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Website with tons of web 2.0 resources. I bookmarked this one because it is full of links and resources for using web 2.0 tools for all students including those with disabilities.

I chose this bookmark because it has many resources for people that are blind. The first page, where the link is set, is about my cousion who is blind, and his success story. I have many memories of him growing up as a child. One link is for products and technology where there is a vast amount of resources from notetakers to talking books that will benefit someone with blindness. There is a great link on blogs that has many user experiences. The very first one was about Dropbox and problems happening with that at the moment. Very interesting blogs.

Hi Kathy, I loved reading this article about your cousin. What a great guy to have overcome the limitations set before him due to his blindness. He is a great example of how people with disabilities can do everything and more just like everyone else. His journey from being one of the first blind students allowed to attend public schools to being the president of the National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina is quite an accomplishment. You definitely should be proud! I loved the quote at the end of the article and how his son has a lot to be proud of. Thanks for sharing!

Kathy, I have read this about your cousin before. I am so amazed at all he has accomplished. He has never used his disability as a crutch. He has done so many things to help others who are blind. There are some great resources here. Thanks for sharing.

This website reviews Web 2.0 products and websites and rates them on accessibility. According to the website, "This resource aims to help those making decisions about their use of freely available 'Web 2.0' interactive and collaborate e-learning tools." The website is organized by type of disability. It lists what tests were performed on the Web 2.0 product and also the results of the test.

Hi Marianne, This is a great resource for users (disabled or non) to use to see which websites are accessible. I liked how you could browse by disability and then see how the different products, or websites, scored based on Web2Access's tests. Thanks for highlighting this site!

I think this is a great site, glad you found it and shared it. It is an awesome resource to check the accessability of websites. I plan to use this site to research websites suitable for the learning disabled students in my classes to improve my instruction for them.

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 chose to bookmark this webpage as it really made me think about the topic at hand. The internet offers opportunities to people with disabilities that were once unavailable. However, if a website is not created with web accessibility in mind, it really limits the users who could benefit the most. It is easy to understand as it provides great examples with links to more inforamtion as well as videos to watch on the topic. Great resource!

Kathy, Great minds think alike! I'm glad you enjoyed it too. :)

Lauren, This is a great site. I learned a lot navigating through it. I was especially touch by the two videos on the site. I sometimes get so closed off to what is around me and sometimes I need to take a god look around me to see what is going on. I liked how the site questioned why certain things are not offered all the time like captions on video and how they would not only be helpful to people that are hearing impaired by to everyone. Thanks for your research.

Before this week's reading, I never considered color-blindness as a physical disability. I don't know why - my father-in-law is color-blind so I am very aware of the problem. I chose this bookmark because it contains some simple steps that can be used to make your website easier to read for someone with color-blindness. Since the very definition of Web 2.0 involves user created content, blogs, website, etc. - I feel that it is very easy to follow the simple steps described in this blog posting when participating in Web 2.0 techniques.

Marianne, I have a brother that is color blind. I have always known about this, but never have I heard him ever complain about it in any way except that he doesn't match his socks very well. He says that he really never pays attention to it and just deals with it. I don't know that I know anyone else that is color blind. I read that there are different levels of severity to color blindness, so maybe my brother is very mild. Like you, I really have never considered this as a physical disability. I do on the other hand have a cousin that is totally blind, which I know is not anything to do with this, except, that is what I guess I consider a physcial disability. Interesting blog. Made me think a little! :)

Marianne, This website is so extremely useful. Thank you for finding, bookmarking and sharing. The site did an excellent job of listing and analyzing various Web 2.0 technolgies and I thought it was really beneficial to see how they rated them, Once that stuck out at me that I have never heard of was Access Menu. This Web 2.0 seemed to be rated extremely high for nearly every disability. Have you ever heard or used Access Menu before? I am going to do a bit of exploring, but it interested me to know if you or anyone for that matter has used Access Menu. Once again thanks for researching and sharing this site. I am going to share it with staff members in my building as well as our Special Services/Needs/Ed Departments. Awesome resource. Jeff

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

This is a website done by San Francisco State University that explains the common problems disabled users run into when accessing websites. This site also gives solutions for these problems. A list is provided for popular Web 2.0 websites (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn) and links to their accessibility reports. It also gives resources for disabled users to use while on those sites.

What is Zac Browser ZAC is the first web browser developed specifically for children with autism and autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) and PDD-NOS. We have made this browser for children... for their enjoyment, enrichment, and freedom.

This is an amazing find that I can share with my families. Due to the conditions of autism (especially Aspergers) many of my families at our school enroll because they feel that there child is getting lost in the sea of 32 children in a classroom. With our virtual setting their children on the same playing field due to the fact that they are behind the screen and only a voice. It is amazing to see how the students once placed into our program flourish without the questioning stares and bullying. This is just one more tool to help them proceed further and reach their full potential.

This is great! I currently have a student with autism. I want to become more familiar with it and try it with him. He loves getting on the computer, so I'm anxious to see how this may help him.