Natural Readers
In Natural Reader students are able to see words highlighted as they are read aloud. This program also allows students to scan in books and have those books read aloud to them. It also is able to convert text files to MP3 files. It also has the ability to pull from programs like Internet Explorer, Outlook and Adobe Reader and read the text aloud.
This tool can help students who need to hear the questions on any tests or assignments. Once you scan in the test, the program will read the questions aloud to the students. This is beneficial for struggling readers, ESL students and students with visual impairments. It will also help those students who are auditory learners. It can be used in all subject areas.
The tool allows you to stop, pause, rewind, and play the reader. This reader also allows you to choose different languages, voices, and speeds of the reader. Although they offer different languages the free languages are limited. The languages offered are English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Swedish, and Arabic. There are other languages available for purchase. In the professional version, which is about $100, of Natural Reader you are able to record your own voice for use. Education versions of Natural Reader are available at a discounted price, which also allows you to record your voice and comes with free eBooks.
There are a few downfalls of the free downloaded version of Natural Reader. The voices available are monotone and they don’t show any voice articulation in reference to the text it is reading. The voices are also robotic and would be hard for younger students to understand.
Another downfall in the free version is the ability to open word documents and upload those documents to Natural Reader. The reader doesn’t support Microsoft Word documents; therefore, in order for the Reader to read the document the text must be copied and pasted into Natural Reader.
In this program the student is able to use the Reader independently once the program has started and the documents are copied and pasted into the text area.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Touchscreen Computers
I watched Jeff Han and his demo on touchscreen computers that will inevitably move us to the next level of technology steering away from point and click. Jeff’s speech is very interesting to watch and to learn and most importantly for me, it was a visual demo with hands-on. As I was watching Jeff demonstrate this new invention, my mind raced quickly to my students, to my teaching techniques and to the technology that is offered to our schools. I believe that since technology is moving at a fast pace we, educators, have a huge amount of pressure on us to keep up with the new and latest inventions. The pressure of attending in-services and learning these ideas and contemplating how we, educators, are going to integrate them into our instruction is massive. This also relates to Elizabeth Gilbert’s speech on nurturing creativity. How are we going to successfully and effectively carry out new ideas and deal with the after effects; failure? I feel that we shouldn’t jump head first into getting our hands on new gadgets if we haven’t researched or sampled them first. This is where I feel, many of these new inventions are somewhat a waste of time.
On the other hand, the touchscreen computer can be useful, valuable, and applicable for all learners particularly ones that need diverse learning techniques. Teachers and students will be able to engage in activities jointly. I would love to have touchscreen computers in my classroom in the near future but let us be realistic, budgets are tight.
On the other hand, the touchscreen computer can be useful, valuable, and applicable for all learners particularly ones that need diverse learning techniques. Teachers and students will be able to engage in activities jointly. I would love to have touchscreen computers in my classroom in the near future but let us be realistic, budgets are tight.
Monday, July 16, 2012
What Digital Age?
The article What Digital Age? in the journal From Now On mentions how members of society prefer an equal balance between the digital world and the world of nature. After watching Sherry Turkle make her powerful speech on “aloneness”, I couldn’t agree anymore with her research and stats. I feel children and adults think they have to keep up with the digital world and forget the simple things in life. The pressure society places on individuals and on businesses to be up-to-date with technology is actually back firing and is causing mental, social, and emotional problems in people. We need to remember that all of the fuss about technology in schools is crucial but at the same time we need to ask ourselves how much technology is too much technology?
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Technology and the effects on teen education
The URL below is a four mintue youtube video on how technology has effected teen education. The purpose of the video is to bring awareness to the importance of interpersonal social skills along with utilizing technological advances.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYMAULd2vhg
(Copy link into new window to view)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYMAULd2vhg
(Copy link into new window to view)
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Library design-interior design
I love walking into people's homes and seeing their interior decor. I want to say I have an 'eye' for neat, unique designs but also with a bit of traditional feel. After taking a Lesley course with Dr. Matthis I realized how important it is for Universal Design of Learning to be considered. Here is a link for Library Design http://www.home-designing.com/2012/06/library-designs
This link has pictures of several different design layouts which caught many peoples attention. As you are looking through these pictures consider if the designers have taken UDL into consideration.
This link has pictures of several different design layouts which caught many peoples attention. As you are looking through these pictures consider if the designers have taken UDL into consideration.
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