Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner » Content and Curriculum

WatchKnow – Videos for ALL Learners

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:11:00 +0000

Quintessential UDL Resource

In Teaching Every Student, David Rose and Anne Meyer observe that “…a person who appears learning disabled in a print-bound, text-based environment may look extraordinarily skilled in a graphics or video-based environment.” There are indeed learners for whom video is especially helpful, but I believe that all learners benefit tremendously from access to video. That’s why, in a universally designed learning environment video is made freely available to everyone.

With all the online video that is readily available on almost any subject imaginable, it is a truly wonderful time to be a learner! TechCrunch reported recently that there are now nearly 17 billion video clips online. The challenge, therefore, lies in finding the most useful and highest quality video. WatchKnow does a great deal to help meet this challenge; and it is a resource that should be familiar to anyone who wants to foster a UDL learning environment.

WatchKnow has indexed and organized 18,485 online educational videos as of today. Site organizers aim to increase that total to 50,000 by the end of 2010. All videos have been organized by category and sub-category. For example, the 2,490 videos listed under mathematics have been sub-divided into 15 categories that range from “Number Sense” to “Calculus” and “Math in the Real World”.

WatchKnow has been organized as a Web 2.0 community where input is welcome from all. Users are encouraged to add videos. Since WatchKnow is funded by a foundation, however, teachers and librarians have been hired to edit the directory. Each video is accompanied by a description, age level information and rating. Access to videos does not require registration, but you must register if you wish to add videos to the collection.

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is the executive director of WatchKnow. He offers an overview of WatchKnow in the video below.

LetMeType – Free Word Prediction on MyStudyBar 2

Paul Hamilton — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:34:15 +0000

[eType is another option for free word prediction that you may wish to check out. I wrote about it HERE.]

Last month I wrote about MyStudyBar, a suite of literacy tools for the PC. This loads as a floating toolbar so the tools can be available to the user from within any program. The toolbar can be downloaded and run from a USB flash drive on any computer. This week, Craig Mill of RSC, has announced the release of Version 2 of MyStudyBar.

In this post, I want to draw attention to the powerful free word prediction application, ‘LetMeType’, that is part of MyStudyBar. I’ve long been eager to know of effective free word prediction; and this seems to fill the bill. Word prediction is a tool that I believe ought to be introduced to all learners. Typically, only individuals with identified learning difficulties are given the opportunity to use it, but there are many others who would find word prediction helpful!

I’ve embedded Craig Mill’s tutorial screencast about ‘LetMeType’ here because I couldn’t possibly do a better job of describing it. I recommend that you view the video in full screen mode.

AudioOwl — for Free High Quality Audio Books

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:34:17 +0000

Richard Byrne has just written about an excellent source of free audio books. I could just direct readers to Richard’s post, but I want this resource to be filed here on my blog. I have noticed that new visitors sometimes spend an extended period of time combing through the blog looking for resources that may be of value to them.

This week, Richard directed his readers to my blog. This is an opportunity for me to do the same for Richard’s Free Technology for Teachers. Richard is a prolific blogger, normally putting up several posts a day. He typically introduces a resource and then discusses potential educational applications for it. Free Technology for Teachers has more than earned its three Edublog Awards, and I highly recommend subscribing to it!

AudioOwl offers an extensive collection of high quality public domain audio books. I believe that books in audio format are of tremendous value to all learners, not just learners with vision challenges!

The books on AudioOwl are helpfully organized by genre, including children and teen/young adult. You can browse by genre, or search the entire site by author, title, or key words. A selected book can be “previewed” before deciding to download it. In other words, you can listen to the reader.

AudioOwl offers two download options. A book can be added to iTunes as a podcast. Or, the book can be downloaded in a zipped folder that contains an MP3 file for each chapter, for use with any MP3 player. It is worth noting that some of these files are quite large and require considerable download time.

I mentioned the high quality of the audio books from AudioOwl, and it really is excellent. I previewed samples from a variety of genres, and in every instance the quality of both the reading and the recording was top notch. This should come as no surprise because AudioOwl is making use of recordings from LibriVox, where each book is read by a volunteer. You can read more about LibriVox HERE, in a post I wrote in September of 2007.

Clicking on the thumbnails below will show you the user interfaces of AudioOwl and you can see some of the many available features, including audio books in multiple languages, links to other resources about the work, and a brief summary of each book. Readers/listeners are encouraged to review and rate the audio books on AudioOwl.

