Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner » visual

Qwiki — Experiencing Information in Multiple Formats

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 01:02:00 +0000

A fundamental tenet of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is that information must be available to learners in multiple formats. Here’s a resource that presents information visually, with text, and auditorily by way of text to speech.

Qwiki‘s stated goal is to “…forever improve the way people experience information.“ Although Qwiki is still under development, I think they’re off to a great start! There is nothing unusual about Qwiki’s search box. It’s the multi-modal way in which search results are presented that is truly exceptional.

In response to a query, Qwiki presents a slide show of related images, along with text that is read aloud in a high quality voice by a text-to-speech engine. The slide show and scrolling text can be paused, and the source of an image is revealed by rolling the cursor over it.

When a ‘Qwiki’ ends, you are offered links to Qwikis about related subjects. There are also links to articles on the same topic in Wikipedia, Fotopedia, and Youtube, along with Google search results for the term.

Clicking on the ‘Contents’ tab of a Qwiki yields yet another way of accessing the information. The text of the article is displayed next to the related images. A convenient option for printing the article is available as well. Qwiki articles can be embedded elsewhere, or shared via Facebook or Twitter.

Check out the Qwiki of the Himalayas that I’ve embedded below.

Search-Cube for Visual Search Results

Paul Hamilton — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:53:21 +0000

Long lists of links to websites, even when accompanied by brief descriptions, do not work well for me. I’ve discovered that I am far from alone in this regard, so I’m sharing a search tool that yields engaging visual results.

search-cube offers a straightforward search box for entering search terms. The search results it yields, however, are images of home pages. These home pages are arranged on the six faces of a cube, with 16 sites displayed on each face.

It’s easy to rotate the cube with the arrow keys on the keyboard, or by holding down the shift key and dragging the mouse. Rolling the cursor over an image on the cube brings up a larger image beside the cube, along with a little more information about the linked website.

Here’s what the search term ‘tiger’ yielded. It’s easy to see at glance which sites might be worth visiting. It was quite easy to locate the Wikipedia article, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t find the entry for Simple English Wikipedia.

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.