Update - February AT Blog Carnival

One more post for the AT Blog Carnival.  Eric Sailers (@egolfer6) from Speech-Language Pathology Sharing wanted to share this post on his upcoming presentations:


Cue Conference


Patrick


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February AT Blog Carnival

Happy February to everyone!  Thanks for stopping by to check out the AT Blog Carnival.  Please take a moment to check out the contributors, and if you like what you read, please leave a comment!

Greg McCall starts of this month, he submitted this
SLS4reading

Ira Socol (@irasocol) of SpeEdChange submitted a great post on technology.
What is Technology?


Chris Bugaj (@attipscast) of the A.T.TipsCast thought everyone would enjoy this spooky post!
Count Edula's Game

Daniel McNutty shared his website for you to check out.
Patins Project

Gillian Pilcher of Special Classroom has a great math game.
Math Game

Ricky Buchanan (@rickybuchanan) of ATMac has a few good posts!
Nuance Buys Macspeech
Accessing the iPad
Fiddle Proof iPod

Barrie Ellis (@oneswitch) of One Switch UK share some great games.
Gamma IV at Gamebase

I'm sharing my thoughts on the upcoming release of the Apple iPad.
Apple iPad
Apple iPad - Comments

Thanks again to all the contributors!  Please keep a look out for the next AT Blog Carnival.


Patrick

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Last Call for February AT Blog Carnival!

This is the last call for entries for the February AT Blog Carnival.  Please get your submission to me ASAP and I will make sure to get it posted for tomorrow.  You can reach me at Twitter - Teachntech00 or via the reTaggr widget on this page (top right corner).

Patrick

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Captions for the Internet - Educational Perspective

When Jaime contacted me to co-write a post about Bill HR3101, she indicated she would like me to write about the educational aspects of this Bill. For those of you who missed the post, basically Bill HR3101 would make all video capable devices have the option of showing captions. It would mean that many different devices that access the internet would allow for captioning!

There is a lot of research that shows how captions help students learn. It increases vocabulary, and helps students with grammar and such. Personally, I get this...students get an opportunity to see words and pictures together. It's something we do on a regular basis when teaching reading, but this allows even more content to be taught. Verbs become so much more real when there is actual action on the screen paired with captions...it just makes sense.

With this bill, the plethora of internet video becomes even more useful. At this time, there is some captioned content, but compared to the amount of videos on just one site - Youtube.com for example, it's tiny. Even with the addition of captioning to YouTube.com - About Captioning, it will take an act of Congress to fully caption everything already uploaded. Hopefully this bill will do this.

What it also means is that mobile devices become even more useful. I can see a device like the upcoming iPad allowing students to access video content independently and using captions to increase their understanding of the content.

This is an exciting time in technology and things will get very interesting. Take a moment and sign up for the Caption Action 2 to support this bill!

Patrick


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Captions for the Internet - Guest Post

The first part of today's post is from Jaime Berke. Jamie has been an About guide since 1997. Her job history includes managing a closed captioning website and before that, a deaf adoption news service. She was also active in the early "Caption Action" effort of the late 80s to early 90s to increase closed captioning on videotapes. Her resume also includes a four-year stint at the National Captioning Institute in the early 90s, plus she had also worked part time at the National Information Center on Deafness (now Info to Go) at Gallaudet University. Currently, she works at a day job in the "hearing world." By day she interacts with hearing people and attends meetings with the help of interpreters, and at night at home, with deaf people.


What educator would not want the benefits of a technology that costs school districts nothing, yet has huge educational potential? Right now, there is a bill in Congress that would do just that!


This bill is HR 3101, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009. It was introduced on June 26, 2009 by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA). The Act would update the Communications Act so that it would apply to the Internet. Internet technology has progressed by leaps and bounds, yet the law has not kept up.


HR 3101 is divided into two parts: A Communications part, and a Video part. The Communications part has to do, for example, with Internet-based telephone services, hearing aid compatibility for Internet-based phone services, and extends funding obligations for relay services to Internet-based phone service providers. It is the Video part that has much potential to benefit teachers!


The Video part of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 would update the outdated law so that television programming broadcast on the Internet would have to be closed captioned. While there is currently some captioned programming on the Internet, it is still limited compared to the vast amount of Internet-based television programming. But that is not all! Current law only requires that television screens 13 inches or larger be capable of showing closed captions; the Act would update the law so that all video programming devices would have to be able to show closed captions.


