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Digital portfolios provide a distillation of an individual's best work, typically generated over a year or a longer period of time. Most digital portfolios contain a broad range of information to properly capture the person's versatility. Information in d

Free online audience response system that uses SMS text messages or the web to answer questions with real-time results.

"Here's what's possible tomorrow: Your students are reading (and learning from) stories and articles they couldn't understand today. Each student is working with different high-interest material. Our exclusive Learning Sessions are actively teaching them their own customized word lists. Students are typing, listening, and learning words in context at the speed that's right for them. At Educator Central, you get detailed information that drives smart teaching decisions: learning errors, reading time, and more. Instead of typing and grading, you're designing interventions, putting resources where they're needed, and fostering achievement and learning."

This past weekend, our department chair received an email from a local high school English teacher who asked, in short, should they be teaching students how to do a "traditional" research paper - including the use of 3×5 note cards - because some of his colleagues are strong supporters of it and others consider it "archaic." He wanted to hear a response from a college professor about how best to prepare students for the kinds of research that they would be doing in composition courses that they would be taking after high school. Below, I have copied and pasted the response that I offered him via email. And, now I ask you… What do you think - is it time to move away from "traditional" research paper writing processes?

Overview of the Speak for Yourself app

Useful tool for anyone interested in organizing.

Flockdraw is a free to use online whiteboard based painting & drawing tool. It makes it easy to draw online free with multiple people for fun or business. You can have unlimited people in a room and the drawing updates in real time. Uses different colors, shapes and text.Start drawing now!

There are four videos on this website. Each video demonstrates a learned motor pattern over time ending with a video on using an augmentative communication device with core vocabulary.

Welcome AAC and General Assistive Technology lovers. Here you will find information, materials and sites of interest related to AAC and AT. Of particular interest is the use of core vocabulary to support students with language and communication disabilities. Also featured is training materials related to computer access methods and training of those methods. This is a work in progress by a school-based AT Specialist. Data is updated when I have the time! Please go to the discussion tab to leave me a message or make comments. Enjoy! Barb Cannon Site Owner and AT Specialist

Episode #116 features a description of how and why to use core vocabulary (high frequency words) as the basis for an augmentative/alternative communication system. The entire episode was generated using only "Frequently Occurring Home and School Words" from the list generated in the article "Vocabulary-Use Patterns in Preschool Children: Effects of Context and Time Sampling" by Christine A. Marvin, David R. Beukelman, and Denise Bilyeu published in Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Volume 10 in December, 1994. The episode demonstrates that using only high frequency words users can still elicit complex, generative language. You might find it beneficial to listen to the episode twice or to read along as you listen to the episode. TRANSCRIPT: http://bit.ly/howtohelpsaythingstranscript

"This site is compilation of vocabulary lists, evidence based research articles, questionnaires, communication grids, visual supports, video clips and general information from a variety of educators and therapists close to home and around the world.  The Assistive Technology Team at Region 13 would like to keep this site dynamic, ever growing and up to date.  As the field of technology rapidly increases and changes, the ESC AT team needs to rely not only on information obtained from within but information provided by the educational teams it serves.  

The results of this research add to the evidence regarding the effectiveness of using AAC with people with an ASD (Mirenda, 2001; Schlosser & Blischak, 2001), and adds to the knowledge of why AAC systems are potentially beneficial for children with autism, (The National Standards Report). Effective teaching of motor plans, using the LAMP theory, can be seen to allow for increased storage and retention of symbolic information, resulting with more automatic communication over time, and reducing the cognitive demands associated with analysing and choosing from different symbol sets, as described in the LAMP Manuals (Halloran and Emerson, 2006: Halloran and Halloran, 2012).

TAC it Up "Do you teach students with intellectual disabilities? Do you spend most of your day creating lessons because there is no curriculum designed for your students? Do you have a desire to find out what other teachers are doing for students similar to yours? Do you want to spend some time learning new strategies, creating activities and sharing with others?"

Reading Bear, a project of WatchKnowLearn.org, is the first free program online to teach beginning readers vocabulary and concepts while systematically introducing all the main phonetic patterns of written English, all using innovative rich media. We spent an enormous amount of time developing 50 presentations, covering even more phonics principles and illustrating over 1,200 vocabulary items. There is nothing else like it, free or otherwise.

"For many reasons it can be useful to create a paper-based book of your vocabulary. It gives you a backup communication system if anything should happen to your iPad. At different times, in different environments it can be very handy to have a paper copy! Perhaps the AAC user has more success accessing their communication in a book like this! And if we are trying to do more modeling in the AAC app, your paper-based book is just another way to do it!"