PATINS UDL Project

Arcademic Skill Builders is a nonprofit web site that features free online educational games offering a new approach to learning basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills. Inspired by arcade games and the intense engagement they foster between the game and player, the site’s programs stem from experience, systematic observations, and research in understanding student learning in school and social situations.

The site offers single-player and multi-player games in activities that include:

• Jet Ski Addition
• Island Chase Subtraction
• Grand Prix Multiplication
• Drag Race Division
• Word Frog
• Word Invasion
• Capital Penguin
• Coconut Vowels
• Verb Viper

Check it out at http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/

Free lesson plans help bring Google Earth into classrooms!

“Google Earth Lessons” is a free public resource created by teachers, for teachers, to give educators tools and ideas for using the free Google Earth software in their classrooms. Using the ideas and resources found on this site, teachers of all subjects and grade levels can incorporate Google Earth into their curriculum.

A section called “Google Earth How-tos” gives educators the basic skills they need to use the software, and a discussion section includes threads for exchanging ideas on a variety of topics.

Users also can search for lessons by content area (social studies, math, science, language arts, & cross curricular), share lessons with others, search through a library of screenshots, and more. All that is needed to use the lessons is a free download of Google Earth software.

http://www.gelessons.com/lessons

Check out this great web site from PBS (Publics Broadcasting System) that allows you to experience the difficulties that students with learning disabilities and other disabilities face day to day in the classroom. There are opportunities for you to feel your own disabilities in the areas of reading, writing, math, and attention as well as resource information and ideas for helping students with these problems. (Just click on the title “Misunderstood Minds” link to go to the web site.)

I just received an email with a training opportunity this summer…in Boston… at Harvard! I went to this training last summer and it was great. You will have the opportunity to meet lots of other people who are trying to implement UDL in their school and learn about many tricks of the trade in making it happen.

The 2008 Universal Design for Learning Institute: Reaching all Learners will be July 7-11, 2008. It will address crucial questions about how to provide full access to the general education curriculum for all learners, especially those with disabilities, through Universal Design for Learning. The week-long training is designed to help educators meet the challenge of teaching diverse learners in inclusive, standards-based classrooms.

If you are interested contact Jason Rabin, Enrollment Coordinator, at 800.545.1849. (It filled up quickly last year.)

There is more information at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/k12/programs/ude.html

Two InspireData webinars were presented this spring.

These activities will work with science, social studies and/or math curriculum.

Both of these were timely…the first dealt with radish plants and their development (a nice spring activity) and the second dealt with the presidential election with information you can use in the fall when you return to school and the election is in full gear.

See archived versions of these webcasts at http://www.inspiration.com/webcastarchives/

If you don’t have InspireData, you can get a free trial version on the Inspiration Software web site: http://www.inspiration.com/productinfo/inspiredata/index.cfm

As your school is working to implement UDL, you will certainly find that there is technology that will help you in the process. You will need to remember your vision, consider the curriculum involved, and be sure of your technology support system and your school’s capacity for handling the technology. Don’t forget to consider how you will collaborate, communicate, and share information about UDL with others. As with any technology, collecting data on the positive or negative benefits is important so you know how to proceed further.

I’m attaching an information sheet that will help guide you through making those technology decisions. 7 Guiding Questions for Technology Decision Making

When you implement UDL principles in your classroom, there will always be issues about how to grade students. Is it “fair”… for a student who writes a good 6-page paper explaining the causes and results of the Great Depression …and a student who makes an instructive 16-screen PowerPoint with audio and video links to highlight certain points about the causes and results of the Great Depression …and a student who writes a short play to illustrate his knowledge about the causes and results of the Great Depression for a typical family of that time… to each get an A or a B? Should the “hardest” task get an A and the others get something else? What is the “hardest” task? Does the hardest task represent the most learning? Who has made progress in their understanding of the Great Depression?

Dave Edyburn (University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee) has provided a nice bibliography of sources that address this topic. Zero and Grading Policies

You can also go to the following sites on the Internet for information:

An Introduction to Grading by Dennis Munk, with links to instructional tools and research related to grading. It also has links to actual case studies dealing with grading. : http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/specconn/main.php?cat=assessment&section=grading/main

Grading Policies That Work Against Standards…and How to Fix Them by T.R. Guskey: http://www.ncacasi.org/documents/other/grading_policies

Fair & Equitable Grading Practices for Students with LD Who Have IEPs, by D.D. Munk: http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.aspx?r=1154

Role of Zero in Grading by Karen Walker, with links to other online articles about grading:  http://www.principalspartnership.com/zerograding.pdf

From Indiana’s et cetera (ETC: Education Technology) newletter, a recommendation to check the Grant Wrangler web site. It allows you to pick the date the grant proposal will be due or to search for topics by key words. You can subscribe to a free bi-weekly update on grant opportunities.

http://www.grantwrangler.com/

Check out the research reported in Education Week that focuses on the connection between exercise and learning and achievement! This is an easy way for teachers to help every student prepare to learn.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/02/13/23exercise_ep.h27.html?tmp=1954207192

At the recent TRLD (Technology, Reading and Learning Diversity) Conference I attended a workshop by a grant-writing specialist, Sheryl Abshire, from Lake Charles, LA, about how to approach grantgivers, write grants, and get grant funding. All of you can probably use grant money, to cover the costs of attending conferences or training sessions or for additional technology to implement UDL in your classrooms and schools.

Sheryl listed several keys to successful grant writing, which included:

• do exactly what the RFP (request for proposal) guidelines say
• connect the grant request to something that is for ongoing improvement
• provide specifics on how you will use the grant money and how you will collect and evaluate the data
• be passionate, creative and innovative about your plans
• focus on areas of need in your school or district
• include what you/your school/your district will provide to help make the grant successful (e.g., partnerships with other community resources)
• if you write the grant for professional development, link it back to improving student achievement in an area of need

She provided several websites with grant information:

Her personal grant information website with resources listed alphabetically: http://www.cpsb.org/Scripts/abshire/grants.asp

The School Grants web site with grant information for PK-12 (note that it has sample grants and fund raising information on the sidebar to the left) http://www.schoolgrants.org/

The eSchool News website which provides grant and funding information for schools. You can sign up for a funding alert newsletter there also. http://www.eschoolnews.com/funding/

An information resource website, Thomson West, that has a Grants for K-12 Hotline that provides a bi-weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to for a yearly fee. http://west.thomson.com/store/product.aspx?r+139011&product_id=40560035