PATINS UDL Project

This is a web site that combines curricula + wiki to yield Curriki. (A web site where the community shares and collaborates on free and open source curricula.) This is a project started by Sun Microsystems to develop works for education in a collaborative effort.

They are focusing initially on developing an online repository for K-12 curricula in the areas of mathematics, science, technology, reading and language arts, and languages. They want this repository to attract everyone from educators, students and parents, to programmers, instructional designers, authors and public officials throughout the world to contribute or freely access quality learning materials. (A very similar concept to Wikipedia, which most of us are familiar with.)

You can find lesson plans, teaching activities, student worksheets and more. You can contribute by sharing your favorite curriculum resources. You can collaborate with teachers in your school or educators around the world. If you join (it’s free) you will be able to collect resources in a personal collection, to modify those resources to meet your specific needs, to contribute your own resource information, and to participate in the educational community by providing feedback and comments.

Check it out at:

http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/

TeacherTube is a free resource for videos, documents, audio and photos that relate to teaching. The videos, documents, audio and photos are searchable in channels, including: history education, health, math, reading, writing, social sciences, science, physical education, career & technology education, languages, fine arts, tutorials, special education, and elementary, middle school, high school and college areas .

This web site also has areas where you can set up a group to share information and for blogs.

http://www.teachertube.com/

The sessions for Read:OutLoud at the recent PATINS Tech Expo were totally packed and everyone began to understand the possibilities regarding how Read:OutLoud will support students. Everyone was amazed to find out that a technology which traditionally costs $299 per student has been purchased for every student in the state of Indiana who might benefit!

Because Indiana is committed to supporting students who need alternatives to text, Don Johnston is committed to supporting the implementation and success of that initiative.   Everyone interested in deepening their knowledge can now attend a virtual coaching session that duplicates the PATINS training provided at the Tech Expo - FREE.  These highly interactive webinars will allow you to participate from your own internet-ready computer work-station. The session is delivered in less than 45 minutes and includes materials that address logistical and classroom management issues, student goal setting, skills assessment, as well as the thirty-minute tutorial.

Please join Mary Jo Barry and Mary Krenz for one of these trainings by clicking the following link to check out a variety of dates and times available for registration!
https://donjohnston.webex.com/mw0305l/mywebex/personalroom/personalroom.do?siteurl=donjohnston&AT=meet&username=Mary%20Jo

Project Forum at NASDE (National Association of State Directors of Special Education along with CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) met to identify challenges to implementing UDL and then develop policy recommendations to address those challenges. The document linked here summarizes panel presentations from the higher education, state-level, local-level and national-level perspectives. Throughout the panel and during the subsequent group discussions, several suggestions and proposed strategies to improve policy to impact implementation of UDL were given by participants. These are summarized in the document.

Click here to view the document.

Teachers’ Domain is an online library of more than 1,000 FREE media resources from the best in public television along with lesson plans for English Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and the Arts. These classroom resources, featuring media from NOVA, Frontline, Design Squad, American Experience, and other public broadcasting and content partners are easy to use and correlate to state and national standards. [http://www.teachersdomain.org/]

The National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) at WGBH recently has received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop a version of the Life Science portion of the Teachers Domain digital library that is accessible to users with hearing, vision, and physical disabilities.

AND…You can help develop the lesson plans that are accessible to students with disabilities and earn a stipend. Read on….

This comes from:   Mary Watkins
Director of Communications and Outreach
Media Access Group at WGBH
Email: mary_watkins@wgbh.org
http://access.wgbh.org
One Guest Street
Boston, MA  02135
617 300-3700 v/fax
617 300-2489 TTY

The Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), a nonprofit research and
development organization, is working with NCAM to conduct research with
teachers of students with disabilities to inform the development of the
accessibility features for the Teachers Domain library. As part of our
research activities, we are currently looking for teachers of students with
hearing, vision, or physical disabilities who are interested in planning six
life science or biology lessons incorporating resources from the life
science section of the Teachers Domain digital library and then carrying out
these lessons with their students. The lesson planning will take place at
teachers’ convenience. The research involves documenting how teachers use
the Teachers’ Domain digital library for planning (using interviews and web
statistics), the lessons they planned (collecting copies of the lesson
plans), how the lessons are being implemented (using teacher
questionnaires/logs), and how students respond to the lessons (through
student questionnaires, work samples, and assessment tasks built into the
lessons). Teachers will receive a stipend of $800 for planning six lessons,
carrying them out in their classrooms, and participating in data collection
activities.

If you are interested in participating, please contact our project partner at EDC, Babette Moeller.

Babette Moeller Email:  bmoeller@edc.org

This is a great web site for locating open source (free) software that addresses a multitude of barriers to accessing the curriculum.   http://www.oatsoft.org/

You can search the software database by the need that it meets, by the type or category of software, or see all the titles. (There are over 150 titles listed.)

You can also contribute toward projects developing new software or introduce software that you have developed.  There is a forum area for discussion and a news section with the latest developments. There is something here for everyone.

For the past few summers Harvard’s Graduate School of Education has held a week-long UDL seminar during the summer. This is a great opportunity to get a UDL specialist trained for your school district. This year’s seminar will be held July 6 - 10, 2009. You can find more information at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/k12/programs/ude.html

Westfield-Washington Schools will be hosting a FREE Promethean Interactive Whiteboard Conference on March 13th, 2009 at Maple Glen Elementary School, 17171 Ditch Road, Westfield, IN, 46074.

Please feel free to join us for breakout sessions on uses of Promethean in the classroom, lunch, keynote speaker and door prizes.

You are welcome to bring any other staffers from your district that you think will benefit from this conference.

All that we ask is that you and anyone else attending, please register at the following link, so that we are aware of how many to expect.

https://www.eventville.com/search/groups.asp?coordinatorgroupid=1001051

Click on “Indiana” on the map and then click “register” to sign up for the specific breakout sessions and complete your registration. You will also see the conference schedule and other items.

Remember that this is a FREE conference!

Lunch will be provided free of charge from Kelties Restaurant.

Please let Eric Esterline (phone: 317-867-8034) know if you have any questions or would like directions.

The Buddy Teaching & Learning Center currently has a grant opportunity that all pubic schools in Indiana can apply for to receive a Wii system, accessories, games, and professional development for integrating the system into physical education, music education, social skills development, and/or academic achievement.  We will be awarding several of these grants.
The original deadline for this grant was today, February 16, but due to the weather-caused closings and related issues from a few weeks ago, the grant deadline has been extended to February 28.
Complete information about this grant and an application is available at our website, www.btlc.org.
Even if you are not interested in the grant, we have Wii integration sessions that will begin in April.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Margaret Manuzzi

Margaret Manuzzi, Coordinator
Buddy Teaching & Learning Center
6920 Gatwick Drive, Suite 130
Indianapolis, IN  46241
P  (317) 856-2223
F  (317) 856-2224

Using Tic-Tac-Toe boards to assign curriculum activities or to assess student learning is a great way to let students make choices about the activities they do in your lessons, and it will help them be more engaged and involved in their own learning.  Since it is much easier to set up Tic-Tac-Toe boards for your class if you see some good examples, here are two.

Dave Edyburn has a web site (go to http://www.uwm.edu/~edyburn/tictactoe.html) that offers Tic-Tac-Toe board  information for various primary, elementary and middle school activities, including:

• book report
• hats
• spelling
• community helpers
• nutrition
• poetry
• sailing

Maureen LaFleche also has a web site with a good example of using a Tic-Tac-Toe board for offering students choices in curricular activities in the review of a novel in her literature class.  Go to:  http://tkamforall.pbwiki.com/Activities