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This is a fantastic start page option for teachers and students. It has everything teachers want (widgets, privacy controls, booksmarks, calendar, RSS, mini blog(journal), notes, to-do, video, and more). The file upload is a big bonus. Students and teachers can personalize the designs and add/share tabs. You can make each tab public or private and grant specific privileges for the tools (widgets).invitIe students individually or bulk upload from a file.

Outstanding wiki by Michelle Dodd, AU, repository of useful online links tips and tools for educators working with diversity.
Vocational, Life skills and Transition Programs
For students seeking career exploration, community involvement and whole of life learning. Useful links and tools for Students, Trainers & Educators
Challenger TAFT (Technical and Further Education)

There are some fantastic resources shared on this wiki created by Michelle Dodd forstudents, trainers and educators in vocational, life skills and transition programs.

Excelent blog post by Cheryl Oakes on assistive technology with lots of great links in her post.

Cheryl Oakes is one of the regular bloggers on TechLearning and this is a great blog post she wrote right after NECC this year. Excellent ideas and resources.
Peggy

If you're interested in exploring blogging with your students, this is a great online course to help you learn all about it.

six-week online workshop aims to introduce participants to different ways in which blogging can be integrated into teaching. It will provide hands-on opportunities for educators who are new to blogging to set up and develop their own blogs, as well as to explore the worlds of possibilities provided by different kinds of blogs. By the end of the workshop, participants will have experimented with creating and enhancing blogs, posting and editing entries, inviting members to their blogs, and commenting on one anothers' blogs - using either Blogger or Wordpress platforms. Participants will also have explored blog comment management, template personalization, tagging (labeling) and really simple syndication (RSS).

Another great suggestion for instructional modifications using technology to work with special needs students.

Excellent suggestion for using video iPods with special education students. They can listen to content or tests being read and follow along with both the visual on the iPod and the hard copy.

Amazing story of a school that uses technology to include a homebound student in everything going on in the classroom.

This is an incredible video that tells about how one school has found a way to include a long-term homebound student in everything going on in the classroom-instruction, interaction, friendships and much more. Very inspiring and a simple solution using an Activboard, iChat, iSight camera and Mac computer.

Learning How to Learn Assistive Technology
(one of my presentations)
"Toolbelt Theory" suggests that we must teach our students how to analyze tasks, the task-completion environment, their own skills and capabilities, an appropriate range of available tools… and let them begin to make their own decisions.

This is definitely a "must read" blog by Ira Socol. This post discusses the "Toolbelt Theory" but there are tons of other valuable resources and important ideas throughout the blog. It's something you should plan to subscribe to via RSS feed so you will get the latest updates. Includes many technology tips and information about Universal Design.

Another great blog post written as a response to Lisa Parisi's blog post related to inclusion programs.

Excellent blog post by Ira Socol in response to the blog post written by Lisa Parisi (Successful Inclusion Program). Great food for thought and some really valuable links to other resources.

Lisa Parisi is an amazing educator with a Master's in Special Education who has been an inclusion teacher for many years. She has done some fantastic things with Voicethread in the MathCast project. Spend some time exploring her blog and you'll get some great ideas for integrating web 2.0 into working with special needs children.

Lisa Parisi's blog post on "The Successful Inclusion Program". Lisa is an outstanding 5th grade teacher who regularly blogs, twitters and hosts ustream.tv sessions to share her tools, tips and strategies. She includes some excellent advice about inclusion programs in this post.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a learning style is a way in which an individual approaches learning. Many people understand material much better when it is presented in one format, for example a lab experiment, than when it is presented in another, like an audio presentation. Determining how you best learn and using materials that cater to this style can be a great way to make school and the entire process of acquiring new information easier and much more intuitive. Here are some great tools that you can use to cater to your individual learning style, no matter what that is.

Look at this awesome compilation of helpful web tools for every kind of learner! Learned about it on Karen Janowski's blog.