Maine Learning Technology Initiative

Thanks to the folks who logged in Thursday afternoon or evening to participate in the webinar, Mount Desert Island High School: A Case Study for Integrating Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) in the Content Areas. My guest facilitator was Paige Collins, MDI HS special education teacher and fellow member of Maine’s AIM Community of Practice. Additional guests included Mark Arnold (MDIHS technology integrator), Roberta Raymond (MDI HS special education teacher in the Life Skills program), and Casey Rush (MDI HS Drama/English teacher).

The topic of AIM in the content areas is important to the education of all students, but particularly for students with disabilities that interfere with their access to printed text. Print disabilities include blindness and low vision, certain physical conditions (e,g., a disability that interferes with physically turning the pages of a book), and specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. So, to put the need for – and implementation of – AIM into context, we explored the actions of these educators because MDI High School has begun to provide instructional materials in electronic formats for all students, so that it’s not necessarily an accommodation for students with unique needs. That is, it’s a model of universal design for learning (UDL) because all students have access to flexible formats of materials that inherently allow the use of assistive technologies, such as text to speech, screen magnification, and portable media players.

We set out with the essential question:
How does a school develop a system of differentiated instructional materials for all learners, including students with print disabilities? Read more…

Many forms of digital storytelling rely upon the incorporation of powerful soundscapes as a crucial ingredient. Indeed, soundscapes can in and of themselves constitute digital narratives — but to do so, they must be carefully constructed. We will look at some of the elements that go into creating great digital audio, including music, voice, and environmental sound, and the tools and practices that translate them into a finished product.

Joining this Webinar:
This webinar will be offered twice on May 20 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

Copyright, or to be more specific, the use  and misuse of copyrighted materials, is a subject that is surrounded by much confusion and therefore fear for many educators. Students who have known nothing but the internet in schools need direct instruction and guidance on what they can be using from online sources, and also how to protect their original work they post. As educators, we should be learning as much as we can about the use of copyrighted material, and then helping our students navigate this legal mountain range.

Some of the ins and outs of copyright law and fair use are covered by information in the links below. This should not be considered a comprehensive list, and neither should you consider my attempts to explain copyright law as legal advice! Please consult as many sources as possible, and if you’re still confused, I’m sure your school has legal consults available.

Copyright overview and history:
US Copyright Office

Copyrightkids – Fun resource to get students thinking about copyright issues

Copyright and Fair Use in The Classroom – Interesting guide to copyright, from a college perspective.

History of Copyright Law – Wikipedia page does a great job pulling together a complicated history.

Copyright Infringement

Carol Simpson – Consultant on issues of copyright, has an interesting database of cases concerning copyright infringement in schools.

Do The (Copy)right Thing – Article on educator’s lack of attention to copyright from thejounal

Fair Use

Code of Best Practice for Fair Use in Media Literacy Education – Download the document from this page.
A Fair(y) Use Story-  Video mashup of various Disney movies to make a statement on fair use of copyrighted materials.

User Rights, Section 107 – Music video explaining the tenets of fair use.

Bound By Law? – Thanks to Barbara Greenstone for the link to this comic explaining copyright and fair use.

Copyright / Copywrong Quiz – Thanks to Cynthia Curry for forwarding the link to this quiz on fair use in education.

The Shepard Fairy Obama “Hope” Poster Controversy – Thanks once again to Cynthia Curry

Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Search engine for Creative Commons licensed work. Also available on the Firefox browser search tool.

Creative Commons on Flickr

Be sure to watch the recorded webinar sessions by clicking on the Webcast>Arcives tab above.

As new media forms test the boundaries of existing copyright laws, educators can be left feeling uncertain as to how they can be using media in education, what they shouldn’t be copying, and how students use media as part of their school work. File sharing, sampling and remixing, downloading and podcasting all present new methods of distributing information, but how can educators go about this without getting themselves in hot water? This webinar will look at some of the issues around copyright that affect schools, begin a discussion on Fair Use of copyrighted materials, and how to avoid any trouble with copyright altogether.

This session will be delivered on Thursday, May 6, from 3:15 – 4:15 pm and 7:15 – 8:15 pm. For information, please access the WebCasts tab at the top of this page.

Image from the Library of Congress

April 29th sessions recorded:

Afternoon: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p32117522/

Evening: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p97793153/

MLTI is proud to partner with Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Vital Signs initiative, a  program that encompasses technology, content and pedagogy using inquiry-based learning. Incorporating the four strands of science learning to deal with essential questions regarding invasive species, Vital Signs offers teachers and students a way to be real scientists dealing with real observations and data.

Vital signs website, http://vitalsignsme.org/, provides a rich environment that allows users to set up accounts so they can add to the data and make comments on fellow citizen-scientists’ observations. However, even if you do not register, you can access the ever-expanding datasets about invasive species through the Expore Data tab.

After formulating an essential question, a user can set up a useful query using the Advanced Search feature. The results of the search can then be downloaded as a CSV (comma separated values) file and inserted into a spreadsheet like Numbers, using the Sort and Export feature.

Once in the spreadsheet, pertinent data can be specified by deleting the extraneous data columns. Then charts and graphs can be made using the appropriate data.

Even better, Google Fusion Tables, http://tables.googlelabs.com/, can be used to take the latitude and longitude data to place information on a map, and then export the map as a layer (KML) into Google Earth. Wow!

This is just a general overview. The specific steps are outlined in a document available at

http://vitalsignsme.org/how-create-google-earth-map-layer-your-own-data-set.

