Audio in Google Slides...almost
According to Google, by the end of November, all users should have the "insert audio" capacity. I just checked my accounts. My personal account- Yes! I can insert audio. My school account- nope. I expect that it will roll out soon. Here is a quick video from Richard Byrne to show you how to do it ( when you actually have the magic button).
Scientific Method or Engineering Design Process?
I truly had not given this conundrum much thought until this summer when Kathy Renfrew, The Science Lady, and I were chatting at an edcamp and Kathy was pretty adamant, saying that scientists use EDP, not scientific method. I don't know if all scientists do this or those in a particular field or academics vs lab or field based, etc... Then, just the other day I saw this infographic that Vivify STEM shared online, showing the differences between the two methodologies and it got me wondering again. Here's the infographic from Vivify STEM. What do you think? Is this a binary choice? What do "real" scientists use?
Links to Share
The Age of AI
Wes Fryer shared the link to this article/video series recently and strongly recommended it as a must read. I haven't watched all the episodes, but wanted to share the link, as it is interesting and important information for all to begin to wrap our heads around. Is AI a threat or does it offer wonders not yet imagined? Here's the blurb that came with this installment: "FRONTLINE investigates the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, from fears about work and privacy to rivalry between the U.S. and China. The documentary traces a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our lives, our jobs and our world, and allow the emergence of the surveillance society."
Understanding Dyslexia
KQED published a downloadable guide The MindShift Guide to Understanding Dyslexia"This MindShift Guide to Understanding Dyslexia is meant to serve as a primer to: • Better understand, recognize and identify dyslexia • Discover new tools and teaching strategies to support dyslexic students in improving their reading skills • Be aware of resources that can support dyslexics of every age"
Closing the Gap- Resource Directory
As always you will find many resources here. However, the key to finding the right resource is SETT- Student, Environment, Task, and then Tech... and this is not a one and done deal. The student will change, the environment and required tasks will change- so the tech will have to change as well.
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I started looking through old posts I have done about dyslexia and wondered... what else can I add? Then... wow! So many great resources out there that I had not explored. Who knew that dyslexia was a superpower?
I love Understood.org for the clear messages they impart to parents and teachers. I started reading their page on historic figures that many now think were dyslexic. You can find this here. Then I got caught up in their page on Dyslexia as a super power. I had just looked at Christopher Brantley's announcement about his first comic/graphic novel which is coming out in time for Dyslexia Awareness month, called Phonetic Boy. Then I flipped over to "What's your Super Power?" and listened to the creator of Dog Man and Captain Underpants talk about having dyslexia. You can read more about him and other celebrities with dyslexia here.
I saw a webinar offering on Dyslexia Awareness that I signed up for here. You could also check out this webinar given by Wendy S. Farone, Ph.D. on Dyslexia: The Myths and the Mysteries
on Oct 16th. But wait, you're not a SPED teacher, you don't need to know more about dyslexia. YES YOU DO! Research shows that approximately 1 in 5 students in the typical classroom has dyslexia! So, chances are, you have students in your classroom today with dyslexia. And the really cool thing is, just about anything you do to help a student with dyslexia, will also help all your other students too. UDL works.
I saved the best for last... Microsoft has teamed up with Made by Dyslexia to offer a one hour online course on Dyslexia Awareness.
C'mon, you can spare an hour that may help you help your students, can't you? The link to the course: https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/courses/dyslexia-awareness-in-partnership-with-made-by-dyslexia Objectives
Global Maker DayToday is #Global Maker Day and students around the world shared what they are making and tried new challenges. Check out the landing pagehere, to get an idea of the structure of the day and then check out the video of the live stream. You can just click around the time line to view various classes, speakers in action. Thislink to the buncee slide show with the schedule can you a better idea of what to look for on the video timeline. Twitter was abuzz with great ideas from classrooms around the world. #GlobalMakerDay . Dyslexia Awareness Month
It seems that even our governor, here in Massachusetts, has added something to celebrate Dyslexia Awareness month. Governor Baker signed a proposal on Friday, which would require the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to come up with guidelines for screening of students with at least one indicator for dyslexia or another neurological learning disability. You can read more about it here.