Children’s Storybooks Online

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:07:30 +0000

I love the tag line of the site I’m highlighting today: “Illustrated children’s stories for kids of all ages.”

Children’s Storybooks Online is a site that contains 35 beautifully illustrated stories. A few of the stories contain built-in audio that is read expressively by a real live person. All of the stories can be read aloud with CliCk,Speak when opened in Firefox. (Some of the stories may be purchased and downloaded as “talking e-books” , with individually clickable words, for $3.00 or $3.50 each.)

The stories are organized into 3 categories: Books for Young Children; Books for Older Children; Books for Young Adults.

I believe there are indeed many kids of all ages who would enjoy the books available at Children’s Storybooks Online.

Schuyler and the new Big Box of Words

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:54:42 +0000

Free internet resources take many forms. I was prompted to reflect on this today as I read a blog post written by fellow traveler Samuel Sennott. In his post, Sam shared a video that shows the positive difference that digital technology can make in the life of a child. As someone who supports the use of technology to help children learn and extend their abilities, I found the video to be an encouraging inspiration.

The internet provides us with a wonderful vehicle for sharing stories that have potential to encourage and inspire. Encouragement is priceless, and there’s a growing wealth of it available online–completely free of charge. Each of us has the opportunity to contribute our own encouraging stories and to pass along the ones that encourage us. Here’s the delightful story that Sam passed along.

Webslides on Diigo (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:43:20 +0000

Of all the social bookmarking services I’ve looked at, I think I like Diigo best. I particularly like the ability to highlight and annotate shared web pages. I’m not yet using Diigo to full advantage, and this post is not really about Diigo.

I want to point out the visual way you can share lists of websites. In special education, we’ve long known that many people with “special needs” require visual supports in order to learn effectively. I believe, however, that most of us learn better when visual supports are available. So, I’m discussing a tool here that may be of value to almost anyone. It’s definitely worth a look.

Webslides is Diigo’s very slick option for creating and sharing sets of bookmarked websites as interactive slideshows. With Diigo, I can organize my bookmarks into lists. Any list can then be shown as a “webslide” presentation.

Each website on a list is represented by the actual page that has been bookmarked. Seeing the page provides far more information than just seeing the website’s address in a list! The slideshow is interactive in that it can be paused and you can go directly to the website via a live link in the bottom left corner of each “slide”. The slideshow can advance automatically, and you choose how long each slide is viewed. Or, you can move through the slideshow manually, and you can also choose to go back to any previous slide.

Clicking the button below will take you to the slideshow of my list of 55 websites that that I think support science curricula. I would appreciate your comments on this format if you check it out. (If you are reading this post in a Reader, you may not see the button . Please click here instead.)

Slideshows of listed websites can be shared in several convenient ways. Each slideshow has its own URL, and that can be shared. A widget, such as the button I’ve used here, can be embedded on a website, wiki, or blog. Or, the slideshow itself can even be embedded, but I found the slideshow too large to embed effectively on this blog. Embedding the full slideshow worked much better on a wider wiki page.

LearnOutLoud (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:12:40 +0000

I really like the name of the website I’m writing about today. It’s a name that points to the reality that there are multiple ways of learning. For many individuals, it is essential to hear text read aloud, but I’m convinced that all learners benefit when multiple means of accessing information are available.

LearnOutLoud is a website that offers an extensive and eclectic collection of well cataloged audio and video that can be convieniently browsed. You can serch the site by author, title, or category. The main site is commercial, and titles are available to purchase by download or on a variety of physical media (CD, DVD, cassette). Online streaming and podcast subscription are other options that are available from LearnOutLoud.

LearnOutLoud also provides access to a large collection of free audio and video resources, and this is not just an afterthought. As much effort appears to be invested in support of free audio and video as in the money-making side of the venture. The free titles available here go way beyond classic literature in the public domain. Again, the collection is extremely well organized and easy to search.

While LearnOutLoud is a website geared toward adult learners, children have not been left out. There is a sister site called KidsLearnOutloud. Here, you can browse resources by age level. Again there is a subsection of free resources for kids.

Flypaper (downloadable program)

Paul Hamilton — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:01:15 +0000

CAST rightly says that a universal design for learning (UDL) requires multiple means of representation, multiple means of expression, and multiple means of engagement. Without multiple options, we simply cannot meet the diverse range of learning needs and learning styles that are present in EVERY classroom. The sad news is that options are still severely limited in today’s typical classroom.

