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Dave Fones

Japanese Real Estate Bubble Recoverry? - 0 views

  • look at economic trends
  • it is becoming more apparent that we may be entering a time when low wage jobs dominate and home prices remain sluggish for a decade moving forward.
  • looking at the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program, growth of lower paying jobs, baby boomers retiring, and the massive amount of excess housing inventory we start to see why Japan’s post-bubble real estate market is very likely to occur in the United States.
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  • both economies had extraordinarily large real estate bubbles.
  • Massive real estate bubble (check) -Central bank bailing out banks (check) -Bailed out banks keep bad real estate loans on their books at inflated values (check) -Government taking on higher and higher levels of debt relative to GDP (check) -Employment situation stabilizes with less secure labor force (check) -Home prices remain stagnant (check)
  • the United States had never witnessed a year over year drop in nationwide home prices since the Great Depression.
  • home prices are now back to levels last seen 8 years ago.  The lost decade is now nipping at our heels but what about two lost decades like Japan?
  • the U.S. has such a large number of part-time workers and many of the new jobs being added are coming in lower paying sectors signifies that our economy is not supportive of the reasons that gave us solid home prices for many decades. 
  • young Japanese workers, some in their late 20s or early 30s, already resigned that they would never buy a home.
  • The notion that housing is always a great investment runs counter to what they saw in their lives.  Will they even want to buy as many baby boomers put their larger homes on the market
  • many of our young households here are now coming out with massive amounts of student loan debt.
  • Lower incomes, more debt, and less job security.  What this translated to in Japan was stagnant home prices for 20 full years.  We are nearing our 10 year bear market anniversary in real estate so another 10 is not impossible.  What can change this?  Higher median household incomes across the nation but at a time when gas costs $4 a gallon, grocery prices are increasing, college tuition is in a bubble, and the financial system operates with no reform and exploits the bubble of the day, it is hard to see why Americans would be pushing home prices higher.
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    Explains how Japan has responded to the breaking of their real estate market bubble and the effect it has had on Japan's economy
Jennifer Diaz

iPad As.... - 199 views

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    This is a must have resource for those schools who have iPads and want ideas to implement them with. I will share this with the teacher in my Chicago school, for they just rolled out iPads to the teachers and students. Teachers were trainied on how to set up the device and maintain it but not much practical implimentation suggestions. This gives a good idea of how the apps work, the cost and ease of use. Thanks for this post!!!
Maggie Tsai

Turning links into a library with Diigo - 94 views

  • My bookmarks are my digital memory.
  • From Links to Library
  • Hyperlinks are pieces of information, we need context. What was important about the link? What we need is a library that has information about the data we collecting.
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  • Diigo’s research tools make archiving a breeze so you will build a much more complete and useful reference system. An online database that you can search and share with ease.
  • TakeAways Bookmarking prevents us from having to remember. Our bookmarks become a personal reference library Diigo’s superior tools will help you create an amazing library.
DON PASSENANT

Straight from the DOE: Dispelling Myths About Blocked Sites | MindShift - 31 views

    • DON PASSENANT
       
      This is great info to use when trying to convince districts to ease up on blocks.
  • hese are technology tools that are put in place to filter sites that are inappropriate. These filters are getting better and better.
  • What we have had is what I consider brute force technologies that shut down wide swaths of the Internet, like all of YouTube, for example. Or they may shut down anything that has anything to do with social media, or anything that is a game.
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  • How do we educate this generation of young people to be safe online, to be secure online, to protect their personal information, to understand privacy, and how that all plays out when they’re in an online space.
  • re schools or teachers circumventing rules if they show YouTube videos or other blocked sites to students?
  • not circumventing the rules.
  • If the technology fails us and filters something appropriate and useful, and if teachers in their professional judgment think it’s appropriate, they should be able to show it. Teachers need to impose their professional judgment on materials that are available to their students.
Patricia Marcino

"DE_design_ET" - 29 views

Hi All in EDUC 8844,I have used many multi-media tools over the past years both in my Masters class, at school with elementary and middle school students. I have also used different tools in this c...

started by Patricia Marcino on 07 Oct 15 no follow-up yet
David Sladkey

80 free graphs for SMARTBoard - 133 views

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    Download a free gallery collection file for your SMARTBoard. There are pre-made graphs that you can slide into any lesson with ease. Graphs include standard rectangle graphs, polar graphs, trig graphs, number lines, and special colored graphs.
Maggie Tsai

