PATINS UDL Project

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

Studies have shown that reflection upon one’s learning is key to a full learning experience.  For this reason, UDL teams who begin with the PATINS UDL Project from the fall of 2007 on will be required to keep a reflection journal.  Your team may appoint one person to write the journal, reflecting the team’s thoughts on implementing UDL in the classroom or each member of the team may complete the journal entries and link them to this site here.

How long will it take?

Your team should record in the journal at least once a month and it should take roughly 20-30 minutes to complete.  It may take more or less time to complete depending on time constraints and/or the amount of detailed information you wish to include.  Add as much information as you like but the minimum requirements are included in the template.

Don’t worry if you find your comments overlap.  Try to write something, no matter how brief your response may be, in each section on the template.  If you find that you have nothing to write in a certain section this may be telling you something important about how your team is implementing UDL in the classroom.

All information completed in your journal is confidential.  These journals will only be used by your team and by the PATINS Project to evaluate your implementation of the UDL grant program.  The team’s UDL reflections will be collected at the end of each semester and retained by your PATINS Regional Site Coordinator and shared with the PATINS State Director.

If you have any questions or concerns about your team’s Reflection Journal please don’t hesitate to discuss them with your PATINS Regional Site Coordinator.

There is a link to the template for completing the Reflection Journal below. You may complete the journal electronically on your school computer and submit it electronically or you may print out the template and use it to write your journal and make a copy to submit.

Reflection Journal Template

The online version of Education Week has a posting of grant opportunities at http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/grants/index.html

There are several pages of grants listed with information about who is providing them, what the focus or program is, and when the deadline for applying is. If you are looking for money to support UDL, this is a great place to look for possible sources.

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.)

There will be a training opportunity this summer…in Boston… at Harvard! I went to this training in 2007, 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 2009 Universal Design for Learning Institute: Reaching all Learners will be July 6-10, 2009. 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.

Enrollment in this seminar is on a first come, first served basis. There is more information at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/k12/programs/ude.html

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