Why is this so important to educators? The educational benefits of captions! Captioning has long since been proven to help children learning to read, and adults learning English as a second language. Parents know this, and more and more parents are making sure to turn on the captions when their young children are watching television. Teachers benefit from captions too, because when a child is watching a captioned program, they are getting print language exposure and vocabulary reinforcement.


Studies have been done that demonstrate the benefits of captions, as reported in Benefits of Captioning for Hearing Children and English as a Second Language Learners. In addition, the Described and Captioned Media Program sums up these educational benefits of captions on their Read Captions Across America web site. (Read Captions Across America is a partnership with the National Education Association).


So imagine the potential for a teacher in the classroom! With more and more schools relying on the Internet as a source of affordable (free) educational material, this bill is critically important to the future of the education of America's children! A teacher could have a class watch an assigned Internet video in the classroom on their computers, and then quiz the class on the caption vocabulary. A teacher could turn off the sound, forcing the students to learn from the video solely through print vocabulary alone.


Students going home on the school bus would be able to watch captioned video on their portable video devices, getting even more vocabulary reinforcement. At home, the student would get still more vocabulary exposure watching their favorite programs on the Internet. Recently, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reported that students are spending more than 7 hours a day using electronic media. HR 3101 could therefore literally triple the print vocabulary exposure of students!


Currently, HR 3101 has 30 cosponsors in Congress, listed below. If you are a teacher and you want HR 3101 passed in Congress, call or write your Representative! If you are on Facebook, you can also join Caption Action 2, a cause that supports HR 3101. In addition, HR 3101 is spearheaded by the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT), http://www.coataccess.org. On the COAT website is a summary of the bill, and a list of affiliates. It costs organizations nothing to join COAT. Membership is free - but members must commit to working for the passage of HR 3101.




Jaime Berke

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Blog Carnival of Education

Check out this week's Carnival of Education.  It's being hosted by Mr. D of I want to Teach Forever today.



Image courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons:  Foreversouls

Patrick

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February AT Blog Carnival - still time!

There is still time to have your blog post included in the February AT Blog Carnival.  Last month was a huge success and I'd encourage anyone to submit a post.  Please send your posts to me via twitter - @teachntech00, the reTaggr logo at the top of this blog, or leave a comment!  All posts due by 2/24!

Patrick

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Apple iPad - Comments

I was very excited to find a lively debate happening on the comments for my post about the upcoming iPad. I wanted to clear up a few points, because I don't think I made myself clear.

First, I am actually quite excited by the release of this device. I have used iPod Touches for about a year now for student engagement and think it is a great product. One thing that I've had trouble with is the size of the iPod screen, it makes it difficult for students to access if they have sort of fine motor control issues. This is one place that the iPad will excel.

Second, yes I missed the information about support for VGA output for projectors and such. Thanks to sean5155 for this information:

Support for 1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable.

Another commenter, D Scintille, talked about the lack of Flash support

Flash is a resource hog. It eats batteries for lunch. I am glad there is no Flash. It will make the web so much faster.

In principal I agree with this statement. Flash is a resource hog, and causes many more problems that I'd like to admit, it limits the usefulness of the iPad. Some sites like Voicethread, Animoto & Glogster are great places for content, but would be unusable on the iPad, unless they have an app. Animoto has one, but as far as I know the other websites do not. Hopefully, this will push the web to more content using HTML5, which allows for videos, storage, and many other things without the need for plugins like Flash, but until that happens the iPad will have some limitations. Even with this limitation I know I would use this device.


Now to the last commenter, constableodo. There's a few points that I'd like to address.

That's what all the tech-heads will be choosing by basing their purchase on a hardware feature set no matter how sparse the downloadable content may be or how unwieldy the interface is.

While admittedly I am a bit of a "tech-head", and love gadgets, I do not buy items on hardware alone. I agree that many devices are hampered by bad browsers or proprietary software. I applaud apple on the iPhone and opening up the entire web, with no changes needed, to a mobile platform. And I know that they will also allow the iPad to access as much of the web as possible. While I've not used an iPad the reports are that it has a very fast processor and that's an important part of a device like this, there are times when the iPhone & iPod Touch just feels like it drags.

There are consumers out there looking for some easy solution to grab content and the iPad offers that solution. One touch content shopping for the low-tech consumer. With thousands of apps and games ready to go on the iPad out of the box, there's no way it will fail.