Turning links into a library with Diigo - 64 views

  • My bookmarks are my digital memory.
  • Unclutter your mind. I’m all for not having to remember tech tutorials or the tour company we used in NYC, bookmarks allow me to archive that knowledge. They are my digital library.
  • Your browser enables you to save a link, place it in a folder, and possibly add a few tags (which you probably don’t use). Can you annotate a link? How about highlighting a portion of the page? Does it take a snapshot of the page? Will it create lists? Generate reports? How effectively can you search your bookmarks? How much more useful and complete would your links become with these tools?
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  • Hyperlinks are pieces of information, we need context. What was important about the link? What we need is a library that has information about the data we collecting.
  • How Diigo can make you more productive? Diigo’s research tools make archiving a breeze so you will build a much more complete and useful reference system. An online database that you can search and share with ease.
  • As you can see Diigo is an amazing tool that can revolutionize how you research and archive the web.
  • Welcome to Diigo Social bookmarking and a whole lot more.
  • TakeAways Bookmarking prevents us from having to remember. Our bookmarks become a personal reference library Diigo’s superior tools will help you create an amazing library.
Maggie Tsai

Social Bookmarking in Education with Diigo - 66 views

    • Larry Crosswell
       
      see, highlights AND sticky notes!
    • Mr. Gourley
       
      My class is learning about Diigo now. They are enjoying it so far.
  • Diigo lets you do more than just bookmark web pages online. For instance, if you install the Diigo toolbar, or toolbar button, you have the ability to highlight text and pictures in a variety of colors, or add sticky notes to a bookmarked page.
    • Mary Maderich
       
      This is so awesome.  Powerful and free!!
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  • The real bonus of using social bookmarking with your class is the ease that you can work on project based learning tasks. Teachers can share annotated bookmarks with a class to research a given topic. Students can perform their own research, and share a useful website with the class. Bookmarks can be accessed just as easily at home, as at school, and online discussions can be had over the merit of a suggested site, or its usefulness to the class project.
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    Voici un site intéressant sur l'utilisation de Diigo en enseignement
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    Social bookmarking in education is a new and exciting opportunity for teachers and students to connect and collaborate online. Using Diigo Educator accounts is one of the best ways to achieve this.\n\nRead more: http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/62228.aspx#ixzz0uRC5IDei
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Björn Hedin

Princeton University - Kindle pilot results highlight possibilities for paper reduction - 20 views

  • However, e-readers must be significantly improved to have the same value in a teaching environment as traditional paper texts, participants said.
  • but they also said the ability to highlight directly on traditional text, to take notes and flip pages for ease in navigation suffers in the e-reader.
  • With hopes of assisting industry with the refinement of e-readers, and providing useful information to other academic institutions considering the devices, information and data from the one-time pilot have been compiled on an Office of Information Technology (OIT) website.
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  • About 65 percent of the participants in the pilot said they would not buy another e-reader now if theirs was broken. Almost all the participants said they were interested in following the technology to its next stages, because they think a device that works well in academia would be worth having.
  • "I found the device difficult to use and not conducive to academic purposes," he said, and added, "But I can see how it can be used for pleasure reading."
  • What they liked best about the devices was: the battery life, the wireless connection and the portability of the e-reader; the fact that all the course reading was on one device; the ability to search for content; and the legibility of the screen, including the fact it could be read in full sunlight. The top five suggestions students had for improving e-readers were: improving the ability to highlight and annotate PDF files; improving the annotation tools; providing a folder structure to keep similar readings together; improving the highlighting function; and improving the navigation within and between documents on the reader (including having more than one document open at the same time for comparison).
  • "The Kindle would be better for an academic setting if the PDF format worked more effectively,"
  • "There would be a greater benefit realized if the devices could develop a better way to deliver the ubiquitous PDF document, which is used by many journals and libraries to deliver documents, and is the common format in which dissertations and theses are published and read by faculty," Temos said. "Some students said they spent a considerable amount of time printing PDF documents during the semester, and hardly ever referred back to them once the semester was over. I don't expect that is unusual."
Karen Balnis

