Group items tagged

Heteronyms (also known as heterophones or homographs) are words that are spelled the same, but have different pronunciations and different meanings.

If you're interested in exploring blogging with your students, this is a great online course to help you learn all about it.

six-week online workshop aims to introduce participants to different ways in which blogging can be integrated into teaching. It will provide hands-on opportunities for educators who are new to blogging to set up and develop their own blogs, as well as to explore the worlds of possibilities provided by different kinds of blogs. By the end of the workshop, participants will have experimented with creating and enhancing blogs, posting and editing entries, inviting members to their blogs, and commenting on one anothers' blogs - using either Blogger or Wordpress platforms. Participants will also have explored blog comment management, template personalization, tagging (labeling) and really simple syndication (RSS).

Video and chat....

To accommodate differences, Vocabulary and SpellingCity had added several lists of British spelling words and their corresponding US words.

"This paper explores how new digital technologies can be used to design curricula that are flexible enough to adapt readily to individual differences. The authors propose that universal design for learning-as the confluence of advances in the neuroscience of human variability and in multimedia technologies-can create an "ecology for learning" which provides rich, diverse, student-centered learning pathways for all students. "

"For many -- not just those with special needs -- participating in an online course is very difficult without assistive technologies. Augmentive and alternative communication products can help students with disabilities. It is useful, however, to look at some assistive technologies as effective for learners who have specific learning preferences and who may benefit from being able to access content in more than one format. Take a look at the different assistive technologies that are available. You may be surprised how affordable they are, and how helpful they might be for you, especially with respect to keyboards, touchscreens, screen-readers (and "talking books"), and speech recognition. "

Excellent compilation of technology tools and links for assistive technology.

Flockdraw is a free to use web based painting/drawing tool. It makes it easy to draw with multiple people for fun or business. You can have unlimited people in a room and it updates in real time. Uses different colors, shapes and text. Save your work to our gallery and show it off! Start drawing now!

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. Create your own.

It's Special Educational Needs Week on Teachers TV and we are showing your favourite SEN programmes. Differentiation in Action shows how you can differentiate tasks in the classroom to aid inclusion. The primary (Wednesday 4pm) episode looks at how puppets and text can be used to recognise speech in a KS1 class. The secondary (Tuesday 7.30pm) episode follows a history lesson where differentiation is used to great success and the pupils assess their own achievement as well as discussing which teaching styles they prefer and their preference for mixed achievement groupings. Also on this week is Being Different May be Cool, (Friday 7pm) an honest look at the challenges of dealing with children on the autistic spectrum through the lives of three autistic brothers and their mother.

Looks like some great shows on the Special Educational Needs Week programming this week-Teachers TV in the UK. This is an excellent site to bookmark and join their email list to be notified of new programs. Great videos for teachers.

Biography on Deane Bray. You can find episodes of the Sue Thomas, FBI - Eye program on YouTube

"Whether you have an entire class of students with special needs, or you've welcomed a student with a disability into your traditional classroom, this massive list of resources will help you research different disorders and conditions, review special lesson plans, and find the support you need to work with your students and help them succeed."

Some great links and resources for many types of special needs

""Empowerment and participation come with the ability to to experience the world and communicate." Only when communication is recognized and consistently reinforced will those with severe physical, sensory-motor, communicative and developmental differences find the effort to communicate worthwhile."

"What is EduApps? EduApps is an initiative developed by the JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East and consists of four different collections of incredibly useful software: * AccessApps provides a range of solutions to support writing, reading and planning, as well as sensory, cognitive and physical difficulties. * TeachApps is a collection of software specifically designed for teachers or lecturers. * LearnApps, as its name implies, is specifically designed for learners. All learners or students can benefit from LearnApps. * MyStudyBar is our new kid on the block, providing a suite of apps to support literacy."

"An online library of free videos for learners everywhere - our goal is to gather a set of resources to help you learn just about anything, meet people who make a difference in their communities, and even discover new parts of the world. Next Vista for Learning wants to post your educational videos online, too. Everyone has an insight to share and yours may be just what some student or teacher somewhere needs!"

LInks for several different spelling and vocabulary lists

"This section will cover: 1. Math Access Support (Assistive Technology) 2. Concept Support (Instructional sites) 3. Math Apps for use on different iDevices 4. Calculator Options 5. Math Resources 6. Low Tech to High Tech AT Options"

"Check out the eBooks my students created using iBooks Author and published in Apple's iBookstore. We are so excited about these eBooks. All books are only available on the iPad for now. We truly believe that students will learn more when they realize that people from the global community value their work. As of today, we have had a combined total of 7500 books downloaded in 40+ different countries! Please support our efforts by downloading today and by spreading the news to your friends! We are trying to reach 10,000 downloads total!"

AT Toolbox

"...as human language envolved, our mental ablities became increasingly entwined with linguistic devices."