Actually, I completely agree with this statement. The iPod made the music industry change, the iPad will bring changes to publishing and the availability of books. It will also make content more accessible to more people by bringing Text-To-Speech (Blio), adjustment of size, and interactive content to anyone with an iPad. An iPad in every child's hand as they enter 1st grade would be an amazing learning tool for them to have to their entire school career.

The reason I'm waiting for the 2nd Gen is because of Apple! They do an amazing job of upping the ante with each new generation of product and I think some of the things I want (a webcam) will be available soon. I also think it might be best to make sure there are no major bugs or problems, while this probably not a problem, I think it's prudent. I appreciate and encourage all the comments, please let me know your thoughts!

Patrick

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Apple iPad

So, I've taken my time, but I've finally decided to write about the iPad.  As you probably know from previous posts I was pretty excited about the release of the Apple iPad (Year of the Tablet & E-Reader). One of the reason's I've waited so long to post is that I wasn't sure what I thought about what Apple is releasing.  On some level I'm very please and think the iPad has great potential, but I'm also a little disappointed (here are the technical specs).  Let's look at the good and the bad:


The Good


Large screen - the iPad features a large 9.7" screen.  This increase in real estates makes it a huge plus over the iPod Touch & iPhone.  As you know I use these devices currently with my students, and some have trouble accessing them due the the size of the buttons, just too small.

Accessibility Options - the iPad will have the same accessibility options that the iPhone has which includes screen magnification, audio preview of items, white on black display, mono audio & closed captioned content.

The Price - $499 for a basic model with Wi-Fi, that's a great price point and not out of range for lots of people.  Most analysts expected it to be much higher ($999 or more).

The Access - for a small amount you can be constantly connected, $29 a month for unlimited 3G access. There's even a cheaper plan for 3G access.  The iPhone has created a culture of people who expect constant connectivity and the iPad is just going to fuel that need!  This may be the push to get better wireless standards adopted quicker - 4G or LTE.

The Apps - All of the 150,000 iPhone apps will work on the iPad (including Proloquo2go!).  They will work in a small form or you can stretch them to take the entire screen, but from what I've heard they do not look very good like that.  Also if you have already purchased the app, it will work on your iPad without having to purchase again.

The Bookstore - it's being called iBook and so far all the publishers are inline to provide content.  This is the area the iPad is going to excel.  This is going to be a device consume content on - books, TV shows, and movies.  I think Blio was specifically designed for this device in mind, but that's just my speculation!

The Speed - not having actually touched one I cannot fully attest to this - but I hear it's fast!  As fast as you PC or laptop, but that's not surprising because everything gets faster.  From the reports it makes the experience of using it very pleasant.


The Bad

No webcam - not sure on why they left this out, seemed like a very basic feature...

$130 for 3G - really it costs $130 to outfit a device with a small radio to pick up 3G signals?  Seems a little far fetched to me...

No Flash - the iPhone & iPod Touch have not suffered without Flash, but it is a very integral part of the web.  Until HTML5 becomes the standard this will be a problem for the iPad.

No video output - while not a critical feature, this would make it a great device to store some content and watch on a TV or projector.


My Thoughts
So, what conclusions have I come to?  First, I don't think I can make a real decision until I hold and use an iPad.  Second, it has potential, as a content consuming device (book reader, movie watcher, music, etc...).  Also as a communication device, with external speakers and Proloquo2go it would make a very interesting platform.  Third, I think the size makes a huge difference, the reason the iPod can be hard to use for many students is the size, this fixes that.  Fourth, we'll just have to wait and see.  There is no way to know if this device will take off or not, but I think I'll be waiting for the 2nd generation before I get one.


Patrick

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February AT Blog Carnival - Post due 2/24

There is still time to have your blog post included in the February AT Blog Carnival.  Last month was a huge success and I'd encourage anyone to submit a post.  Please send your posts to me via twitter - @teachntech00, the reTaggr logo at the top of this blog, or leave a comment!  All posts due by 2/24!

Patrick

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Cooperative Learning

So last Thursday was a day many teachers love, and loathe...a half day.  This day's agenda included students in the morning, and a presenter in the afternoon.  Quite unusually we had no idea who the presenter was, or what we would be hearing...so I had thought the worst, I was pleasantly surprised!  The agenda for the session was Cooperative Learning and I was worried that none of the content would apply to my students.  I listened intently as we learned about structures for - think, pair, share; RoundRobin & RoundTable; and numbered.... While all these structures would be very useful in general education classroom, I cannot see a way to use them effectively with students with more significant cognitive disabilities.