Another Look at the Weaknesses of Online Learning - Innovations - The Chronicle of High... - 86 views

shared by Karen Balnis on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • have been lucky enough to have taught the full range of our freshman / sophmore undergraduate offerings as both an onsite and online instructor. While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:1. While in the onsite classroom you have the opportunity to think on your feet and challenge and be experiential on your feet to reactions to the students who speak, in the online classroom, you are able to meet *every* class member and challenge their minds and ideas. The students who would normally be lost in a classroom of 35-40 are met and developed each day or week at their level and pushed to consider ideas they might not have considered. 2. I am able to reach the entire class through multimedia exhibits in each of the weekly units - journal articles, non-copyrighted film clips (and many from our university's purchased collection under an agreement for both onsite classroom and online classroom use), photography, art, patents, etc, that the students would not see - or would otherwise ignore - in an onsite classroom. We incorporate this information into our discussions and make it part of the larger whole of history.3. Each student and I - on the phone during office hours or in e-mail - discuss the creation of their term papers - and discuss midterm and final "anxiety" issues - and as they are used to the online format, and regular communication with me through the discussion boards, they respond much more readily than onsite students, whom I have found I have to pressure to talk to me. 4. I am able to accommodate students from around the country - and around the world. I have had enrolled in my class students from Japan, Indonesia, India, England - and many other countries. As a result, I have set up a *very* specific Skype address *only* for use of my students. They are required to set up the time and day with me ahead of time and I need to approve that request, but for them (and for some of my students scattered all over the state and US), the face time is invaluable in helping them feel "connected" - and I am more than happy to offer it. 5. As the software upgrades, the possibilities of what I can offer become more and more amazing, and the ease of use for both me - and for the students -  becomes astronomically better. Many have never known the software, so they don't notice it - but those who have taken online courses before cheer it on. Software does not achieve backwards. As very few of these issues are met by the onsite classroom, I am leaning more and more toward the online classroom as the better mode of instruction. Yes, there are times I *really* miss the onsite opportunities, but then I think of the above distinctions and realize that yes, I am where I should be, and virtually *ALL* the students are getting far more for their money than they would get in an onsite classroom. This is the wave of the future, and it holds such amazing promise. Already I think we are seeing clear and fruitful results, and if academics receive effective - and continuing - instruction and support from the very beginning, I cannot imagine why one would ever go back. The only reason I can think of *not* doing this is if the instructor has his or her *own* fear of computers. Beyond that - please, please jump on the bandwagon, swallow your fears, and learn how to do this with vigor. I don't think you will ever be sorry.PhD2BinUS
  • have been lucky enough to have taught the full range of our freshman / sophmore undergraduate offerings as both an onsite and online instructor. While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:
  • While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:
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    I am a graduate student at Sam Houston State University and before I started grad school I never had taken an online course before. My opinion then was that online courses were a joke and you couldn't learn from taking a course online. Now my opinion has done a complete 180. The teachers post numerous youtube videos and other helpful tools for each assignment so that anyone can successfully complete the assignment no matter what their technology skill level is. I do not see much difference between online and face-to-face now because of the way the instructors teach the courses.
D. S. Koelling

Font Size May Not Aid Learning, but Its Style Can, Researchers Find - NYTimes.com - 110 views

  • Is it easier to remember a new fact if it appears in normal type, like this, or in big, bold letters, like this?
  • Font size has no effect on memory, even though most people assume that bigger is better. But font style does.
  • New research finds that people retain significantly more material — whether science, history or language — when they study it in a font that is not only unfamiliar but also hard to read.
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  • “So much of the learning that we do now is unsupervised, on our own,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, “that it’s crucial to be able to monitor that learning accurately; that is, to know how well we know what we know, so that we avoid fooling ourselves.”
  • “Studying something in the presence of an answer, whether it’s conscious or not, influences how you interpret the question,” Dr. Bjork said. “You don’t appreciate all of the other things that would have come to mind if the answer weren’t there. “Let’s say you’re studying capitals and you see that Australia’s is Canberra. O.K., that seems easy enough. But when the exam question appears, you think: ‘Uh oh, was it Sydney? Melbourne? Adelaide?’ ” That’s why some experts are leery of students’ increasing use of online sites like Cramster, Course Hero, Koofers and others that offer summaries, step-by-step problem solving and copies of previous exams. The extra help may provide a valuable supplement to a difficult or crowded course, but it could also leave students with a false sense of mastery. Even course outlines provided by a teacher, a textbook or other outside source can create a false sense of security, some research suggests. In one experiment, researchers found that participants studying a difficult chapter on the industrial uses of microbes remembered more when they were given a poor outline — which they had to rework to match the material — than a more accurate one.
  • a cognitive quality known as fluency, a measure of how easy a piece of information is to process.
  • On real tests, font size made no difference and practice paid off, the study found.
  • And so it goes, researchers say, with most study sessions: difficulty builds mental muscle, while ease often builds only confidence.
  • To test the approach in the classroom, the researchers conducted a large experiment involving 222 students at a public school in Chesterland, Ohio. One group had all its supplementary study materials, in English, history and science courses, reset in an unusual font, like Monotype Corsiva. The others studied as before. After the lessons were completed, the researchers evaluated the classes’ relevant tests and found that those students who’d been squinting at the stranger typefaces did significantly better than the others in all the classes — particularly in physics. “The reason that the unusual fonts are effective is that it causes us to think more deeply about the material,” a co-author of the study, Daniel M. Oppenheimer, a psychologist at Princeton, wrote in an e-mail. “But we are capable of thinking deeply without being subjected to unusual fonts. Think of it this way, you can’t skim material in a hard to read font, so putting text in a hard-to-read font will force you to read more carefully.” Then again, so will raw effort, he and other researchers said. Concentrating harder. Making outlines from scratch. Working through problem sets without glancing at the answers. And studying with classmates who test one another.
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    Students' raw effort improves learning [No surprise there, huh?]
Cath Horan