The four strands of science learning are explained in Ready, Set, Science:

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11882&page=17

Comics and video provide rich possibilities for digital storytelling; however, neither affords the viewer opportunities for interactive exploration. Interactivity allows viewers to delve deeper into different portions of the narrative, and choose their focus according to interest and necessity. Can this type of flexible narrative be created without extensive programming experience? We will see that in fact, it can, and look at two very different toolsets for doing so.

Joining this Webinar:
This webinar will be offered twice on April 8 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

Our students are in an unprecedented position of being able to gather, sort and reflect upon information and data with ease and precision. Digital tools available on the MLTI devices and online give students the ability to record observations, conduct interviews, collect data and then use this information to produce meaningful results. By conducting original research, students can better understand ‘real world’ phenomenon and contribute their learning to a wider knowledge base.

My co-presenter for this webinar will be Sarah Kirn, Program Manager for the Vital Signs project, part of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s educational outreach. Sarah will be taking us through how the Vital Signs project uses original research by student and citizen scientists to build a picture of the spread of invasive species through the state. The process of collecting data through fieldwork, contributing the data to the Vital Signs database, and using the data in analysis creates a powerful learning experience for students, as well as raising their aspirations for science careers.

We will also look at other ways students can take advantage of digital tools to conduct original research, and how this can be part of a wider research process.

Please click on the Webcast link to register for or join the 3.15 and 7.15 webinar.

In addition to the webinars. MLTI and GMRI are offering a workshop that introduces teachers to working with Vital Signs data with students during the week of March 24 – 31. For more details, please visit the MLTI site.

Thanks to the folks who logged in Thursday afternoon or evening to participate in the webinar, Access to Learning by Students with Blindness and Low Vision. Our guest facilitator was Nancy Moulton of Educational Services for Blind & Visually Impaired Children (ESBVIC), a statewide service of Catholic Charities Maine. Nancy is a Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI) and Regional Supervisor.

We set out with two essential questions:

1. How can we support the learning needs of students with blindness and low vision?
2. In the process, how can we be better teachers of all students? Read more…

Bringing images to life in video effectively involves more than just sequencing them in a slideshow — it requires an understanding of how the language and techniques of film interact with the processes of digital storytelling. We will look at this interaction, and use the knowledge derived in two applied projects: one that focuses on using still images as its sole raw material source, and a second one that brings video shot on inexpensive pocket camcorders or computer webcams into the mix.

Joining this Webinar:
This webinar will be offered twice on March 4 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

Thanks to everyone who attended yesterday’s webinars. I’m grateful that the power stayed on throughout both sessions and we were able to get through them. The discussion in the chat box was lively in both sessions and we learned a lot from each other. Here are the highlights:

What is the difference between revision and editing?

A few thoughts from the participants:

• I think anyone (teacher, peer, e.g.) can edit. Revising is done by the original author.
• When I think of editing, I think of making corrections to obvious errors (ie. punctuation, spelling).  When I think of revising, I think of making improvements to getting the thought process on the paper in an organized fashion.
• Revising is structural where editing is correcting errors.
• Editing is the mechanics and revising is adding details, voice, etc.
• Revising is ideas; editing is mechanics.  Together they make a piece of writing.
• I think of revision as improvement and editing as correcting.
• I think revisions go beyond surface.
• Revising working with content; Editing working with mechanics etc.
• Revising is improving content, editing is improving the punctuation and stuff.
• Revision=changing what you’re saying, editing=polish.
• Editing is for correcting mechanical parts and revising is re-working the language
• Revising is thought based and editing is more mechanical.
• Editing to me is more like correcting a grammatical error, spelling, etc. Revising involves more: changing
• Revisions are content, editing-making ideas fit frameworks

Organizing Drafts and Showing Progress

Teach students to organize drafts (as well as prewriting and organizing materials) in folders and use naming conventions for files. Have students use “Save As” to keep copies of all drafts to show their progress.

Taking Advantage of Flexible Text

Be sure students know how to manipulate text with copy or cut and paste, select and replace, find and replace, and drag and drop. Students are more likely to make real revisions in their writing when they no longer have to completely rewrite each new draft.

Writing Applications

Give students choices. Some have features that particular students need.

Applications on the MLTI MacBook:

• TextEdit
• NoteShare
• Pages
• NeoOffice (will not be included in next image but can be added)

Coming on next image:

• WriteRoom (distraction-free writing)

Others to try (free downloads that can be dropped in the MyApps folder):

• AbiWord
• Bean
• OpenOffice

Editing Tools

• Spellcheck and grammar check built into most word processing programs (Check out Pages Proofreading)
• Online tools
  • SpellCheck.net
  • SpellChecker.net
  • Orangoo
• The spellchecker poem: Candidate for a Pullet Surprise

Dictionaries and Thesauri

On Your MacBook

• Dictionary
• OmniDictionary

Online Tools

• Lexipedia
• Visuwords
• OneLook
• Wordnik

Why we love Alex…

Alex is a relatively new voice for Leopard that can be a great editing tool. Follow the directions for setting up a key stroke for reading selected text.

Grammar, Usage, and Writing Conventions Resources

• Dr. Grammar
• Confusing Words
• Common Errors in English
• Purdue OWL
• Grammar Girl

Resources from participants in the chat box:

• Reading Misspelled Words
• Magnetic Poetry
• Checklist Generators
• Merriam-Webster Online
• Mac OS X help for text to speech and speech recognition
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking (speech to text)

Image by Natalie Roberts licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.