Group items tagged

"In an era of ubiquitous information technology and open access content, we believe that the primary purpose of education is changing. It's now more about the environment we provide than the content we deliver. Similarly, we believe that the primary purpose of professional development is changing. Just as a classroom requires engaged, self-directed and passionate learners, so does professional development. The course will motivate and equip individuals to develop a culture of innovation and excellence in education through self-directed professional growt"

Listing of "must have" primary iPad apps

"Symbly is a new way to create, share, and go with visual supports, communication boards, visual schedules, social stories, and more. The primary design goals of Symbly are to provide a new tool for special education that: Makes it easy for beginners to create visual supports through the support of templates and examples created by experts Provides the tools that power users need to quickly create, manage, and share an entire library of visual supports Promotes a healthy community of parents and professionals focused on creating visual supports utilizing best practices Features an easy-to-use editor with great image search, drag-and-drop editing, and more Runs completely in the web browser without the need for any special plugins (no Flash, Silverlight, etc.) and is accessible from anywhere in the world Connects parents and therapists together more than ever before through ease of use, sharing capabilities, and real-time collaborative editing Provides the best mobile experience possible, to allow you to view and edit your supports on the go."

"All individuals who use AAC can benefit from having access to a manual communication board either as their primary mode of communication or as a back-up to their high tech AAC device. To help clinicians new to designing communication boards, two sample boards are provided. "

"In response to all of the attention given to the flipped classroom, I proposed The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture and The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Higher Education in which the viewing of videos (often discussed on the primary focus of the flipped classroom) becomes a part of a larger cycle of learning based on an experiential cycle of learning. Universal Design for Learning has also been in the news lately as a new report Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Initiatives on the Move was released by the National Center on UDL, May, 2012. This post describes the principles of Universal Design for Learning and how they naturally occur when a full cycle of learning, including ideas related to the flipped classroom, are used within the instructional process."

"SEN Teacher provides cost-free teaching & learning resources for students with special needs and learning disabilities. Many resources here may also be of use to educators of primary and elementary students. All the resources available or listed here are free for use in schools, colleges and at home. * Printables has a selection of printable worksheets, handouts and teaching aids most of which can be customised to suit a range of learners. * Web Links lists websites which have been carefully selected for the quality of their information or because they provide further excellent sources of cost-free learning resources and software. * Downloads lists cost-free educational software from several sources which has proved useful to teachers and parents of special needs students. * Search Tools are custom Google search engines which make it easier to locate free resources, video news and information related to special needs teaching."

MITS Freedom Stick 1.0 The MITS Freedom Stick is the result of global collaboration and the leadership of Ira Socol. The design and primary technical work was all done by the Regional Support Center - Scotland North and East. We are extremely grateful for their time, effort, and generosity. Much of the support for our "Americanization," localization, and development of the accessible Firefox Browser came from the Mozilla Corporation, and Mozilla Education. The MITS Freedom Stick is designed to provide students with information and communication access on any computer using a Windows or Linux operating system. When you insert the USB Flash Drive into the computer the LearnApps software should load giving you a menu in the toolbar on the lower-right corner of the screen.

The Historical Scene Investigation Project (HSI) was designed for social studies teachers who need a strong pedagogical mechanism for bringing primary sources into their classroom. With the advent and accessibility of the internet, many libraries, universities and government agencies are housing their historical documents online. Simultaneously, there has been a push in K-12 history education to give students experiences that more closely resemble the work of a real historian.

"ABCya! is the leader in free educational kids computer games and activities for elementary students to learn on the web. All children's educational computer games and activities were created or approved by certified teachers. ABCya! educational games are free and are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way for children to learn. ABCya! games and activities incorporate content areas such as math and reading while introducing basic computer skills. Many of the kindergarten and first grade games are equipped with sound to enhance understanding."

"twinkl is a brand new online resource centre created just for teachers. Oh, and did we mention that everything is free?" Free Foundation, Primary and KS1 Teaching Resources |

"KidTools and KidSkills are new kinds of software to help students take control of their learning, behavior, and problem solving to improve success in school. The tools are research-based and have undergone extensive testing with actual students in classroom settings. These software programs include a library of tools provided as easy-to-use templates for children to personalize and use independently in school and other settings. There are two levels of tools in each of these programs. eKidTools and eKidSkills are made for elementary students with some reading abilities, ages 7-10. Within eKidTools, there is a set of PictureTools made for preschool/primary children that do not require reading abilities. iKidTools and iKidSkills are made for intermediate/middle school students with reading abilities, ages 11-14. Because these tools are all related, children can move up and down the levels to use the tools that best fit their skills and needs. "

Anyone heard of this?

"The new Voki Educational Web Site includes ideas, networking, and explanations that bring talking avatars to the educational stage. At first glance it appears to be void of advertising, quite a feat since Voki For Education is still free. Next, the educational page has resources that will get everyone in education talking. One resource to check out is the important facts for education. As in all Web 2.0 sites used in education, this is an important read. Next, you may wish to view a collection of lesson plans that include thoughts for using Voki in the classroom. Ideas include all subjects and levels from primary school to the university classroom. Another valuable area is the Teacher Corner."

"Early Years interactive resources for Primary or Infant Schools. Ideal to use on any type of Interactive Whiteboard. Also for teachers, parents & children at home with a PC or Mac"

"Enjoy these great stories as you see thousands of hand-selected and relevant pictures, slide-shows, videos, audio-clips, documents and other primary sources linked, in context, where you need them."

172 free to use educational interactive resources for Primary Schools, from the Cricksoft people.

"We have been considering the idea that today's students are digital learners and we intend to find out if the iPod Touch can assist children to learn through digital delivery of content . Teaching practices in the upper primary school have been traditional and teacher-centred and we would like to attempt to move to a student-centered learning environment via the use of the iPod Touch."

Patti's comment - if only it would read the text aloud the real magic is all the visual elements. You can expand every photo and graphic to fill the whole screen; they look spectacular. At this point, you can interact with them. You can tap the corner of any photo, for example, to see where on the planet it was taken. You can press your finger on a bar of a chart to "explode" it into smaller bars, showing the component data underlying the primary bar. (For example, one bar chart shows the six gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Hold your finger on a bar to see it split into smaller bars, showing where those gases come from: transportation, buildings and so on.) Some of the illustrations become narrated animations. Some turn out to be movies (there's a total of an hour of video), most narrated by Mr. Gore. The interactivity, the zooming into graphic elements and the videos aren't a gimmick. They actually add up to a different experience"

NBC News offers unique collections of video resources, primary sources, historic footage, images, mini-documentaries and text resources designed for use in the K-12 classroom.

"Up until recently, I have been happily using Delicious to store, organise and share my favourite links. With the Internet Explorer Delicious add-on, I found it so simple to store sites as I browsed the net. In addition, searching Delicious for websites often gave me more reliable results than mainstream search engines. This was until my teacher friend Linda Yollis suggested I try Diigo. As a ex-Delicious user, she made the switch after discovering the impressive features that Diigo offers. After I "took the tour" of Diigo, I made the switch too."

The Literacy Center Education Network is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization with a mission to deliver free, professionally-designed, education material to preschool-age children. Utilizing the power of the Internet, we distribute education material directly to children in their homes, libraries, and schools.