Group items tagged

This website is personally important to me because I have deaf family members. My cousin (who is not deaf, but has always been involved in the deaf community) created an interpreting business. I'm proud to highlight her website. This website explains the services they offer for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. It also gives facts about deafness and related links for the deaf community.

This site is a wonderful resource. When I first started in education I worked with a hearing impaired student. It was very enlightening for me to work with him and see his progress with the limited tools we had available. Imagine if we had access to the internet and sites like this to find resources, how much more progress he could have made while in school.

I found this controversial article about a deaf woman and her lawsuit against eBay for having limited accessibility for disabled users. She wants to be a seller on eBay, but due to not being able to verify that she is a seller because she would have to retrieve and submit a password via a phone call, she chose to bring a lawsuit against the company. The judge, however, dismissed her case due to her lack of evidence. Ebay claims their were other ways she could have verified, but she chose not to. The woman will continue to appeal the ruling. The article also talks about a similar case with Netflix. The comments at the end were interesting to read as well, because some of them claim the woman is using the "deaf card" and looking for financial gain. Like I said, interesting article...

Students arrive to the classroom with a variety of talents as well as some with disabilities. The National Center for Learning Disabilities indicates that those students with learning disabilities (LD) suffer from "reading, writing, math, reasoning, listening, and speaking" skills that makes learning extremely frustrating. I choose this one because of the tools, resources and ideas that it gave me so that I can be a better teacher. I really like the poll everywhere site. It is so easy to use and it gives a visual for my students of a question that I just asked. You can use an ipad or cellpone.

Hey Melanie, I love your article and really love the suggestion of Voki! I am a huge fan of asking kids to get out of their comfort zone and I know a good way to do that is class presentations, but I do know some students may struggle with this for more than just being nervous. Some students with certain disabilities might not be able to fully present in front of the class and this Voki site was great for that! I actually was playing around with it and I hope it works, but copy this link below to see if you can view my message... it was fun!!! HAHA Thanks for sharing this article! http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=7840526&height=267&width=200

Thanks for researching and sharing. I have never heard of Voki or Poll Everywhere and what great tools they are. I know students have an fear or anxiety to speak or even weigh in on a discussion. It is a great tool as it allows students to express themselves in a comfortable and "safe" format for them. Thanks for the find and sharing. Has anyone ever used these tools in their classes? Jeff

I love how this site provides real world connections and examples to math concepts that we sometimes only see in black and white. Website is for all grade levels and provides access to those visual learners.

Strategy Tutor is a web-based tool designed to support students and teachers doing reading and research on the internet. For students, Strategy Tutor helps you read, research, collect and understand information better and more efficiently. For teachers, Strategy Tutor provides a way to easily create web-based lessons embedded with research-based, highly effective learning strategy and vocabulary supports. And, because it is web-based, Strategy Tutor allows you to check on your students' progress easily, at any time, and from any computer. There are two "views" of Strategy Tutor. The Student Strategy Tutor website is where students work. On the student homepage, you can read messages from your teacher, work on your own work or teacher-created lessons, and collect work log entries that are like note cards. Your work log entries are tagged with source citations and a strategy category; that makes research easier and more effective. You can also check out the research project tutorial and feature demonstration videos to learn how to use Strategy Tutor more effectively.

A short article which examines how people without hands are able to use computers.

This is really cool. I typed in the web address for my district and it came up with errors and alerts.

I chose this article because it explained what Web 2.0 is and what implications it might have for disabled people who use the Web, particularly the use of Ajax (which I had no idea what that meant before) for interactive web pages. It also gave suggestions for ways to make sure the applications are accessible.

Katy, Thanks for researching and finding AJAX. Your comment above hooked me into to know more as Ajax is the name of one of my favorite soccer teams in Europe. They play in the Dutch league, but Ajax soccer and Ajax the tool are much different. I like how the site recommended how to apply Ajax and how it could be applied incorrectly. Great research and thanks for sharing. Jeff

Jeff--like we read in one of the articles, the problem with tagging is the tag might mislead you to what you are looking for! We just demonstrated that.....You saw AJAX and thought of your favorite soccer team, but the AJAX I tagged was for the web application! HA

Wow, I'm a new Mac user and I knew Apple had features that accommodate learning disabilities. But I didn't know that there were many features to help improve productivity and academic performance in reading proficiency, math, spelling, and more. One example that Apple uses is Text to Speech for students with cognitive disabilities. That is only one of many, check out all the features. I was amazed.

Jara, If you have a list of the apps I would love to see it. I am always looking for educational apps (especially music ones) for my students and my own kids. Wendy

I think the APPLE products are perfect for individuals with disabilities! I did not realize HOW many features are available for disabled users until I read this! SO many great features that I can share with my special ed department to support the use of these devices!