Web+2.0+For+Diversity


 * WEB 2.0 for Diversity **

On this page, you will share a Web 2.0 tool. This can be the one you researched and chose for Task #3 or it can be a different one.**You must** ** link to that tool's site and explain how this tool allows for accommodations for individuals with special needs, ELL, cultural and ethnic differences, etc. ** To do this, type the name of the tool you chose on the Web 2.0 Tools page, highlight it, then choose "Link" in the Editor Menu Bar above. On the left side, click "external link" also choose to Open in a new __window__.. Please add your name as the author.

If someone else has already written about the Web 2.0 tool you wanted to share here, you must pick a different one.

I suggest you do Google searches to help you find Web 2.0 tools accommodating diversity. You will be amazed at what you will find. For example, search: * Web 2.0 tools for ELL * Web 2.0 tools for Diversityta * Can you think of others?

www.vizZel - Ann Toney

[|www.vizZel] is an interactive visual learning activity site. It is developed from the Monarch Center for Autism. It has 5,000 readymade visual lessons and thousands of ways to edit or create new lessons. This was really developed for students with autism but it will help any student who learns better visually. It provides a safe and private way to communicate with teachers, students and parents. It has a built in visual behavior incentive programs. VizZel also promotes social interaction and cooperative learning. This is not a free site.

See Student Example Below: @http://www.spellingcity.com/ -Kim Thomas This web 2.0 site is extremely useful as a tool for diverse learners. This site enables a teacher to customize or choose spelling words from lists that feature over 42,000 words based on teacher specified criteria. These lists can be saved to the teachers home page allowing the student to access from home or school. These words can then be used to extend lessons into vocabulary and written expression. Lessons can be geared to a special needs student's present level or a gifted students enrichment level. For students who are struggling with reading, Dolch site words can be accessed and taught through the program. The spelling program will also say the word which is very helpful to those students are struggling to read let alone spell the words. This site also has been linked to other sites where flashcards can be accessed with spanish or other foreign languages and english helping an ELL student to make easier connections to the English language. Cultural and ethnic differences can be addressed by referring to the links posted in the teacher resources section. There files can be imported on such things as different holidays that are celebrated by all people living in the understates. __ Starfall- DaJuana Madison __ Starfall is a program that is used to enhance students in reading. You are able to change the language for ELL learners. You can down and print books for the students to read. Also students can listen to books in their language. This is a great tool because students are able to enhance their level of reading. The program allows them to work on their on pace and retain the information to move another level of reading. It's fun and the studnets are able to have fun and dont know that they are learning. [|Xtranormal Amy Jones] Xtranormal is a text to speech animation tool. Teachers may use this tool in order to teach various concepts. Students may also use this to create their own videos to show understanding of the subject taught. There are many ways to meet various needs of students. A Special Education teacher may use the tool to teach social and behavioral lessons. A teacher with ESL students can create videos containing more than one language (two characters). If a teacher has a hearing impaired student they may upload the video onto YouTube and use the closed captioning option. This is also a great tool to keep the interest of students with attention concerns. For students who may have issues creating their own videos, the teacher may group students together into pairs or groups of three. Either way, all students will need __training__ on how to use the program. When there are students of various cultures and ethnicity, the teacher has control of what goes into the video therefor they can incorporate those cultural differences.

[] After taking the Diversity class, I have learned that I need to do a better job of bringing in different cultures into my classroom. I think MUSEUM BOX is a great way to help me do this. Museum Box allows for __students__ to create their own piece of a museum. It can include text, video, pictures, etc. They could create this museum around themselves or they could create this museum around a culture they have recently learned about. Once they have created this box they could share it with the class. This would help to create an atmosphere of multiculturalism and understanding in the classroom.

