Group items tagged

" Apple has long touted its device's assistive technology as a powerful tool for the educational development of physically and mentally disabled children. The iPad's touch screen makes it easier to manipulate than more traditional educational tools. For children with autism, "the iPad is not a toy, but a tool that works best when there is a 'team effort' between parents and therapists encouraging its proper use," said Marc Reisner, co-founder of Reach for the APPs. "Our goal is to provide schools with iPads so they can reach every child on the autistic spectrum." Reach for the APPs built their site with an initial donation from Managed Digital. Now, they're seeking out donations of money and/or iPads from both individuals and corporations to propel the program forward. According to reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-88 children have some form of autism, up 78 percent from just a decade ago. The demand for augmentative communications devices is growing. But the schools can't meet the demand, so the children are losing valuable time during critical developmental years. Lois Brady, a speech language pathologist and assistive technology specialist, said apps can help develop fine-motor skills, which will in turn make functions like writing and manipulating small objects easier for the students. "I have spent years working with the most challenging students that are considered profoundly disabled," she said. "And I have seen some small miracles when I introduce the iPad into our therapy, as the children have made huge gains in attention, focus, communication, language and literacy skills." Some experts also say that the iPad can lessen symptoms of autistic disorders, helping children deal with life's sensory overload. Brady will be contributing content to the Reach for the APPs website to inform therapists about the latest-and-greatest apps for children all over the autistim spectrum. Apps must be tailor

" There are a lot of terrific web tools and mobile apps available right now. You know that. But how do you sort out which ones are actually worth downloading or even looking at? The Daily Genius editors have cobbled together a relatively refined list of the 5 best free apps that we plan to start using in the new year. The apps are for iOS, Android, OSX, Windows, Linux, web browsers like Chrome and Firefox, and more. So be sure to check out each one and see if it might be something that saves you time, money, or a headache. Check out f.lux for avoiding an eye strain-related headache, by the way. It's a personal favorite used on all computers in the house."

"Whether a teacher uses Daily 5 in the classroom or not, word work is an important piece of student daily learning. This article will provide an extensive list of iOS word work apps. Each app is listed by grade level and state, showing how it will best serve your students while they work with words in the classroom. All apps are free unless otherwise noted."

"Yet, it's quite common nowadays to be in a situation where you have to use a section of the PDF file. For example, if you want to grab some images or graphs from an existing PDF and place them into your own PowerPoint presentation, you are unable to do so, as the PDF is not editable. Unless you buy an expensive PDF editing program, you cannot copy and paste images from PDF documents. That is why certain companies have created simple tools that address this particular issue. So, without any further ado, here are the 5 best PDF to JPG converters that are accurate, simple to use and free:"

7 over-arching tensions, these being: 1. The tension between the global and the local. 2. The tension between the universal and the individual. 3. The tension between tradition and modernity. 4. The tension between long term and short term considerations. 5. The tension between competition and concern for equality of opportunity. 6. The tension between expansion of knowledge and our capacity to assimilate it. 7. The tension between the spiritual and the material.

Soaring mobile Internet penetration has given new success dimension to the social network usage. Facebook, has recently reviled that 488 million users regularly use Facebook mobile, and a leading digital media firm Socialnomics has admitted that 23 percent of Facebook's users check their account 5 or more times daily. But a sad news is that, taking clues of the popularity, Internet attackers have targeted 54% of Social Networking Customers, claimed Barracuda Networks, a web security company.

"The iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch make excellent digital readers, and the iBooks apps is where most people will spend their time reading books on the iOS platform. iBooks is deceptively simple though, and though it works great on it's own, taking the time to learn a few things and adjust a few simple settings can make a world of difference in the readability of ebooks or anything else in your digital library. With that in mind, here are 5 simple tricks to get a better reading experience in iOS with the iBooks app."

"Have you ever listened to a 5 year old tell about their work? Try listening to 25 of them. Daily. They have so much they want to tell and explain that I don't have enough ears to listen to it all. Their work is so detailed and there are like 40 bajillion things they absolutely must tell, and if you interrupt them even once, they must. start. over."