RBA: Speech-The Economic Outlook - 8 views

  • world economy has continued its expansion
  • 2014 economic global growth is thought likely by major forecasters to be a bit higher than in 2013
  • growth is coming from the advanced countries
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  • United States continues its recovery led by private demand and over the second half of last year the economy expanded at an annualised rate of just over 3 per cent.
  • The euro area has resumed growth, albeit in a somewhat hesitant fashion and with noticeable differences in performance by country.
  • A few emerging economies have lately come under pressure,
  • In fact were the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to step up its current program of quantitative and qualitative easing, it would soon be adding more cash to the global financial system, in absolute terms, than the Federal Reserve.
  • China's economy grew close to, and in fact a little faster than, the government's target last year. Strong and about equal contributions to growth were made by household consumption and investment. Consumer price inflation continues to be stable.
  • Recent indicators have shown possible signs of slower growth in the early part of 2014: growth of industrial production slowed; retail sales and passenger vehicle sales moderated; and fixed asse
  • Australia certainly weathered the financial crisis well, and with a real GDP some 13 per cent larger than it was at the beginning of 2009, compares well with many other advanced countries. It is the case, though, that growth while positive, has been running at a pace a bit below its trend pace for about 18 months now. The rate of unemployment has increased by something like a percentage point over the same period.
  • strong conditions in the natural resources sector.
  • n the rest of the economy, households have spent most of the past five years behaving more conservatively, or rather more normally, than they did over a long period up to the mid 2000s when they had been in a very expansive mood. Both consumption and residential construction have been soft for a while.
  • esources sector's capital spending continues to fall, it
  • It is unlikely, though, that a pick-up in resources exports, as important as that will be, will be enough to keep overall growth on the right trac
  • Recent data shows stronger household consumption over the summer. The latest surve
  • bundant signs of confidence in the housing market
  • Measures of business confidence have improved over the past six months. Businesses seem, so far, to be taking a cautious approach to investment,
  • is important to stress that this outlook is, obviously, a balance between the large negative force of declining mining investment and, working the other way, the likely pick up in some other areas of demand helped by very low interest rates, improved confidence and so on, as well as higher resource shipments. The lower exchange rate since last April and the improved economic conditions overseas also help.
  • On inflation, our view is that it will be a little higher than we thought three months ago
Matt Renwick

Education Week: School Leaders: Don't Let Your Teachers Lose Heart - 51 views

  • Survey teachers. In the spring, as you consider programs for the following year (or years), send out a survey to teachers asking them to rate the areas where they need help. Pick your programs accordingly. You won't please everyone, but this is a chance to address your teachers' real concerns.
    • Matt Renwick
       
      I like this idea. It will help set our goals for the next three years.
  • Take something off the table. Teachers are being asked to do more without letting go of something else. Surprise your teachers before school next year and strike a program that was assessed to be ineffective. Your teachers will love you for easing their load.
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    • Matt Renwick
       
