Showing posts with label udl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label udl. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2015
10 Minutes of Tech for Busy Teachers
10 Minutes of Tech for Busy Teachers
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Bloom's Taxonomy Presented Visually
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Saturday, November 21, 2015
Tag Galaxy
Watch Demo
- Project Tag Galaxy on a wall to help students visualize vocabulary words, ideas and concepts.
- Display Tag Galaxy on an interactive white board and let students touch the globe and explore.
- Use the photos to prompt creative writing.
- Engage students in a guided visual search.
- Start a discussion about word relationships
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Text Compactor: Simplify and Summarize Text
Text Compactor is a free online tool for summarizing and simplifying text. It is extremely user-friendly and requires no login so it's a perfect tool for students to add to their own toolkits of resources.
Just copy and paste some digital text into the box, use the slider to determine the percentage of text you want to end up with, and view the simplified text.
Use it as a tool to help struggling readers of all ages. Try it at textcompactor.com.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Simplify and Summarize Digital Text
 | Natural Reader |  |
 | Readability Bookmarklet | |
 | Text Compactor | |
 | Text to Speech for Mac | |
 | Twurdy | |
 | Wikipedia Simple English | |
 | Hands-On Overview on JogTheWeb |  |
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Open School ePortfolio for Authentic Assessment
I have been an advocate for using ePortfolios for authentic assessment for quite some time. While I have made several attempts to help teachers learn to design and mange ePortfolios using a variety of digital tools to accomplish the task, I've discovered that teachers don't always have the time or patience to see it through. I've come to the conclusion that if we are going to use ePortfolios as a standard assessment tool, the teacher buy-in needs to begin with a tool that is easy to use. Fortunately, I have recently discovered Open School ePortfolio and I am excited about the possibilities it offers.
Open School ePortfolio is a free and user friendly CoolTool designed to help teachers and students easily manage the portfolio process. Teachers can sign up for a free account and use the built in tools to add students to classes without requiring a student email address. Teachers can create projects that can be assigned to specific groups of students for differentiation. There is also an option to improve the home school connection by inviting parents to login in participate in the process.
When creating projects, there is an option to create a grading rubric. The rubric creation process is streamlined and easy to use. It includes drop down menus with CCSS Standards for ELA and math, and it also includes standards for other content areas that have been assembled by Open School ePortfolio. Rubrics are easily visible to students with each assignment for use as a guideline for meeting goals. The built in rubric creator is certainly one of the best features of Open School ePortfolio.
As a student tool, ePortfolio is easy to use and designed for success. When students log in they receive notifications about new projects with a link for viewing. There is a goal setting area to immediately prompt students to reflect on their learning goals and motivate them tool to invest in their own learning. Students can complete the assignment or projects by contributing text, images and video, which makes Open School ePortfolio a flexible tool to meet the unique learning styles of all learners.
Submitted projects can be easily graded by teachers through the use of sliders connected to the rubric. Graded project rubrics are automatically visible to students and notifications are sent when the process is complete. Teachers can also initiate digital discussions with students about their work through the use of a comments feature.
Open School ePortfolio works on any computer with an Internet connection and there is also an iPad app that makes the tool easy to use, even for younger students. The iPad app provides students with the ability to capture video with the click of a button, useful for capturing and reflecting on the wonderful learning going on in the classroom every day. The Open School ePortfolio App is free and available in the apps store.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Digital Differentiation Webinar Series in July
Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences to address the diverse needs of all students. At the most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand, and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences that are fueled by essential questions and offer flexible learning paths, use of digital tools can break the learning barriers that exist in our classrooms. Please join me and Simple K12 for an afternoon of webinars that will highlight digital tools and resources to help teachers design learning experiences that effectively incorporate Digital Differentiation.
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Learn more about each session on my Professional Development Blog or Sign up at Simple K12. |
Sunday, December 9, 2012
An Updated Digital Differentiation Model
To access the most current resources, please click on the tab at the top of this blog:
Digital Differentiation - Current
Updating
Ten months ago I published a Digital Differentiation model on this blog. I've been using the model to guide the work I do each day and I've been sharing it via webinars and hands-on training sessions.
Of course, ten months is a long time in the world of edtech, and I've added some new tools and resources to my personal teaching toolkit, so I decided it was time to update the model and tweak it just a bit. The original article and interactive graphic can still be found on this blog. Here is the new post:
Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences that address the diverse learning needs of all students and help them develop 21st Century Skills, an idea supported by the Common Core.
At it's most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences fueled by Essential Questions offering flexible learning paths, it can be the ticket to success. Here is a closer look at three components of effectively using technology as a tool for digital differentiation.
The goal is to design student-driven learning experiences that are fueled by standards-based Essential Questions and facilitated by digital tools to provide students with flexible learning paths.
3 Components:
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Essential Questions
Student-driven learning experiences should be driven by standards-based Essential Questions. These questions should be open-ended to allow for flexible learning paths. Devise question by looking at the standards that determine what we teach.
Click on the tiny circles in the graphic for more information.
Click on the tiny circles in the graphic for more information.
Flexible Learning Paths
Use digital tools to provide students with flexible learning paths to meet their unique learning styles.
Teacher as Facilitator
The role of the teacher shifts to facilitate student-driven learning experiences. This new role allows teachers to maximize instructional time because the classroom structure provides opportunities for frequent interaction with individual students for assessment, modification, reteaching and enrichment.
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