The Meaning Behind the Name, a reminder

AT / UDL Tips & Tricks for Everyone...
What does AT stand for?
What is the meaning behind UDL?

Truthfully AT and UDL go hand-in-hand.

AT - Assistive Technology
Assistive Technology consists of DEVICES and SERVICES that help children 
with disabilities carry out a functional activity in their environment.
UDL - Universal Design for Learning
U.D.L. Technology consists of DEVICES and SERVICES that help children
carry out a functional activity in their environment.

Blabberize, a reminder

Are you looking for a fun new way for your students to present a report to the class? Do you have a student that is shy and struggles with oral reports? Are you looking for a different way to give directions to your class, maybe for when there is a substitute? I have just the thing for you. Turn a photo into a talking report with Blabberize.

Blabberize is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

1. Upload a picture

2. select the mouth on the picture and 

3. record the sound.

Listen to "Abraham Lincoln" recite part of the Gettysburg Address.

Guided Access, a reminder

What is Guided Access? How can it help in my classroom?

Guided Access is a built in Accessibility feature on the iPad. It helps students stay focused on a task while using the iPad. It limits the device to a single app and lets the teacher control which features are available.

Guided Access is a great technology management tool and can be enabled in a couple of quick steps.

Speech to Text, a refresher

Consider for a moment your students. Think about the ones who struggle to get their ideas onto paper. How about the students who struggle with spelling or have fine motor control issues. 

Speech to Text is a tool that can help these students and many others. Speech to Text is an Accessibility feature built into most computers today. It is a tool that allows a writer to dictate their thoughts and ideas into a document. Many Speech to Text options also allow you to speak the punctuation and a multitude of voice commands for editing purposes.

Google Docs has a built in Speech to Text option called Voice Typing.

Google offers a fairly comprehensive instructional guide for Voice Typing. The guide includes a list of languages supported by Voice Typing as well as a list of punctuation that can be voice enabled. The guide also includes a list of voice commands for formatting or editing your document in the sections under “Voice commands”. There are also some troubleshooting tips located near the end of the guide.

Because it is an accessibility feature, you can enable Speech to Text on a Mac.

Apple also provides a set-up and use guide that includes a variety of voice commands.

Give it a try! You (and your students) will love it!

Text to Speech, a reminder

As the school year starts it is nice to have a refresher on some tools, tips and tricks. Over the course of the next couple of weeks I am going to be reposting a few of my blogs, the ones that I feel are the most helpful as both AT and UDL tips and tricks.

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Text to Speech is a tool that has multiple uses. It can be used to help with reading and writing. It can be used by students and teachers.

I use text to speech to edit my writing. I listen to what I have written to help with sentence structure or misused words. It helps me improve my writing. I use text to speech to edit all of my blog posts.

Text to Speech can be a useful tool for struggling readers, English language learners, or readers with dyslexia as well. Using Text to Speech as a reading tool can help a variety of students and adults.

On a Mac follow these directions to enable Text to Speech.

Try it out for yourself.  I am sure you will love it!

Screencastify

Wow! Here it is already Wednesday and I have not posted yet. The start of this school year is hectic and I apologize.

Are you looking for a Screen Video Recorder.  Screencastify might be the answer.

The Lite version of screencastify offers:

▸ 10 minute recording limit per video 

▸ 50 videos per month 

▸ Screencastify watermark

You will be able to easily create a screencast for video tutorials and record presentations.  It also supports desktop capturing, allowing you to record anything on your screen with audio.

Follow my tutorial for setting up Screencastify and start exploring all of the possibilities.

Scrible

If you haven't noticed yet, I love Google Extensions. There are so many wonderful things they can do and most of them are FREE.

  Scrible is a Google Extension and a Google App.  The app lets you annotate, bookmark, save, manage & share online articles. The extension offers a tool bar that is a great way to annotate, tag and share online articles and webpages.  Both the app and the extension offer a Scrible account for storing your information.  The app and extension have features that let you:

• move the tool bar, starts at the bottom of the page
• highlight text
• add post-it
• change text color
• Underline 
• Bold 
• Italic
• Strikethrough
• e-mail or save the annotated file for later

The extension also:

• Notifies you when you’re on a webpage you previously annotated
• Prompts you to load your previous annotations
• Automatically loads your most recent annotations while you browse the Web

To create a Scrible account go to www.scrible.com