      What would we take off?
Tanya Hudson

Storybird - Create and share beautifully illustrated digital stories! - 91 views

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    Collaboarative Digital Storytelling
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    This site is wonderful for younger students and older ELLs. Using exquisite art graphics from an extensive library of images children create online storybooks. The fanciful and beautiful graphics inspire the creator to write a story. The program then publishes the online book with a default "private" setting. This site appears to be carefully monitored and supervised. Excellent for ELA.
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    This site is wonderful for younger students and older ELLs. Using exquisite art graphics from an extensive library of images children create online storybooks. The fanciful and beautiful graphics inspire the creator to write a story. The program then publishes the online book with a default "private" setting. This site appears to be carefully monitored and supervised. Excellent for ELA.
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    Choose an artist, then create a story by selecting artwork. 
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    Story Bird widely used story book maker website. It has great templates picture bank. It's ease to use and the results look wonderful. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English
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    Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print.
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    Combine your words with high-quality artwork from talented illustrators around the world.
Martin Burrett

Vyew - 57 views

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    "Vyew allows you to meet and share content in real-time or anytime. Upload images, files, documents and videos into a room. Users can access and contribute at anytime. Why use Vyew? It's easy - no installations. It's compatible - PC, Mac, Linux, powerpoints, documents, images, videos, mp3's, flash files. It's FREE! - Our free version is free forever. Unlimited use with up to 10 people. What's the catch? It's ad supported. Conferencing features - whiteboarding, video conferencing, screen sharing, Voice-over-IP. Collaboration features - continuous rooms are always saved and always-on. Contextual discussion forums, voice-notes, track and log activity. Take A Tour Sign Up Free Log In Join a Meeting Learn More: FAQs Product Pricing Product Comparison Chart Complete Feature List Enterprise Appliance What people are saying I've used other prohibitively expensive online meeting software and this beats their pants off in ease of use/price/features. -Joel, Vyew Customer Recent News/Articles New changes to Vyew (Aug 1, 2011) New changes to Vyew (May 10, 2011) Crafting a Clear Message (online presentations) Vyew featured in Google Chrome's Web Store Better (Online) Presentations in 5 Steps Vyew 4 - Open to the Public Vyew 4.0 Interface Overview "
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    real time visual collaboration
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    A great site for collaborating online. Work on documents together in real time, video chat and share your screen with others are just a few features that make this a great site for tutoring, meetings and webinars. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+&+Web+Tools
mrssalasyoshii

10 Team-Building Games For The First Day Of Class - 111 views

shared by mrssalasyoshii on 07 Sep 15 - No Cached
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    by TeachThought Staff Team-building activities are great. Not only can they help establish routines, tone, and expectations, they're also fun, and can help learners feel comfortable. Though many older students in high school and college may groan at their thought, they're usually fun, and great ways to help students feel at ease.
Charity Fisher

Teachers Testimonials : TTS Online : Free Text to Speech : Read The Words - 83 views

  • find ReadTheWords.com to be one of the most useful services on the Internet today. Many LD (learning disabled) students struggle with auditory processing.
  • these students are very capable, they tend to favor auditory processing, versus the more common visual processing. It is important that these students learn how their mind works and modify their learning techniques accordingly.
  • 5 students incorporate this service for study of their weekly vocabulary words. We started by making an audio file of the words and definition, and turned it into an mp3 format. The students spent 10 minutes each day on the computer. Each student has averaged a minimum of a full letter grade higher. Two students have received perfect scores for the past 2 weeks.
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  • ReadTheWords.com been created to cater to these students.
  • ReadtheWords.com is an AMAZING SERIVCE for young students.
  • ReadTheWords.com allows me to create listening material for some learners that struggle a little bit. It allows my students to read along with the Virtual Avatar Reader. This saves a lot of time so I can focus on certain children without slowing down the rest of the class.
  • We create links to audio files that read our upcoming events, and we use it to help visually impaired patrons read anything - articles, letters they have received, emails that can be copy/pasted from their email account...the possibilities are endless! On a personal level, I have been using ReadTheWords toolbar plug in.
  • service with my university students who are learning English
  • brings the text to life, and stimulates my second language learners in a dynamic way. I would recommend this program to all foreign language teachers,
  • I have been assisting students to create audio files of study review materials. This greatly helps them decode and analyze the material for comprehension. I have seen a great improvement on test scores
  • Students listen to a piece of their own writing, so they can hear if what they wrote sounds correct. It helps students with comprehension, spelling, grammar and structuring sentences.
  • This service is godsend for many students, especially auditory learners. I cannot even begin to imagine how many people this will help in the future. We just received approval to offer this service to our entire school. (Email webmaster@readthewords.com to get a special deal like we did.
    • Charity Fisher
       