"As a curriculum supervisor and a demonstration teacher at the A. Harry Moore School of New Jersey City University - an innovative urban special education school - we are always looking for new and interesting technology applications that will pique the interest of our student population while connecting to academic and social goals. We recently found a learning opportunity that benefits our student population in many ways and in an unexpected way: through the Pokemon Go App. This piece will share our story and discuss how we used Pokemon Go Pokestops on the New Jersey City University Campus and in various Jersey City neighborhoods to supported social engagement, community awareness, travel, and 21st century instruction."

"One of my favorite activities with my students was having them keep daily journals. Each day, they knew the routine. Grab their journals, grab a pillow, sit where they want and spend 5 minutes responding to the prompt on the board. Nowadays, technology provides us more engaging ways to encourage writing. Students can journal online with blogs or use mobile technologies to capture images, record videos, and post podcasts. They can make their voices more engaging, spread their ideas, and receive comments from around the world. Below are a few ideas and resou"

"Want to keep your kids' math skills sharp over the summer -- but don't want to be a party pooper? Daily math practice doesn't have to be drill-and-kill. We found five highly engaging math apps that will help kids avoid the "summer slide" in a fun -- and totally painless -- way."

"Ah, Gmail. It has become an integral part of our connected lives, ingrained in our daily flow of getting things done. The downside of that is that, like me, you might have missed out on a few new features Gmail has gradually added in the past year. So let's look at what deserves our attention."

Teresa Penedo posted this item in the #change11 Facebook group. The one-hour video tells us "most of what we think we know about technology in general is false." According to Andrew Feenberg, "Our error stems from the everyday conception of things as separate from each other and from us. In reality they belong to an interconnected network the nodes of which cannot exist independently qua technologies." This leads to ten 'paradoxes of technology': "1. The paradox of the parts and the whole: The apparent origin of complex wholes lies in their parts but in reality the parts find their origin in the whole to which they belong. 2. The paradox of the obvious: What is most obvious is most hidden. 3. The paradox of the origin: behind everything rational there lies a forgotten history. 4. The paradox of the frame: Efficiency does not explain success, success explains efficiency. 5. The paradox of action: In acting we become the object of action. 6. The paradox of the means: The means are the end. 7. The paradox of complexity: Simplification complicates. 8. The paradox of value and fact: Values are the facts of the future. 9. The democratic paradox: The public is constituted by the technologies that bind it together but in turn it transforms the technologies that constitute it. 10. The paradox of conquest: The victor belongs to the spoils." from Stephen Downes OL Daily

"Games are being used much more widely in schools than they were when I first started writing about them 2 or 3 years ago. As of fall 2013, 74% of K-8 teachers were using digital games. 55% of these teachers have students playing digital games at least weekly, 9% daily. The games they are using are mostly designed to be educational, with only 5% playing commercial games, and 8% playing hybrids (commercial games adapted for education like MincraftEDU or SimCityEdu). These insights come from Joan Ganz Cooney Center at the Sesame Workshop, who recently released a study surveying K-8 teachers in order to understand how they are implementing digital games in their classrooms."

"It's official - the popular podcast Serial has surpassed 5 million downloads, making it the fastest podcast of all time to reach this milestone. This tells us that people really like murder mysteries, but also confirms something else we've known for a long time - listeners want to hear a good story. Unsolved murders are compelling, yes, but Serial is compelling because it puts the listener as close as one can possibly get to an event that happened in 1999."

"You think you want your news pinged to you on an app, delivered by tweets, foisted on you by posts. But you don't. Not really. You just think you do. You want to be seen as modern. In reality, you want to browse, to take it at a leisurely pace, to absorb it. You want it delivered on the age-old technology of your forefathers. You want it by email. No matter what you think, email, good old email, is still a reliable, portable, readable way of getting your news. Curated by someone who knows more than you, with content written by people who know much more than you. So forget your high-tech snobbery and sign up for these - the best EdTech email newsletters to subscribe to:"

"n a previous post I described why all students should participate in the upcoming Hour of Code event, which takes place December 3rd to 9th. Find more reasons to introduce students to coding in this article, Why Kids Should Learn To Code (And How To Get Them Started). If you don't have access to computers, don't worry because there are several unplugged ways to get students to learn about the technology they use daily. Below are a few ideas with links to plenty more! The activities below don't require a computer or the Internet and get students to work together to complete tasks."