PUBLIC MARKS with tags crs & teachers

Reading with a simple interface - CLiCk, Speak is designed to be as easy to use for sighted users as possible. The interface is completely mouse driven; there's no need to remember any key combinations. Reading through a page is as simple as placing the cursor and hitting the GO button; reading a selection is as easy as highlighting the text and hitting the SPEAK button.

NWREL has compiled this vast array of lesson plans that any teacher for any grade level will find useful. Organized around the 6 +traits of writing (similar to the Dimensions of Writing). Search by trait and and grade level.

Alt-Click in Windows or (Mac OSx Command+Option+G) on any word in any program on your screen for an instant, pop-up AnswerTip that won't interrupt your work. For vocabulary words, instant definitions and real voice buttons to hear the word aloud.

VoyCabulary makes the words on any webpage into links so you can look them up in a dictionary or other word-reference-site of your choice, by simply clicking on the words.

Download PDF or PwerPoint tutorials for Intellikeys and Overlaymaker

subject specific web resources for teaching to the gifted student

Links to a few websites with lesson plans targeted toward higher level students.

This section is a resource for assistive technology specialists and others who use technology to promote learning and the inclusion of students with disabilities in the school setting. Here you will find a collection of technical tips, step by step directions and fact sheets on a wide variety of software programs and adaptive hardware.

Richard Walters' in-depth guide to making your own talking books is written especially for those with no experience of multimedia creation. This guide covers the construction of books in Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software. It also available for TAG Software's HyperStudio and Crick Software's Clicker. The guide includes step-by-step instructions on how to scan pictures, add symbols, record speech and put together a talking book. Fully illustrated with screen shots, these guides are useful for teachers, parents and professionals who want to give young people access to any story.

OATSoft is dedicated to improving Assistive Technology and computer accessibility through the power of Open Source development techniques. OATSoft makes the best Open Source Assistive Technology Software (OATS) easy to find. Users and developers meet at OATSoft to create better software. Users can find useful software and discuss and work with developers to get the features that you want.

PowerTalk is a free program that automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows. You just download and install PowerTalk and while you open and run the presentation as usual it speaks the text on your slides. The advantage over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images. Speech is provided by the standard synthesised computer voices that are provided with Windows.

Online PowerPoint Presentation on using Wikis in the classroom. An excellent guide.

StarOffice 4 Kids has been uniquely designed for easy customization by individual teachers to support specific learning objectives. It is aligned to the needs of a teacher and his or her specific teaching materials and not vice versa. StarOffice 4 Kids allows the teacher to handle an interactive learning process according to learning steps that he or she considers appropriate. Not only according to the age-specific steps of the class, but also in regard to the individual learning progress of the class or a selected group of students. Adjusted to the learning speed of the students a teacher could, for example, easily focus on the fundamentals of word processing. The teacher could start with work sheets with just the functions for using of texts in different fonts and font sizes. Once the students have learnt how to use those functions, the teacher could add new functions to the function toolbar and teach those in a next step. StarOffice 4 Kids makes it easy for the teacher to produce documents for the exercises in class. A teacher can easily transform usual office documents into task sheets for the class and store them into the subject specific folders. The students will find them in the workspace of their class. They will work on them and save them in their own workspace. This workspace only contains the personal files and that is protected from the access of other students. StarOffice 4 Kids documents and user interfaces are based on an XML data format, augmenting the open source StarOffice/OpenOffice format. That way StarOffice 4 Kids guarantees smooth integration and immediate use of external teaching material as provided by publishers in education. Teachers could directly take on the teaching material they need and use it in class.

WordTalk is a free plug-in developed for use with all versions of Microsoft Word (from Word 97 upwards), which can help people with reading difficulties use Microsoft Word more effectively. It will speak the text of the document and will highlight it as it goes. It contains a talking dictionary to help decide which word spelling is most appropriate. It sits neatly in your toolbar and is highly configurable, allowing you to adjust the highlight colours, the voice and the speed of the speech.

Online audio and/or video email or post to blog service.

Great use of a wiki for a high school pre-calculus class. Note the guidelines for "constructive modification". This idea good be extended across the curriculum. What a way to differentiate!

Another example where the qualities of writing are explicitly discussed and the sole purpose of the student blogs is to improve this skill.

This site corresponds to the BLOG WRITE link It’s second nature for us and our students to engage others in dialogue f2f. Commenting has great potential for extending learning and deepening understanding through meaningful dialogue in the blogosphere. Through an examination of powerful and significant comments, and exploration of suggestions for nurturing and guiding comments, meaningful online dialogue can become second nature to us and our students too.

Student audio and video podcasts about events around the school. There is an emphasis on sports....

This blog is interesting as the teacher explicitly discusses the six traits of writing when composing blog posts. She gives guidelines for making comments as well. Take a look at the students' own blogs with their posts on this topic. Take Derrick' Documents (left column) for example. He has a great post where he links each of the six traits to a classmate's blog as an exemplary user of the trait. Check it out! P.S. OHMYGOODNESS...thought this was a high school blog! These are 5th graders!

High school blog... Note all the comments and the handling of one inappropriate comment by a classmate.