Special Education 101 Infographic

Excerpt:

…we would like to present the following infographic as an introduction to this rapidly growing field. It provides an overview of what special education is, how students are referred for special education services and definitions of acronyms common to the field, like “IEP” (or “Individualized Education Program”), along with much more.

Although special education began in the 1950s as a movement to win individuals with disabilities a free and quality education, it has today come to embrace the ideal of inclusion, with many students with disabilities being taught in general classrooms alongside their non-disabled peers. Thus, as fully inclusive classrooms become more of a reality, all prospective teachers can benefit from a better understanding of the basics of special education. The number of students receiving special education services is also steadily on the rise, so now is certainly the time to start learning more about the field.

Goalbook app -- great tool for providing excellence for students with special needs

 

Special Education and the Common Core — from goalbookapp.wordpress.com

Excerpt:

The three strategic initiatives below are the most fundamental initial steps to fulfill the promise of this new change:

  1. Special Educators Trained in Common Core Standards and Curriculum
  2. Standards Aligned IEPs
  3. General Educators Trained in Universal Design for Learning

 

Also see:

It’s time for a special needs app fund — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Excerpt:

Alesha Bishop and Lisa Valerio worked together for 10 years at Charles Schwab. After both gave birth to sons with special needs, they have reunited to support the development of learning tools for students with special needs and family-friendly apps.

Learnetic, a Polish-based eLearning publisher and developer, has just released Lorepo — an online authoring tool dedicated to the creation of interactive digital content compatible with desktop computers, tablet devices and smart phones. Thanks to HTML5 technology and the development of specific design guidelines, the new tool enables authors to create interactive learning objects that are compatible with the wide variety of operating systems, screen resolutions and mouse/touch interfaces in today’s marketplace. Read the rest of the press release here >>

 

lorepo.com -- Lorepo is our key solution for everyone interested in learning, creating and sharing interactive content.

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Lorepo is provided to you by Learnetic, an eLearning industry leader offering a wide range of products and services for modern education. Lorepo is our key solution for everyone interested in learning, creating and sharing interactive content.

Either you are an individual person willing to share some knowledge with your friends or the whole world, a teacher eager to provide your students with personalized learning resources or a publishing company aiming at preparing professional, multiplatform interactive content, Lorepo is the best choice for you.

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Also see:

 

learnetic.com-  Learnetic S.A. is a world-leading educational software publisher and e-learning technology provider,

 

.Learnetic S.A. is a world-leading educational software publisher and e-learning technology provider, based in Poland. Its content, publishing tools and eLearning platforms are widely used by publishers, teachers and students in over 30 countries, including Poland, United States, United Kingdom, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, and Australia. The company’s talented team of software engineers specializes in designing applications for education markets and is dedicated to satisfying the diverse needs of contemporary educators and learners.

50 best blogs for special ed teachers (updated) — from onlineuniversities.com

Excerpt:

While being a teacher is never easy, working with students in special education comes with some unique challenges. From writing lengthy IEPs to working closely with parents and other teachers, it takes a calm, collected, organized, confident, and very special person to work with students who often need a great deal more support and assistance than their peers to succeed. Yet even the best special education teachers can use a little guidance, inspiration, and information to help them to be even better at what they do. That’s just what the 50 blogs we’ve collected here can do. Read through this updated list (a revision of this list to reflect new blogs and to remove old, no-longer-updated sites) to find resources that will help you teach, learn, and grow right alongside your students.

 

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Autism Expressed helps autistic children learn about the Internet — from techcrunch.com by Jordan Crook

Excerpt:

The Internet is an incredibly powerful tool, but it’s also a very dangerous place. Because of this, children with autism and other disabilities often can’t leverage the power of the web, which is a place where you should be able to learn anything.

But Autism Expressed, a startup we discovered on our TC Philly Mini Meetup, is looking to educate autistic children about the Internet so they can have a safe surfing experience and enjoy social media like the rest of us.

Dozens of iPad Apps for young students on the Spectrum, at your fingertips — from emergingedtech.com by K. Walsh and Gemma Jones
Apple’s popular tablet can be a great tool for students, parents, and teachers dealing with PDD and Autism Spectrum Disorders, or with other learning disabilities or special needs.

 

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How the blind are reinventing the iPhone — from TheAtlantic.com by Liat Kornowski
At first many blind people thought that the iPhone would never be accessible to them, with its flat glass screen. But the opposite has proved true.

Students benefit using iPads for speech therapy — from keloland.com by Nicole Winters
We’ve seen how iPads can be used in traditional classrooms for learning. They’re also proving to be beneficial for Special Education students. One Sioux Falls Speech Therapist says she’s seeing the benefits with her students.

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presencelearning.com -- great, new resource for online-based speech therapy

Excerpt:

Our mission is to make telepractice practical and affordable while providing an extraordinary therapy experience. The PresenceLearning solution includes the latest video-conferencing tools, engaging games and evidence-based activities, and time-saving collaboration and practice management tools.  See videos of how it works

Also:

  • PresenceLearning Wins 2012 BESSIE Award
    Live online speech therapy service recognized in Special Education Website category
    SAN FRANCISCO, April 19, 2012 – PresenceLearning (www.presencelearning.com), the leading provider of live online speech therapy services to K-12 students, was recently named a winner in the Multi-Level: Special Education Website category of The ComputED Gazette’s 18th Annual Best Educational Software Awards (BESSIE Awards). The awards program targets innovative and content-rich programs and websites that provide parents and teachers with the technology to foster educational excellence.

AutisMate by SpecialNeedsWare

Description of app:

AutisMate is an autism communication, therapy, and learning tool that promotes communication, functional skills, generalization, task analysis, independence, and social skills in people with Autism. AutisMate allows those with autism to communicate through familiar scenes, large images of their environment that can include video, symbols, and social stories as well. Parents and therapists can easily add their own videos and images, symbols (over 12,000 included), custom voice recordings, and synthesized voices to fully and easily customize the app for its user’s current and future needs. The app was designed specifically for the language, speech, generalization, and categorization challenges that individuals with autism often face. GPS reduces navigation by presenting users with scenes from their current location. Making custom word boards for different categories with symbols or your own images is made very simple, and users can get to them with just a click. There’s no difficult navigation, which children with autism often struggle with, as found in many other speech apps out there today.

I originally saw this at:

  • Labor of love: Developer creates iPad app to help his autistic brother — from techcrunch.com by Chris Velazco
    When Jonathan Izak graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, he decided to put his new degree in Computer Science to very good use. In an effort to help his 10-year old autistic brother Oriel communicate and learn new tasks, he developed a new iPad app called Autismate to try and simplify the process.

VizWiz.org

Also see:

  • Yes folks, it’s artificial artificial artificial intelligence
    This is about using what The Economist calls artificial artificial intelligence (like Mechanical Turk, which uses people as artificial computers) to enhance (artificially intelligent) machine vision
    The idea is that the disabled can finally turn the tables on disability. They’re getting involved in developing tools to help the rest of us help them.

    Real-Time Crowd Support for People with Disabilities
  • VizWiz.org

— I originally saw this at Steve Knode’s December 2011 newsletter

Review: Top iPad Guide for Teaching Special Needs Students — from gettingsmart.com by Sarah Cargill

Also see:

 

http://nprinc.com/images/refcards/ipad_full.jpg

 

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Voices in the Dark -- a videogame for the blind by IguanaBee.com

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