CTD Quick Takes
I got an email from CTD, Center on Technology and Disability, featuring something new to me, Quick Takes. I love this idea. This series of Quick Takes is all about EF- Executive Functioning. There are 2 short videos to give an overview and some nice ideas for apps and then a few links to longer articles to begin to dive deeper into the topic. Check out the videos they shared below, but don't skip heading over the their website to learn more. They have a phenomenal library with thousands of articles, videos, webinars, all searchable by keywords.
Leveled Readers- What's the Best Way?
I was listening to a podcast about the best ways to use leveled texts and had hoped to pop the podcast right into this post, but it seems to be flash based and gets stripped right out. Jennifer Gonzales - from the Cult of Pedagogy Blog did an excellent interview with literacy consultant and author Jennifer Serravallo recently. Check out the podcast as well as the write up here.
ReadWorks Collections
Speaking of reading... one of my favorite reading resources is ReadWorks. Whether you are looking for reading passages, paired text or the wonderful "Article a Day" series, chances are you can find it on ReadWorks. Need stories read in a human voice? Need stories to appeal to your ELL students? Need to enhance your social studies or science curriculum? Check out ReadWorks for great content and built in supports for your readers.
Best Webinar on Fake News Evah!
I attend a lot of webinars. Over the last several years, we have all heard way more than we ever wanted to about "Fake News". I have attended many webinars talking about this and exploring ways to help our students determine the credibiilty of what they read/see. I know I just posted about this a couple weeks back, but... Tiffany Whitehead did a phenomenal job the other day and gave tons and tons of resources. I first met Tiffany at an ISTE librarian breakfast, maybe 2011 or 2012. She was an up and coming young librarian then, and wow- now she has really become one of the goddesses of the library world. What you should really do, head over to Edweb.net and watch the webinar. It's about an hour long. You can get MA pdps for these if you take the CE quiz at the end. So- here's the link and you can just head on over and watch it. I have a one tab page of links that I opened as we went along- so if you just want links... here you go. Don't miss the great infographics and lesson plans over at the Newseum. Tiffany has an excellent blog post with some great videos to share with your students. Great way to get these conversations going.
One resource that I am adding to HES/HA is the Brittanica School Insight chrome extension. This will help students bring fact-checked material to the top of their search. Read more about it here. I'm not doing a "force-install", simply adding it to the white list. To install, either click the big green button on that last link, or go here. I shared the video years ago, in a different venue, but if you are not familiar with the term "filter bubble", check out the TED talk below. Think confirmation bias... before you even get to look at a range of results. If you are logged into your Google account and use Google search- you are in the filter bubble. I know that many can not use an incognito tab at school, but try it at home and then look around to see what other search engines like Duck Duck Go come up with. It may surprise you. Here's Eli Pariser's talk on filter bubbles from 2011 ( yeah- that long ago- and we still have filter bubbles). Citations
While I am still on my research kick, citations. These used to be the bane of many a student's existence. Now, we have tools that make it ever so easy. One of the HES teachers contacted me a few weeks back because the Easy Bib online site had way too many ads, some not entirely appropriate for 5th and 6th graders- to say the least- "distracting". However, there is an Easy Bib add-on, right in Google Docs. Easy to use- no ads.
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month
H/T to all my AT friends who are posting great articles and links to help us learn more about dyslexia. Learning Ally has a great program called 1 in 5. Check it out here, and watch the video below. They also have great basic information as well as infographics you can download, print and share. Thanks to Leslie DiChiara for posting the link to Edutopia's article as well as many others. Check out this month's blogposts. You can find excellent resources to learn more about dyslexia at Understood.org. This is a whole page of links. Reading about how dyslexia impacts Henry's life in so many ways was really eye-opening for me as I read A Day in the Life of a Teen with Dyslexia. If you want to get a broad understanding of the many facets of dyslexia, check out the link here.
Hopefully the video below will show back up... YouTube seems to be having issues
Explode the Controller?
I met John Lynch at the Scratch Conference in Cambridge this summer. We were both in a hands on workshop, using micro controllers, arduino, etc... to make stuff. I was fortunate enough to get to work with John on our little project. I had seen his work earlier, but didn't know it was his when we were all checking it out. Now, after seeing his work all around the web, on makey-makey and so much more, I want to build some of these. So...HES teachers- this is a challenge for me, for you, for some of our students- let's make some of these Explode the Controller games!
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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