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UDL Book Builder is a great tool to create and publish digital books designed to support learners by using universal design for learning principles. Multiple points of entry, visual, auditory, vocabulary hyperlinks, and thought-provoking questions can be embedded to scaffold learning for all students.

Using UDL book Builder is a helpful resource to acquaint your students with grade level reading options. It helps bring technology into the classroom and into their lives with another form of learning style. Children seem to want to read more when there is a screen in front of them and they also enjoy going at their own pace. This is a wonderful tool for teachers to use to help students who need to hear the words on the page, as well as, give students who may have their work finished a place to use their energy on reading and creating books of their own choosing.

I also like the idea of having digital books as a teacher because I can always have them on a tablet or Ipad without weighing myself down. What I do not like is that my assistants do not have the same access to them. I would like to have all of the staff in my classroom be on the same page with the curriculum that I am teaching.

Looking to add visual interest to your lesson? Pinterest may be your solution! The article suggests ways in which this visual social media site can be used in the classroom and promotes SPACE - an acronym that helps students to remember the "best" uses for the site. This is interesting in terms of reaching students with varied learning styles and intelligences, developing creativity and higher order thinking, and more. However, like most tools the site does have its downfalls. It tends to be more engaging for females than males, which brings about an interesting gender debate. Its use also falls into fuzzy copyright issues - none of which are different from other social media sites. Check out the article & let me know what you think!

Until Pinterest addresses the nudity and pornography that can pop up on the "everything" catergory, I can't recommend this site for class projects. I've banned my own children from it (both of my daughters have a board on my own account) and wish desperately that I could unsee some of the images I've seen. It seems like copyright might be the least of their worries if lewd content continues to surface. It's really too bad - I have to agree that it could be great for group or individual projects.

I really like this article because it addresses the need for learning to be relevant to the students. It is important for students to use what they have learned and technology provides a great outlet for that use.

Reading this article made me get excited about the possibilities of teaching with creativity and application. I agree with the author when she wrote, "I'd rather know that my kids were creating something of meaning, value, and I hope, beauty for people other than just their teachers, and that those creations had the opportunity to live in the world. That they were thinking hard about audience. That they were learning how to network and collaborate with others. That they were developing "proficiency with the tools of technology," learning to "design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes," and becoming literate in the process. Real work for real audiences is, of course, hard to find in the current standardized testing regime." I could not have said it better myself! It seems that employers are looking for people who possess the quality of "working well with others". This new integrated classroom setup would allow for so many different learners to excel! Incredible article!

I enjoyed this article but also disagreed with it due to the fact that it is not possible for most students to complete some of these because they may not have access to a computer. They are great ideas but you have to look at your students before making it an assignment.

In the 1980s, John L. Hennessy, then a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University, shook up the computer industry by taking the concepts of reduced instruction set computing (RISC) to the masses. Hennessy wrote papers, gave talks, designed chips, started companies, and even, literally, wrote the book (a textbook that's still used today).

I found this article very interesting! The classroom was more like an office. The students have their own personal learning desks and cubicles. I think that learning will be maximized when each students individual needs are met, and they are in this classroom Designers of the Minnesota School of Environmental Studies (SES) were years ahead of the curve when it came to creating collaborative classrooms that would one day accommodate learning technologies that in 1995 had yet to be conceived--let alone developed and marketed to the educational sector.

This article was interesting for me to read being a teacher! I think that it's very cool that they have students desks look more like offices. This school is called the "Zoo School" and it serves 400 students in the 11th and 12th grade. They get to customize their workstations like employees do at work! They don't get taught at their desks they all get back together and sit at a longer table much like college and learn that way! I think this is neat and a different idea! They said in their article that the students were "thriving here" so I think they have caught on to something wonderful!

Assistive Technology: A Necessity for Student Success

This article is a good article to get some contrast on technology in schools. I think it is important to understand both sides.

This article is about how technology is used in the classroom to increase student growth. It also shows how technology can be used to make lessons fun.

I think it is a great idea to use technology to make the classroom less dull. Anything that helps the student become more interested in what is going on and is educational is a great tool for teachers.

This article explains why SMART boards are so beneficial to have in the classroom. There are appropriate uses for any age group and have endless uses for learning and collaboration.

Digital learning environment designed for differentiated education.

This article just makes it clear that the use of I-CAN is really a great tool for classrooms. This tool makes it easy for children to communicate with others and be independent with their own projects. It allows creativity and that is something we need more of in the classrooms.

I think the I-CAN technology seems really neat. It's like out Blackboard at oul but it also has job opportunity postings and is more tuned to the professional side of college students.

This article is about a year old, but it is still very interesting because technology has progressed the ability for students with exceptionalities to participate within mainstream classrooms. Students who in the past were forced to only learn in specialized environments are now able to communicate and work in mainstream classes due to assistive technologies and other computer programs that fall under universal design allowing all types of students to learn from.

This article talks about a tool that has been designed and tested in a classroom setting thats uses a virtual reality theme.

This site has lesson plans you can use to integrate technology into the classroom.

Education World® is a website designed to help teachers in almost every aspect. Tips on lessons or more information on a given topic, it even has links to interactive games and activities. Very useful resource for future/current teachers.

Today's post-secondary students need to be well equipped with technology for their studies, whether in the arts, sciences or welding. Students are faced with many choices when it comes to technology, both in hardware and software. In this great, tech savvy city we are fortunate to have people who not only know their products, but also provide great customer service.

Student Inclusion = Technology Infusion by Sylvia Martinez and Dennis Harper Generation Y (Gen Y) provides a research-proven methodology designed to infuse technology throughout the school. Students work with teachers to bring effective technology into the classrooms and libraries. The resulting collaboration provides the students with project-based learning and the teachers with on-site sustainable professional development.