POST BELOW: Amy Rainwater-Blabberize Spongebob

__ Diversity __ : Blabberize is the Web 2.0 tool I picked for Diversity. Working in a Special Education classroom I am always needing new ideas for reading class. Most of my students are readers that struggle and having a fun way to introduce a story will catch their attention! This tool can be used as a group tool or and individualized center. I would start out by using it as an introduction to the story being read. The picture will be the narrator to our story. I think having different characters, animals, and people read to the kids will catch their attention and they will want to have reading class. This tool will help provide instruction for readers that struggle, audio learners, visually impaired, English Language Learners, and just a fun way to read for those who do not need help. I would have a copy of the story in front of each students while the picture read the story. Then the picture can turn into a center. During center time they can find the story and the blabberizer to practice reading on their own with headphones of course. I say headphones ofcourse because for some reason my students are intrigued with headphones. So use what works! Therefore, how does this work for diversity? It is will be almost like an extra aide in your classroom, but with a character or picture that they like. It will help English Language Learners by hearing the words and sounds aloud, along with following the words on the paper or book. It will give them good practice with words that they struggle with. Visually impaired students will be able to enjoy story time, as well, since it is read aloud. Then if it is on the SmartBoard they can enjoy the picture too. The area in which I will use it is with readers that struggle. It will be a unique exciting start to a book. I would play the book aloud first with out any paper in front of them. Then, give them the story to follow along word for word. That will help with word recognition by hearing it aloud. These students don't always just want to hear the teacher read so having their favorite character read aloud will help motivate them to want to read. This tool will also help with visual learners. Instead of just having to sound the words out they can hear it first. Then all the students can practice their skills in a center. It will be nice for them to be able to pick a book and go to a computer and listen! This tool can also be fun for them to make their own. They will be excited to make their very own! It will also help the students hear themselves read for two reasons. One they can fell success when they hear themselves reading correctly. Two if they hear what they read aloud maybe they can hear their mistakes and figure out what they said wrong. My students lack in confidence when reading so they don't pay attention to what they are reading. They simple just guess :( Therefore if they hear themselves they can tell if the story makes sense or not. This could also help in reading comprehension. They possibilities are endless!!!! You can use this tool in any subject really or presentation. It just adds a little spice to lesson or lecture. Unfortunately, I think a kid would rather watch Superman talk about planets than me!!

Livescribe and Pencasts - Brandy Antonio Livescribe is site that utilizes an interactive pen that that can record audio and create a digital version of your notes that are merged into an interactive document. The document can be shared electronically with people or to destinations of your choice. A spartpen and pencast allows one to create notes they can hear, see, and experience exactly as they were captured. The smart pen captures what is written, scribbles and diagrams, then syncs it to the audio. You can create and organize a virtual notebook that will play back what the instructor says as many times as you want and you can make additional marks to highlight key information. You can transfer the notes to a computer then play them back on your desktop or view the notes and audio using free apps. While I think that all technology is a way to increase inclusion, this tool provides all learners an conduit to for individual success, especially for those with different capabilities. //“The Livescribe pen provides another way to alter the teaching style to your own learning style without disrupting the classroom setting. It provides auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners their own outlets to learning.” – Suzanne H.//

ABCya! Word Clouds for Kids- Rebecca Hamm ABCya! is a website that offers a free, easy to use word cloud application. The user can enter as many words as they would like to into the text box and then click the arrow to create a word cloud. After creating a word cloud, the layout, color, and font can be adjusted to the preferences of the individual user. The final product can be saved or printed. This would be a great website to use when celebrating diversity among classmates. At the beginning of the year, students could create a cloud about what makes them special (daughter, sister, oldest, American, Christian, etc). Having students share their final products would create an opportunity for students to learn about the unique differences among their classmates. Another way to celebrate diversity, might be to have each student research a different culture, religion, famous African American, etc., and create a word cloud to represent their research findings. The possibilities are endless with this simple website!

Google Translate - Josh Klaas Google Translate is a very accurate translator program that is completely online and requires no downloading or installing. Users can choose from a list a 65 languages to translate to and from. Not only can you type in what you want and have it translate it to the language you desire, but you can also just speak to the website and it will recognize what you say and translate it to what language you want. The voice recognition is very accurate. Users can also copy and paste a whole chunk of text into the website and have it translated. This would be a great tool for ELL/ESL students. If a teacher could allow an ESL student to have access to this program at all times in the classroom, that student would not feel as limited in understanding what is going on or what is being said. Teachers could also use this program to help communicate instructions to students. I feel it would help students and teachers both understand each other's language better.

Penzu Kimberly Knox This is an online journal. The entries are dated and you can add a title. Students can share their journal via email with other students and/or teacher or it can be printed and brought to class. I think this would be good for ELL/ESL students and students that need help with writing skills. The site is focused on content so students do not need to get distracting with formatting, etc. Also, students can save journal entries. They can see how far they have come with their writing skills.

