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Accessibility Accessibility comes in many forms.  What is accessibility?  Overcoming or removing obstacles.  In education, we mean overcoming or removing obstacles to learning.  An accessibility tool typically is designed to address a specific obstacle, although some, like read aloud, address any number of causes of reading difficulties.  Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, began with the realization that tools that were made to address specific barriers, like reading difficulties, can not only assist with other disabilities, like blindness, but can even benefit people we wouldn’t say have a disability, like how much easier it is to listen to a book than to rad one whileRead More →

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You know the Chuck Norris joke about how one time Chuck Norris and Mr. T walked into a bar? The bar was instantly destroyed, as that level of awesome cannot be contained in one building.  Yeah, that’s why Immersive Reader has to have tabs.  Immersive Reader is so cool, it takes 3 tabs to contain all of the awesomeness. Welcome to Day 13 of 365 Ideas for Office 365.  So far we have looked at some powerful uses of PowerPoint, covered some basics of the drawing tab in OneNote, and zoomed in on the Immersive Reader tools that initially appeared in OneNote and have sinceRead More →

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If you saw the Superbowl commercial for the accessible X-Box controller, you got a (tear-filled) glimpse of Microsoft’s dedication to accessibility, and that’s starts in their education products. OneNote seems to be where much of the innovation starts, and features that work well there are often rolled out to other programs and apps in the Microsoft Office Suite. Accessibility is big with Microsoft, and when it comes to accessibility,  Immersive Reader is the cream of the crop. Immersive Reader is huge.  In fact, it’s so big, we’re gonna break it’s features down and take a whole week to cover them. Welcome to Day 11 ofRead More →

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I used to say our district was bi-polar because having both Microsoft Office365 and Google G-Suite with Classroom drove many people crazy.  Then someone pointed out that “bilingual” is both more accurate and more appropriate.  So, for all the times a teacher or administrator has asked, “Is Microsoft going away now that we’re ‘going Google’?” here is the rationale for a resounding “No!” First of all, if we are going to chase whoever currently has the best set of tools, that’s a moving target.  Google took a giant lead with the ultra-simplicity of Classroom, but Microsoft is battling back by focusing on accessibility tools, toutingRead More →

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One of my favorite web-based tools for the classroom is EDpuzzle.   When you think about watching a video clip in the classroom, you probably picture something like this:  The teacher starts the video, but occasionally pauses to ask comprehension questions, to make sure students are paying attention, and to draw attention to important points.  Either that, or there is a worksheet full of questions from the video.  The worksheet has the advantage of holding everyone accountable, but loses the laser-pointer effect of the teacher pausing and drawing attention to things as they come up. EDpuzzle moves the video to individual student devices, and embeds questionsRead More →

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A tool similar to Symbaloo Lesson Plans is TES Blendspace, which was, as the name implies, originally created for blended learning environments, but is totally applicable to any classroom with access to web-enabled devices.  I recently took a PowerPoint that contained all of the content for a 3 ½ hour session of a grad course I teach and moved it into Blendspace.  Essentially, I chunked the PowerPoint. As students progressed through the Blendspace, they would see a few slides from the PowerPoint in the first box, then a video in another box, some more slides, then a weblink, then a document, then a Padlet toRead More →

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There was a time when a teacher who was on the cutting edge of technology was creating all of their lessons on Powerpoint.  While those days are long gone, they may also be returning.  But more about that later.  There are a number of tools available to teachers today that can incorporate an entire lesson.  Some even have the flexibility to allow for either the teacher or the student to determine the pacing of the delivery.  All of the tools in this series have various interactive features to take the static, teacher-centered Powerpoint and turn it into an engaging, student-centered learning experience. Both Microsoft PowerpointRead More →

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Microsoft is admittedly playing catch-up to Google in K-12 education, but they are creating some dramatic offerings for leveling the playing field, particularly for students with reading difficulties and ELLs.  Microsoft Learning Tools, originally a part of MS One Note, and now largely available within MS Word (Office 365) as the “Immersive Reader” view, has some terrific features for readers.  As you can see in the video, you have choices for text and background colors, and can adjust not only font but also spacing between words.  The text-to-speech engine works well, and offers decent voices, and adjustable reading rates, all while highlighting each word asRead More →