In a similar vein, New Years Day seems an apt time to make a fresh start with my blog.  I’ve been away from the blog for much of 2010.  Now I believe it’s time to start sharing here again. Dean Shareski was spot-on when he described sharing as a “moral imperative” for educators in his pre-conference keynote for the 2010 K12 Online Conference.

There are, of course, countless ways for an educator to share.  I’m convinced, however, that with its potential for embedding a wide range of media, and thereby offering multiple means of representation, the blog remains one of the most powerful vehicles for sharing.  I will continue to highlight free digital resources that support learning, but I’m not exactly how I will refine my focus.

Today, I begin by sharing a presentation on Universal Design for Learning.  I had the privilege of sharing this in person in Minneapolis in October and again in Hong Kong in November.  For anyone keen on educational reform and looking for a sound pedagogical approach to using technology in the learning adventure, I believe UDL is worth more than  just a look.

[I shot the sunrise scene above from Landour, in the Indian foothills of the Himalayas.  This is where I lived as a boy, and where I taught from 1981 to 1990.]

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.

[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.

Every learner is uniquely gifted, and has his or her own unique set of learning needs. I’ve concluded that a one-size-fits-all approach to learning has done more harm than good in the lives of countless children who have been subjected to it.  I never have to look far to find  heart wrenching evidence of this reality–individuals who have  “learned”  in school that they are incompetent failures.

There are no magic bullets, and our model for schooling is inherently flawed; but the situation is far from hopeless.  Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers  both a research-based theoretical framework and a practical approach that can go a long way toward meeting the unique needs of the individual learners in our classrooms.

The video below offers an excellent introductory overview of UDL.  Following the link above will take you deeper.  If you are not familiar with UDL, please take a serious look.

MyStudyBar is a floating toolbar of free open source applications that can be downloaded and then easily installed on a flash drive for use on any Windows computer. In his introductory video overview, developer Craig  Mill makes the important point that although these applications are intended primarily for learners with “literacy difficulties”, the tools have the potential to support ALL learners.  To this proponent of UDL, Craig’s statement really resonates.

The MyStudyBar toolbar offers applications for mind mapping, screen masking, word prediction, a talking dictionary, text to speech, and voice recognition.  (The voice recognition requires the built-in speech recognition that comes with Windows Vista or Windows 7.)  I’ve embedded Craig Mill’s overview video here.  In follow up posts, I’ll discuss each of the tools on MyStudyBar.

It is worth mentioning, that MyStudyBar does not have to be run from a flash drive.  It can also be installed on any PC and run from the desktop.

For reading online content with Internet Explorer, the best option I’ve found is the free Natural Reader toolbar, which will also read in Microsoft Outlook, OpenOffice, Google Docs, etc.  A huge bonus with Natural Reader is that this software is available for both the PC and Mac. I believe the best text-to-speech option for reading content in Microsoft Word, at least on a PC, is the free and versatile WordTalk toolbar.

Free online text-to-speech options include AudioPal, iSpeech, YaKiToMe, vozMe, and probably more.   Today I want to write about the  downloadable stand alone option that is included as part of the AccessApps suite that can be run on any PC from a pen drive.

DSpeech is free text-to-speech software for the PC, that offers a set of useful features in an intuitive user interface.  DSpeech is similar im many respects to ReadPlease (2003) and Speakonia, which I wrote about here more than three and a half years ago.   Overall, I think DSpeech would be my top pick of the three.  Of course, the only opinion that really counts is that of the user, so please try all three.

With DSpeech, text can either be typed directly into DSpeech, or it can be pasted in from the clipboard.  A plugin is available for opening pdf files in DSpeech. DSpeech creator Dimio’s website indicates that DSpeech is available in 13 languages besides English.

With DSpeech, it’s easy to change the voice, volume, pitch and reading rate while reading.   I was pleased to note that DSpeech automatically used my default text-to-speech voice. A set of keyboard shortcuts has been pre-programmed.  DSpeech will turn text into audio files (MP3, WAV, or OGG).

I didn’t test this feature, but apparently you can combine voices when text includes dialogue between characters.  A basic voice recognition system has also been built into DSpeech, and this enables the user to construct a dialogue in which he or she participates.

Here’s a view of the DSpeech user interface.

]]> http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2010/01/25/d-speech-text-to-speech-on-access-apps/feed/ 2 http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2010/01/24/audioowl-for-free-high-quality-audio-books/ http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2010/01/24/audioowl-for-free-high-quality-audio-books/#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:34:17 +0000 Paul Hamilton http://paulhami.edublogs.org/?p=1909 Continue reading →]]> 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.

]]> http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2010/01/24/audioowl-for-free-high-quality-audio-books/feed/ 2 http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2010/01/19/toolkit4blogwalker-great-resource/ http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2010/01/19/toolkit4blogwalker-great-resource/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:03:24 +0000 Paul Hamilton http://paulhami.edublogs.org/?p=1855 Continue reading →]]> Thanks to a link shared by Julie Lindsay this weekend, I discovered a fabulous wiki that I want to share here.  This is a rich Web 2.0 resource wiki that is so well organized and extensive it deserves to be widely known by anyone who supports learning anywhere.

Toolkit4Blogwalker, as the name of the wiki suggests, is a toolkit of Web 2.0 resources that has been put together by and for “Blogwalker”.  Although her name doesn’t seem to appear anywhere on the wiki, it wasn’t difficult to discover that Blogwalker is really Gail Desler, whose blog is also known as BlogWalker.

Gail’s wiki consists of the following 8 sections:

Blogs * Copyright & Fair Use * Filmmaking

Glogster * Google Docs * Podcasts

Voice Thread * Wikis

Under each of these main headings, there is a helpful Table of Contents that lists sub headings.  In my view, this organization on top of the quantity and quality of the linked  and embedded resources suggests that Toolkit4Blogwalker is well worth bookmarking!

In terms of my own current needs, I especially appreciate Gail’s resources on filmmaking.

I want to share a video put together by one of the teachers who was enrolled in our course.  Myriah relates her personal journey in overcoming some of her learning challenges.  I find the arrogant ignorance of some of Myriah’s college teachers appalling.  How do you respond?

Celebrating Diversity from myriahmichaux on Vimeo.

It is paramount that teachers recognize and remember that most of their students do not learn in the same ways that they themselves learn. Simply trying harder doesn’t work if you learn differently!

I’m especially pleased when I discover new resources that put multiple means of representation together in one place!  Here’s one that gathers text, images, and videos into one place.  Of course, you can add an audio version of the text as well, with one of many readily available text-to-speech options.

Navify is a service that combines Wikipedia articles with related videos from Youtube and online images.  So, when a topic is entered into the search bar, it brings up the pertinent Wikipedia article along with videos and images on the same subject.  With the multiple means of representation offered, there is a far greater chance of engaging a wider range of learners.

The first screen shot below shows the Wikipedia article that opens when ‘tiger’ is typed into the search box.  You can see the tabs above the article for Images and Videos.  The second screen shot shows what appears when the Images tab is clicked, and the third shows the videos.

It should be noted that it is up to users to select the images and videos that are associated with an article.  For all of the search terms I entered, I was offered an extensive collection of images and videos to choose from.  Since Navify is a relatively new service, there were relatively few videos associated with any of the topics I searched.

Two other features of Navify are also worth mentioning.  The first is that users have the opportunity to comment on topics.  Secondly, related topics are suggested with search results.