As the session continued I was very impressed by our speaker and the way she used us to demonstrate how to work cooperatively (as compared to listening to a lecture for 2 hours about 21st Century Skills, but I'm not getting into that one!).  She then started talking about some techniques for 2 students to use - one called Match Mine, the other Same/Different.

Same/Different is a structure where students look at sets of pictures and are asked to find similarities and differences between the sets of pictures.  A divider is placed up between the students so they cannot see each others boards so are forced to use language to identify the similarities and differences.  I can imagine a BINGO type board with lets say 9 squares, 6 of them have mammals.  Now we have 2 of these boards, some of the mammals would be the same, some different, and in different places.  The task of the students is to determine what animals are on the board & where they are located...the opportunity for language development is spectacular!  I can especially see using this with AAC users to help them increase their understanding of their devices. One of these sets of boards might look like this:

Match Mine is a similar concept: 2 students, a divider, and one student tells the other how to match what they have.  I can see this during a math lesson on time, or maybe have a student give a amount of coins and have the other student create the same.  Again this would be a great way to use language for students!

I hope I have some time to try these this week and if I do I'm sure I'll be sharing here!

Patrick

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Guest Post - Free Tech 4 Teachers

Richard Byrne of Free Technology 4 Teachers have given me an opportunity to guest post on his blog while he is on his annual ice fishing trip.  Free Tech 4 Teachers is a great blog with lots of great information about websites and ways to use technology.  So please check out Richard's Blog and check out my guest post - Web2.0 & Students with Disabilities!  Free Technology 4 Teachers


Patrick


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MeMoves

One last item from ATIA!  As I wandered around the exhibit hall on the first day I came across a very busy  booth for MeMoves.  MeMoves is a set of DVD's the help increase focus, concentration, and calmness.  The movements are simple and can be done sitting or standing.  The beat is slow, 40-60 beats, and is very easy to follow.  Some of the movements can be hard to do (just try moving one hand up & down, while the other makes a square), but the DVD's show many different adults & kids doing them, some well and some not so well.  It's a great way to show that we all do things differently.  The program was designed by a mom of a daughter with Autism, but would work for many students!  The best part is the price - $59.95!  This program is a great way to "warm up" your brain!


Patrick

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February AT Blog Carnival

I'm a little late getting this out, but I think it's time for another AT Blog Carnival!  February is almost half over, but let's try anyway.  I'll post the AT Blog Carnival on Friday, Feb 26, so get your posts to be ASAP.  Again we are interested in any blogger who has an interest in Assistive Technology so please pass along the invite to all your friends!  Please have all posts to me by Wed, Feb 24!

Patrick


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PenFriend

A very interesting device that I was introduced to at ATIA was the PenFriend.  The PenFriend is basically a voice labeling device.  When you touch the PenFriend to a specific place it will vocalize.  The spots come with the PenFriend and can be programed to say whatever you want.  So you could place them in a book and when a child touches the pen to the spot it would read the page!  The Pen friend can hold up to 70 HOURS of audio!!!  and there is no limit to how much audio can be programmed for each dot.  This could be a very useful tool in classroom settings to help kids be more independent in reading books, and definitely meets the multiple means of representation that UDL recommends.


- Patrick

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Pointscribe

One product that I had decided to check out at ATIA is Pointscribe.  I'd heard about it on the QIAT list and thought it sounded interesting.  Basically it's software for teaching handwriting.  Sounds simplistic, but it's more than that.  It has several very interesting features - it works with touchscreens & tablet computers (that work with pens). It includes auditory & visual feedback and can teach basic shapes/lines, and will move up to letters, numbers and even cursive.  You can even create own scripts and have kids trace over it.

At ATIA I took the opportunity to try out the program, it worked extremely well, was responsive, and was easy to use.  It worked well with both the pen from a tablet computer as well as using my finger on a Magic Touch screen.  You can download a free 30-day trial from Pointscribe - Free Trial.  At this time the program is only available for PC, but I'm told a Mac version is forthcoming.  Try out your copy today!

Patrick

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My Crazy Idea - Feature Article on Adapted Learning

I've used Boardmaker for years and have talked about their products quite a lot on this blog.  I'm excited to say that I've was asked to write a Feature Article for their board sharing site AdaptedLearning.com.  You can check it out here - My Crazy Idea....  If you haven't checked out Adapted Learning for all the free boards for Boardmaker you need to!  It's a great way to get ideas!

Patrick

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