Slideshare - Ryan Zieg For the Web 2.0 tools section, I created a page demonstrating and explaining slideshare, a page that allows you to upload, search for, and view slide show presentations online. For further explanation and understanding, you may see my page here. Slideshare can help with diversified instruction by:
 * 1) Allowing students to work together to create their own presentations. As a teacher, group work is a great avenue of helping students to celebrate cultural, social, ethnic, and other diversities that exist. When students are working together during group settings, a presentation could be used as a formative assessment through which the students are able to demonstrate what they have created/learned; as well as allowing them the opportunity to rely on and learn more about one another
 * 2) Sharing the works of other students with their parents at home. Because of slideshare's accessibility, any student with an internet connection at home is able to access any presentation that has been uploaded. This will allow parents of students to enjoy and appreciate the diverse students within their child's group presentation, or get a better understanding of other groups' diversities by viewing the presentation that they created.
 * 3) Enabling students that struggle with concept retention easy access to the direct information from the teacher. Some students struggle to grasp concepts during the initial presentation, so being able to access the presentation at home will help to allow significant learning to occur. By allowing the student to control the speed of the presentation, further understanding will be able to take place. This is can also allow ELL students the opportunity to slow down the presentation and look up any words that may seem unfamiliar without falling behind or missing a section of the presentation.
 * 4) Providing students of diverse backgrounds the opportunity to tell their classmates about themselves. A great early project for a semester could be to have students create "Getting to know you" presentations which would highlight and demonstrate differences among the vast array of cultures and backgrounds that students come from. Upon completion, and once the presentations have been uploaded, the students could then present them to the class. This is an idea that I look forward to using in my classroom in the future!

Delicious - Donny Harris While completing the first segments of the assignment I published a page describing the fee social bookmarking site called Delicious.com. It is a great site for teachers and diverse learners alike. For more general information on Delicious and its' features click __here__.

Delicious is a great resource for not only teachers to store all of the sites they find and share them with other educators, but also for their students. First, It's free to use so all students that have internet capabilities can access it. Next, it is social so students can interact with each other by viewing what their peers have saved on their own profiles. Also, students can easily organize the thousands of sites they find over time, making information easy to find. Lastly, all of these features can all be used to help a diverse make up of students.

So for example lets say there is a research project assigned to a class full of diverse students. First all the students sign up for Delicious.com. Next they all begin to search for sources over the internet. Some students find great sources and save it to their Delicious site. That way they can go back to it later to view at their computers at home for further review. Other students may struggle to find sites that are of much use. They can go to their peers profile and view what they have found. This is huge for students with disabilities because they often struggle finding information on their own. They can then save the site on their profile and view it later whenever and where ever they need to. This creates a learning community and allows students that struggle to be a little bit more independent in their researching and studies. The possibilities to aid diversity are as endless as the world wide web is. ELL students can save sites that aid in learning English and find other sites and resources from friends, family, and teachers.

[|Reading Eggs]- Melissa Stufflbean This site is awesome with diverse learners. Teachers can customize what reading level each student is on and set up what activities works best for that student. The students can learn new things, read books, earn rewards, and take quizes to move on to the next level. Teachers and parents can go to the site and see how the student is progressing. Reading eggs offers lots of games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate children to keep exploring and learning. The web 2.0 tool is a great tool for ELL learners because it is slow pace and the language cn be change to better assit the student. The culture and ethic differences are meet by moving at slow pace and design to help the student by providing more activities or games on the level that they may be struggling in. As a teacher I would recommend this site to follow teachers and parents to help the students succeed in their work.

Cindy Rieger - WallWisher []

Wallwisher is a web 2.0 tool that engages all students in discussion about a variety of topics. It's a wall of sticky (post-it) notes. Imagine taking a bunch of sticky notes and putting them all over your computer screen. Welcome to Wallwisher! Below I have a link that takes you to a wall I created labeled as Community/Family. I asked students to describe favorite family memories or games played. I love that this can be teacher-led and can close the wall and start a new one any time. I really like that this engages diverse students, especially those who are ESL learners or have learning disabilities. This site allows these learners the time they need to complete the sticky notes. There are no time constraints so they feel more comfortable and hopefully motivated to put multiple sticky notes on the wall. Seems simple and yet with creativity, teachers can address so many topics. This can be used as a review for a lesson just taught. Take a look at the link to one teacher's use of Wallwisher. [|Wallwisher - YouTube] [|Cindy R - wall wisher]

[|Listen-and-Write] - Kyle Davis

==Listen and Write is a great website to be used for ELL learners. Listen and Write is a dictation exercise tool to help with listening. The site has many exercises available, and teachers and students can design their own. A neat feature of the site is that teachers can actually monitor the progress of their students. Students have options on exercises like listening to a whole sentence or breaking it up into parts. Pretty neat.==