The good news is that, with the technology available today, there is a plethora of tools available to provide numerous options for every learner. Because most of the emerging tools are free of monetary cost, because they are readily available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, and because they are easy to use, there is no excuse for teachers who do not use these tools or make them available to the learners they support.

Flypaper is a versatile presentation tool with an infinite range of potential uses by learners and teachers–to engage, represent, and express. Flypaper is easy to learn and use. It is a downloadable program for the PC, so it can be used off line when an internet connection is unavailable. Still, you can easily share your work online in the Flypaper “community”, or embed it wherever else you want to. Flypaper has made it easy to turn your presentation into a flash file, and you can even upload it directly to Youtube from within the application.

In a Flypaper presentation, you can include virtually anything you choose–text, graphics, audio, video, action buttons, hyperlinks, etc. I particularly like the fact that it is convenient for the presenter to add voice narration. A presentation may be a single page, or it may contain multiple “chapters” with as many pages as you want.

Flypaper encourages you to download “models” created by other users, and to use these models as templates for your own work. Flypaper offers tutorials for new users, as well as user forums. There is also a well organized 114 page user manual in pdf format.

I’ve embedded an example of a Flypaper presentation here that merely hints at the potential of the application.

Animoto for Educators (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:59:54 +0000

There was terrific news reverberating through the blogosphere yesterday. Ewan McIntosh, Jeff Utecht, and Michelle Eckstein‘ are just three among numerous bloggers who wrote about it. I’d like to add my echo here for the sake of anyone who might miss it elsewhere.

Animoto Education Program It was love at first sight when I discovered Animoto late last summer, and I’ve had a great deal of fun with it since. I wrote about Animoto back in October, and then in January. The free version of Animoto allows 30-second videos, but after making only a few 30-second creations, I willingly put down the $30 for an “All Access Pass” that allows me to put together and download an unlimited number of “full-length” videos for a period of a year.

Now, teachers are being offered the All Access Pass free of charge, along with the same pass for each class member.

Animoto is an application that allows you to use digital photos to create videos easily and quickly. The shots are “animated” according to the accompanying music that is selected. You can choose from a variety of music tracks built into the program, or you can upload your own sound track. (By uploading your own track, you have the option of including spoken narration.) Finally, if you aren’t satisfied with your movie, you can “re-mix” and create a new and different version with the click of a button.

The potential classroom uses of Animot0 are limited only the imaginations of learners and teachers. Please take a look at Voices of the World, a project where schools from around the world have worked together and used Animoto to share their national anthems. You can also check out an Animoto example, created in the UK by Doug Belshaw to stimulate interest in a secondary school history course.

As an itinerant, I don’t have my own class to work with; but I do present at, or participate in, numerous workshops for adult educators. Sometimes it’s fun to put together an Animoto video to share before the workshop is over. The first embedded example below is from a Linda Burkhart workshop in Vancouver in January. The second example illustrates a personal use of Animoto–to package and share family memories. This one was of a special day we spent recently with our son and grandchildren.

Twiddla (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:04:27 +0000

Loyal subscribers will notice that it’s been a while since my last post. I’m probably more sorry about that than you are. That’s because there is just so much that I’d like to write about! Sometimes, there are neither enough minutes in an hour, nor enough hours in a day. I’m back with one of those resources that has really grabbed my attention because of the potential it offers to all learners. Thanks once again to Molly, everyone’s favourite Demo Girl, for sharing it and for demonstrating what it can do.

Twiddla bills itself as a free “web-based playground” that requires no set up. Twiddla is indeed an online tool that offers a real time collaborative white board where people can work together to accomplish a variety of tasks with all manner of digital media. I think there’s also potential to use Twiddla as a presentation tool, as a study aid, and for creative expression.

For collaboration, Twiddla offers a whiteboard that can be shared by multiple users, as well as built-in audio and/or text chat that allows people to communicate conveniently while working together. In addition to putting whatever you want on the virtual whiteboard to brainstorm, or to create an effective presentation, you have the opportunity to bring web pages into Twiddla and to mark them up. It seems to me that marking up web pages is a terrific study aid for the learner or teacher who is doing or sharing online research.

Twiddla’s user interface is straightforward and extremely easy to use. Molly’s screencast at DemoGirl.com shares some additional features and does an excellent job of showing how it all works. I’ve embedded that here for your convenience. If you want to see a larger version of the screencast, you can do just that by going directly to DemoGirl.com.

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