      I believe that the audio could act as a reinforcer of the written word as students read. This could be helpful not only with students who are Language Impaired, but also for students who struggle with reading comprehension.
    • Charity Fisher
       
      This website could be benefitical to students who are Hearing Impaired or Learning Disabled in Reading.
    • Charity Fisher
       
      Thsi tool can reinforce the written word and comprehension.
    • Charity Fisher
       
      Something not mentioned by these teachers is the possible benefit to Autistic and Aspergers students. I can this being used as a reward or incentive because the work could be done independently. Since these students generally feel more at ease working independently, it would a motivator to them.
    • Charity Fisher
       
      This could be a great tool for Language Impaired students, but also Learning Disabled in reading as well. The audio would act as a reinforcer of the written material. Even though this is learning or reading comprehension tool, students may see it as a reward thereby motivating them to read more. This could a aid to any teacher attempting to motivate reluctant or struggling readers.
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    readthewords.com for Special Ed, ESOL, Low Level Readers, Writing and More!
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    Read The Words could be a beneficial tool to students who are Language Impaired and/or Learning Disabled in Reading. The audio can reinforce the written word and increase comprehension. Also, it could be a valuable tool for autistic students who prefer to work independently. They can use this to aid comprehension and also it could be a reward. This tool could also add interest to text for any student.
Clint Heitz

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens - Scientific ... - 25 views

  • The matter is by no means settled. Before 1992 most studies concluded that people read slower, less accurately and less comprehensively on screens than on paper. Studies published since the early 1990s, however, have produced more inconsistent results: a slight majority has confirmed earlier conclusions, but almost as many have found few significant differences in reading speed or comprehension between paper and screens. And recent surveys suggest that although most people still prefer paper—especially when reading intensively—attitudes are changing as tablets and e-reading technology improve and reading digital books for facts and fun becomes more common.
  • Compared with paper, screens may also drain more of our mental resources while we are reading and make it a little harder to remember what we read when we are done. A parallel line of research focuses on people's attitudes toward different kinds of media. Whether they realize it or not, many people approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than the one they bring to paper.
  • Both anecdotally and in published studies, people report that when trying to locate a particular piece of written information they often remember where in the text it appeared. We might recall that we passed the red farmhouse near the start of the trail before we started climbing uphill through the forest; in a similar way, we remember that we read about Mr. Darcy rebuffing Elizabeth Bennett on the bottom of the left-hand page in one of the earlier chapters.
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  • At least a few studies suggest that by limiting the way people navigate texts, screens impair comprehension.
  • Because of their easy navigability, paper books and documents may be better suited to absorption in a text. "The ease with which you can find out the beginning, end and everything inbetween and the constant connection to your path, your progress in the text, might be some way of making it less taxing cognitively, so you have more free capacity for comprehension," Mangen says.
  • An e-reader always weighs the same, regardless of whether you are reading Proust's magnum opus or one of Hemingway's short stories. Some researchers have found that these discrepancies create enough "haptic dissonance" to dissuade some people from using e-readers. People expect books to look, feel and even smell a certain way; when they do not, reading sometimes becomes less enjoyable or even unpleasant. For others, the convenience of a slim portable e-reader outweighs any attachment they might have to the feel of paper books.
  • In one of his experiments 72 volunteers completed the Higher Education Entrance Examination READ test—a 30-minute, Swedish-language reading-comprehension exam consisting of multiple-choice questions about five texts averaging 1,000 words each. People who took the test on a computer scored lower and reported higher levels of stress and tiredness than people who completed it on paper.
  • Perhaps, then, any discrepancies in reading comprehension between paper and screens will shrink as people's attitudes continue to change. The star of "A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work" is three-and-a-half years old today and no longer interacts with paper magazines as though they were touchscreens, her father says. Perhaps she and her peers will grow up without the subtle bias against screens that seems to lurk in the minds of older generations. In current research for Microsoft, Sellen has learned that many people do not feel much ownership of e-books because of their impermanence and intangibility: "They think of using an e-book, not owning an e-book," she says. Participants in her studies say that when they really like an electronic book, they go out and get the paper version. This reminds Sellen of people's early opinions of digital music, which she has also studied. Despite initial resistance, people love curating, organizing and sharing digital music today. Attitudes toward e-books may transition in a similar way, especially if e-readers and tablets allow more sharing and social interaction than they currently do.
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