Bookshare

Bookshare is a way for students who have qualifying print disabilities to access copyrighted text (books, textbooks, and newspapers) in electronic form through an exception in U.S. copyright law and is funded through the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs. For students to qualify for the service they need to provide documented proof of a visual impairment, physical disability, or learning disabilities that are severe enough to affect the student’s ability to read print. Documentation by a professional qualified to determine the disability and its connection to the student’s inability in reading print is what is required to qualify for the service.
Only qualified individuals can access the copyrighted material free of charge. In my investigation I found that a school or agency that serves students with qualifying disabilities can sign up and list their students on a roster. However there is a fee involved, $300 and up, for the school or agency. Then the school or agency can direct the student in getting the material and use it accordingly. I was excited until I found this information, our small school budget will not allow us to make this commitment at this time. I can and plan to direct some of my students through the process of signing up.
I can see this as beneficial for my students who range from early to advanced readers. I believe this allows the student with print disabilities to access the premium content and manipulate it ways they can use it better, either by enlarging the print or by using a text-to-speech program that they can read along with. Now the free text to speech programs that are out there, including the program that is embedded into my MacBook Pro, are a little choppy in their presentation and I am a little concerned that the halted pronunciations might throw off my students. I know programs that you can pay for, often at considerable prices, have much more real sounding voices and I believe that would be preferable if I had the budget to purchase them.
If cost was not a consideration I would be using Bookshare, coupled with a premium text to speech, almost solely because of the extensive library of copyrighted material the students can access in ways that allows them to really interact with the text as opposed to struggling to get through the standard formats.
Helpful and informative site about Bookshare here.

Cubism

Wii Remote Whiteboard

Luckily there are people out there designing wonderful ways for those of us without the monetary wherewithal to attain a similar product. One such person is Johnny Chung Lee. What he has done is written a software program that allows your computer to work in conjunction with a Wii remote, homemade infrared penlight, and an LCD monitor or projector. The whole setup costs around $50 and is very easy to setup. As I have mentioned earlier my students have difficulty engaging with the material we are working on, either because of a legitimate disability or conditioned behavior. Oftentimes when I present information via a PowerPoint presentation or through a short video the students have an easier time identifying the pertinent information that will be most useful to them later on. I am really looking forward to getting this going in my classroom and exploring all the possibilities this will offer me in providing instruction to my students.

Interactive Whiteboards

I work at a Non-Public school and although all of our students are placed directly through the districts they live in we do not receive any educational funding. Therefore we have a very limited budget that does not allow us to have wonderful tools such as Interactive Whiteboards, as seen on this informational site by the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. My students are fairly tech savvy and definitely active members of the cult of TV. Although I don’t currently have an interactive whiteboard whenever I roll out our 42-inch LCD monitor they certainly prepare themselves to pay attention, much more so than if I were to lecture or we read together from the text. My goal is to have a way to interact with my computer from the front of the class.

PowerPoint Presentations and Games

Often my students are behind in core subjects because their behavior has precluded much meaningful instruction for them. Because of this they lack many of the skills of which an average 9th-12th-grade student might have. One of the areas we have been working on recently is studying for the weekly vocabulary/spelling test. As I was exploring ways to help the students interact with the new words I came across this fun PowerPoint game site. One of the games on this page was Password. I divide my class into two teams and the students try to get their teammates to guess the particular vocabulary word by giving them the definitions. If the student guesses the word correctly they get a point and can earn another point for spelling the word correctly. If the student doesn’t guess the word they can still earn a point by spelling the word once their team tells it to them. Since we started using this game, and other studying exercises, the student’s tests scores have definitely gotten better. This page is on the Jefferson County Schools’ (in Dandridge, Tennessee) webpage. These PowerPoint games are teacher created, although I could not find the teacher to credit for the particular game I am using.

Wordle

Another way to get my students engaged with their writing is to transform their finished product into a Wordle “word cloud.” Wordle was created by Jonathan Feinberg and is a fun way to visualize, or make a printable image of a document the student has created. Often, for my students, the idea of pride in a sense of completing a task is not sufficient enough incentive for them to do so. I anticipate using Wordle as a fun incentive for the students once they finish a task. Wordles can be printed out and put up on the wall, also the students can edit how the Wordle looks. Here is a link to a Wordle I created from the text of this post.

Classroom Blog

I have a class of 6 students, grades 9-12, with various learning disabilities from autism to emotional disturbance. One of the struggles I often have is getting the students to internalize control and motivation when it comes to their work. One idea that I have stumbled across is to actually have the students post their finished product to a blog, such as this blog by Ms. Kreul at Richards Elementary School in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. Although the focus of her class blog is broad in the scope of subjects and information I really am encouraged by its use of student supplied content and intend to setup a class blog specifically for our English writing assignments. I anticipate having my student’s post their final writing assignments so they can “show off” their work while learning about formatting and using online documentation. I think this will provide a certain amount of “buy in” for my students.
Because I am using this blog for resources, I will probably use another blog for my students.