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I have discovered another great resource for teachers – CITED! http://www.cited.org/index.aspx
It is “a technical assistance center funded by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs, is a cooperative effort of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), and the Education Development Center (EDC).”
The website offers an online course, “Differentiating Instruction Through Technology”. Along with the course you get a toolkit of tools, strategies, and resources that will help you differentiate planning, instruction, management and student assessment.
What I find really exciting is that the website contains a link to a ”powerful” tool called, the TechMatrix (www.techmatrix.org). This tool is designed to help educators and families find the best learning and assistive technology tools for students with special needs.
The website also contains a Learn Center, an Action Center, and a Research Center whose focus is on technology in education. It truly has a lot to offer.
I recently discovered an online test creator called Easy Test Maker that would enable regular education and special education teachers to save time creating and modifying assessments. To quote their website
EasyTestMaker is a FREE online test generator to help you create your tests. With Easy Test Maker you can create multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer and true and false questions all on the same test. You can also insert instructions and divide your test into multiple sections.
EasyTestMaker automatically generates alternate versions entirely randomized and master answer sheets with a single click! Just click the “Generate Alternate Versions” or “Print Answer Sheet” link when you are done creating your test. It’s that easy!
Upon reviewing the test maker I found that it would be very helpful not just to “regular education” teachers, but to special education teachers as well. As a special educator I often had to modify tests – individualize them for the students in the class who may have had a language, executive function, attention or visual disability. Often pressed for time as teachers are, I wouldn’t get to see the test (as it was literally just created) until the day of the test. This resulted in a lot of quick cutting and pasting, crossing out or marking on the test. Often it resulted in removing the student from their classroom so that I could help them navigate their test.
This program would allow a special educator to go into the teacher made electronically created test and make quick adjustments. They would be able to change font size, bold, highlight, underline or italicize words to draw attention to them or make them easier to read. They could insert a synonym for a word that they knew their students wouldn’t understand. They would be able to highlight words or phrases and save this modified test having modified it to meet the individualized needs of their students quite easily.
Also, If a teacher wanted to help prevent cheating they could generate multiple versions of the test with a click of the button – rearranging the questions randomly.
You can check out this free tool at: http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx
I was reading through the eSchoolNews yesterday and discovered what appears to be a great resource for teachers, administrators, students, parents and technology personnel alike. What is it you ask?
It is a website called Atomic Learning. To quote their site: “Atomic Learning provides web-based software training for more than 110 applications students and educators use every day. Our short, easy-to-view-and-understand tutorials are an integral part of a professional development program, a valuable curriculum supplement, and an anytime/anywhere training resource.”
As if that wasn’t awesome enough; Atomic Learning has an assistive technology collection that: “includes short, show-and-tell video tutorials that empower educators to use and apply assistive technology. The foci of these tutorials are:
Special education software
Assistive technology devices
Software accessibility training tutorials
But wait that’s not all, for a limited time only they are offering a free 7 Steps to a Flat Classroom, online workshop that includes over 80 (I stopped counting) tutorials for well over 2 hours of free professional training.
BUT WAIT that’s still not all – if you act now you can use this incredible program for 14 days free. That’s right folks, you can enjoy 100% access to Atomic Learning – including the Technology Skills Collection of over 37,000 software training tutorials on more than 110 common applications and the Assistive Technology Collection featuring on-demand training for special education software, assistive technology devices and accessibility features – FREE for 14 days at: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/7sfc_wb2
I wish I could say that you could get all of this for just $19.95 once the trial period was over, but alas, you can’t. A year’s subscription is $99.00 for the Technology Skills collection and $149.99 for the Assistive Technology collection. However, given the cost of attending workshops, conferences, or graduate level classes, overall, it seems to be a good deal.
I signed up for the 14 day free trial and will be checking out many of the assistive technology tutorials. I will be posting updates on what I discover.
I discovered a wealth of information on Web 2.0 tools for teachers on the International Society for Technology in Education’s website. The link below contains information and additional links to websites that focus on technologies such as: Blogging, Wikis, Aggregators, Social Bookmarking, Photo and Drawing, Photo Sharing, Video, Web-based Word Processing, Web-based Spreadsheets, Presentation Tools, Search Tools, Task Management, Online Calendars, and Mapping. Check them out at:
There are many different free online tools for teachers that can help them to integrate a variety of technologies into their curriculum. I have listed those that I have tried under the free tools for teachers link category to the left of this post. The image posted below I created using a free graphic organizer tool found on www.Bubbl.Us.
Assistive Technology by Disability
Click on the link above the snapshot (mouse over image) to see full-size version of this image.
