is has been designed to be used as a flexible, child-centred resource."

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Free Simple Single Switch CD Player

For those of us with students not yet ready to scan using a switch, with goals and objectives focusing more on cause and effect, there is a free single switch CD Player that can be downloaded. Simon's CD Player simply starts and stops a CD player on your computer. No whistles or bells, just simple cause and effect training with music.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Website of the Day and Amazing Free Software - Don't miss this!

If you take now other advice I give on this blog let it be to check out and download the (free) software at Deafblind.org. This software is definately not just for Deafblind students, I can't think of any classroom for students with moderate to severe disabilities that would not have a use for it. The six pieces of software may save your school or agency thousands of dollars without really sacrificing quality.

I have only managed to play with five of the six of the programs since I discovered them three hours ago, but I am amazed. They are well done, versatile and easy to install and use.

First there is Sense Factory, a simple cause and effect program for one or two switches or the touchscreen. It rivals any simple cause and effect software out there, free or high priced. It also allows you to design your own switch programs akin to Switch It Maker, only about $125 (USD) cheaper. You can download a number of activities as well.

Then there is Everyday Skills, with is another simple cause and effect OR can be used as a quiz style program with switches or touchscreen. Students can watch and hear the sequences of ADLs or anything else you create and answer questions.

Next there is EdWord. This is the clincher. It is a talking word processor, along the lines of Write:Outloud or any other talking word processor, but with a much simpler interface. The uncluttered, clear design is fantastic. Plus you can set the level of options for each user. (The only thing I don't like is it will speak characters or words, but not sentences or paragraphs, but considering the price difference $99 (USD) versus nothing, I think it is worth it.) When you leave the EdWord program, but it is still open the software will act as Microsfot Narrator, reading all sorts of text boxes to you!

But here is where EdWord blows Write:Outloud and similar programs away, it can also be used as a symbol and text or symbol only processor, like Writing with Symbols or Clicker. You can type in text and have symbols appear overhead or you can create grid and make interactive writing activities. And did I mention that it is FREE!

One of the catches is that there are no included symbols. Not to fear that is where Symbol Maker comes in. With a few mouse clicks Symbol Maker transforms those symbol libraries, photograph collections, etc. into the symbols that are integrated into EdWord. Checkout any free symbol set if you don't already have a set of symbols you can convert. (For free symbol sets try: Sclera's Pictograms or Imagine Symbols.)

Be sure to download and make a quick read of the manuals for Symbol Maker and EdWord, because although simple, you do need to follow the directions to get it all working. Using Grid Maker is how you create the Clicker-esque interactive activities, I can't wait to try this feature out more.

Finally I have not tried EdWeb yet. It is a talking web browser which will not only speak web sites, but convert them into symbols.

This is the most amazing free web resource I have found to date for the special needs classroom. I can't even begin to say how impressed I am.

Kudos to Deafblind.org, UMIST and Sense!

Monday, January 22, 2007

Free Online Audio Books for Children

Here is a compilation of links from free online audio books:

Also check your local libraries website, many have free audiobooks rentals that expire and delete themselves after a period of time and/or memberships to sites like Tumblebooks.

Not free but great: Audible.com (Comment - although I enjoy iTunes for my music I don't use them anymore for audiobooks. The reason for this is Audible.com has better prices, especially with membership, and if I somehow delete an Audible book I can re-download it, iTunes does not allow that.)