We were lucky enough to have Jennifer Holloway with us for our last session. Jennifer is the Lead Assistive Technology Specialist for Alexandria City Public Schools. She shared a whirlwind of amazing tools that can be used to assist students who need scaffolding, audio or visual support and other technology that allows them clearer and faster access to school content. If you missed our March session, please listen to our recording here:
TLP-C Assistive Technology for All Recording
Jennifer began with a brief overview of what assistive technology is. Jennifer’s definition is that assistive technology is anything that helps students access the curriculum. She also pointed out what a lot of us know which is that tools that help some students often help all students. Included in this is Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which is a flexible approach to ensure that all students can access content. The three principles of UDL are multiple means of engagement, multiple means of action and expression and multiple means of representation.
We had a helpful format where Jennifer walked us through some tools she loves and then we had some play time to check them out, bookmark them, comment on them before another round of great tools and play time. This was a great way for all of us to explore things more. If you ran out of time to see all the links during the presentation, here is a summary of what Jennifer shared:
- GoAnimate – an animation site, sadly, no longer free, but a great resource!
- Common Sense Media– a treasure trove of lessons on digital citizenship, also great for reviews of games, movies and TV shows for parents
- Inspired Writing – organized by the writing process, links to dozens of resources to assist students with writing
- ReadWorks – a series of lessons for specific language arts topics
- ReadWriteThink – lesson plans, student interactives and print activties
- WatchKnowLearn – videos on hundreds of educational topics
- Shmoop – summaries of literature that can assist students with understanding challenging texts
- GCFLearnFree – more excellent educational videos
- YouTubeTimeMachine – watch videos from other decades! (In addition to finding good materials for background information, you might just have a really good time watching some of these)
- Rewordify – allows you to insert text and have it adjusted to different reading levels, lots of options for definitions, word replacement and vocabulary activities
- MathPickle – videos of students solving real-world problems (I’m excited to check out this one more!)
- Graphite – brought to you by Common Sense Media, lesson flows that model how to incorporate technology
- Epic! – hundreds of high-quality, high-interest, online texts. Students can select read to me or read on my own.
- Pixton – retell stories or tell your own story in comic book format. Excellent site, probably worth it to purchase an account.
- Class Tools – lots of resources including how to create a QR code scavenger hunt
- UDL Tech Toolkit – Cool Tools for Schools – more links to more great sites and resources!!
We hope many of you find ways to incorporate these websites, resources and tools for your own learning as well as for implementation in the classroom. For more information, you can also follow Jennifer on Twitter or Pinterest.
Thank you again Jennifer! We are so lucky to have you in ACPS with us and we appreciate you sharing your wealth of knowledge.
Our next presentation will be on Thursday, April 26th from 4-5pm EST. Please check this space for a link as the date gets closer. The topic will be Amplify! Amplify is a table system that all 9-12 graders use as well as some elementary schools. Come learn more about what it is like to teach with Amplify.