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Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs

Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs
Technology can be a powerful tool to assist students with special needs or any sort of learning challenge. In particular the Chrome web browser allows users to install a wide variety of web extensions that provide tools that can help all learners, regardless of ability level. In this blog post we will take a look at over 30 Chrome web extensions that can assist students in five main categories:Text to SpeechReadabilityReading ComprehensionFocusNavigation Some of the tools fit into more than one topic, but each is only listed once. Certainly this list does not cover all of the useful web extensions available for struggling learners, but it is a great place to begin. In addition to the list of extension, I have also linked in the video and help guide from a webinar I did a while back on "Google Tools for Special Needs". Text to Speech extensions 2) Read AloudChrome web extension link This text-to-speech extension will read either the entire page or just the text that you have selected.

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12 Digital Tools to Try in 2018 There are so many digital tools available today that offer opportunities for promoting student creativity, student voice, and expanding where and how students learn. I had my own list of the tools that I found made a big difference in my classroom, but decided to ask students for their input. Here is a list of tools to try in 2018. Each of these offer multiple ways for students to create, connect and engage in more authentic learning experiences.

You Can Now Use Your Voice to Format and Edit Your Google Docs For six months, you’ve been able to type with your voice, but today you are able to use a long list of commands to do a whole lot more. Some of the new commands include adding tables, moving around to different lines of your document, and even formatting your text to align right. To start typing your document with your voice, watch the short video above and follow the steps below. Reading Graphic Organizers - Reading A-Z Why Use Graphic Organizers The human brain naturally looks for connections between old and new information. Additionally, studies have shown that the brain processes information most efficiently in chunks.

4 Good Websites That Provide Educational Documentaries Looking for some good websites that provide curated educational documentaries? The collection below features some of our favourite options. These are platforms where you can get access to a plethora of documentaries spanning different topics and subject areas. Control Alt Achieve: Resources Accommodations All of my resources are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 United States license ( In short, you can copy, distribute, and adapt these resources as long as you give proper attribution and do not charge for them. General Session Agenda - "Google Tools for Special Needs" - Google Document link Help Guide - "Google Tools for Special Needs" - Google Document link

Six Scaffolding Strategies to Use with Your Students What’s the opposite of scaffolding a lesson? Saying to students, “Read this nine-page science article, write a detailed essay on the topic it explores, and turn it in by Wednesday.” Yikes! No safety net, no parachute—they’re just left to their own devices. Let’s start by agreeing that scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things.

Instagram for Teachers If you already have a personal account and want to add another one to use professionally, go to your profile screen and click the Settings icon at the top right. Scroll to the bottom and click Add Account. Go through the steps of signing up. You may have to use a different email address from the one associated with your other Instagram account. Assistive Technology for Any Type of Learner How can technology assist those students with disabilities or impairments so that they can perform at the level we all know they can? Today, with the increasing usage of apps, extensions, websites, gadgets, and other pieces of technology, we can provide them with that assistance! From this journey, I have compiled several apps, Google add-ons, Chrome extensions, and program tips to assist students. (I’ve even used these on occasion to help me prepare for graduate-level courses.) SpeakIt (Chrome Extension)

Graphic Organizers Prepared by Tracey Hall & Nicole Strangman Please visit the AIM Center home page. Introduction One way to help make a curriculum more supportive of students and teachers is to incorporate graphic organizers. Graphic organizers come in many varieties and have been widely researched for their effectiveness in improving learning outcomes for various students. The following five sections present a definition of graphic organizers, a sampling of different types and their applications, a discussion of the research evidence for their effectiveness, useful Web resources, and a list of referenced research articles.

Generation Global: How Cross-Cultural Dialogue Builds Critical Thinking and Empathy The world and the people who work and live in it have become ever more connected as the internet becomes more accessible. Yet despite the ability to connect and learn about happenings on the other side of the globe, many communities have become more polarized and entrenched in a particular worldview. As these trends emerge, teachers are looking for ways to foster productive dialogue skills in today’s students — the generation that will have to deal with complex, increasingly global problems. Activities that connect students to peers in other countries have become more common in classrooms because it’s now possible. Decades ago students might have had an international penpal, now they can easily have digital penpals or video conference with students all over the world. Teachers are using this new ability to connect to offer students of all ages authentic audiences to practice writing and language skills, but often the focus has been on younger children.

Control Alt Achieve: 3 text to speech tools and 5 ways your students can use them Many times people are accused of talking to their computers. Well with text to speech tools, your computer can talk back. Google Chrome has several extensions that will read web pages and Google Documents aloud, often with a variety of voices and adjustments for speed and volume. In this blog post we will take a look at five ways students can benefit from text to speech tools. Then we will examine three of the best Chrome extensions for this purpose. You can view the short video to see a demo of each of the three tools, and then read the rest of the post for more details on how these can be used in school.Demonstration Video

Frayer Model The Frayer Model is a vocabulary development tool. In contrast with a straight definition, the model helps to develop a better understanding of complex concepts by having students identify not just what something is, but what something is not. The center of the diagram shows the concept being defined, while the quadrants around the concept are used for providing the details. Words that work well with the Frayer Model include quadrilaterals, insects and democracies. Exploring Essential Questions with a Group of Objects By: Tess Porter, Educational Technician, Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access Trying to brainstorm your next Learning Lab collection, but not sure where to start? With a particular topic in mind, creating a large collection of objects and grounding them in a few guiding questions can be a great way to create a simple, investigative, multi-disciplinary, evidence-based, discussion-sparking collection for your students. This method is flexible, can be used with a wide variety of topics, and works best in a collection containing 20–50 objects. In this post, I'll describe some basic guidelines for creating a collection using this method, as well as examples of collections that I and other educators have built to inspire your own. In this method, collection resources serve as sources of evidence for students to use in building a response to the essential question.

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