Free Assistive Tech Tools Make Learning Accessible to All

Technology provides a terrific way to remove the obstacles to learning.  Fortunately, many of the tools available are free but what are they?  I reached out to my PLN through Facebook, Twitter, Classroom 2.0 and Google+ to find out.  Here are the fabulous resources shared by my PLN. 

Assistive Tech Starter Kit
The following accessibility tools are recommended to get started with assistive technology.

• Google Apps Accessibility
• accessibility features of our products for vision & hearing impaired.
• Accessibility on the PCs with MS Office
• WordTalk,  Balaboka, or Windows Speech Recognition
• Accessibility with mobiles
• VLingo (Android - free, BlackBerry - cheap)
• Dragon (iOS - free) on handhelds or tablets.
• FireFox with Accessibility A collection of free accessibility add-ons available from Firefox. FoxVox and CLiCk-Speak are great.

These are all free (or cheap) and provide both effective Text-To-Speech (thus access to content) and those with Word-by-Word highlighting help build sight-word recognition. One of the best uses of text to speech is to support writing with "read back" editing.

Resource courtesy of Ira Socol 

A Compilation of work from John Holt - One of The Founders of the Home Education Movement

I have compiled the works of John Taylor Gatto and Ivan Illich, two people who are revered in the world of home education.  Historically, John Holt is arguably the most well-known when it comes to advocating and writing about home education.  Once a famous progressive teacher, he is ultimately credited as the founder of unschooling and one of the founders of the modern homeschooling movement. 

Here is a collection of some of his work.

John Holt (educator) - Wikipedia - Wikipedia provides a general overview of John Holt.  It might be a good place to get started.   

The Holt Associates Website - John Holt started Holt Associates in 1971 as a way to spread ideas and information about how children learn and how schools can be changed to create conditions that foster independent and group learning that are vastly different from the "teach 'em and test 'em" regime we force children into. Today, Holt Associates Inc. acts primarily as a trustee for the work and publications of John Holt. On the sight you’ll find the following resources:

• Magazines:  You can access every issue of Growing Up Without School in the archives here at no cost.  I’ve talked to home educators who tell me stories of how they anxiously awaited the magazine each month.  Now you can read them on demand for free.  
• Books:  Find a list of books published by John Holt and Holt Enterprises here.  
• Reprints:  You can get reprints of John Holt’s writing for publications like Atalntic Monthly and Christian Science Monitor here.
• Videos:  Here are videos of John Holt explaining how learning can be improved.  
• Audio Recordings:  Listen to John Holt speak on radio programs and shows like NPR here.

Sandra Dodd’s John Holt page - Unschooling guru Sandra Dodd provides her insight into why she admired John Holt and his work and shares a collection of his writings, quotes and more.

Find People to Hangout with on Google+

If you’ve ever participated in a Hangout on Google+ you know that the video conferencing feature works great! You can hangout with video and audio with up to ten people while also chatting and sharing video. Hangout also knows who is talking and puts them front and center.  There’s no awkward handing over and collecting the microphone.  It feels like others are really right there with you.  


The problem with Hangout though is that it is hard to know who is hanging out and it is hard for people to know if you are hanging out.  I wrote to Google and suggested that under the “Hangout” option there should be a list of people in your circles that are hanging out. I also suggested that you should be able to give your Hangouts a title.  They haven’t incorporated my feedback yet, but in the meantime, there’s one solution that may work.

Joyce Valenza, Judy O’Connell, Cathy Jo Nelson, Linda Nitsche, Rob Darrow and Chris Betcher                     
in a hangout hosted by Jenny Luca

Nine Tenets of Passion-Based Learning

The Schoolwide Enrichment Model is Alive at The Island School

MindShift, a site that explores the future of learning, recently provided an overview of the passion-driven learning talk I gave with other esteemed panelists (Angela Maiers, Amy Sandvold, and George Couros) on the Future of Education. Steve Hargadon moderated the conversation during which we discussed “passion-based” learning. 

Mindshift pulled together nine key points we discussed during the talk along with some additional thoughts from John Seely Brown, co-author of A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, and educator Jackie Gerstein.

Here are the nine tenants of passion-based learning

Ditch Tweets, emails, status updates, blog posts, and more with the Google+ diet

Mike Elgan is conducting the Google+ Diet. The idea is to slim down a bloated social networking lifestyle by using only Google+ for all communication. Mike has given up Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and about a dozen other services, and replaced them with Google+.  He's even given up e-mail! I found his post on G+ explaining what he loves about Google+ in general and the Google+ Diet in particular really helpful.  

To follow is how he explains you can replace other forms of communication with Google Plus. Instead of saying, "I'm going to write a blog post now," or "I'm going to send an e-mail" or "I think I'll tweet something" you simply say what you have to say, then decide who you're going to say it to.

Here's how!

Connecting School Life to Real Life

My 140 Character Conference talk on August 2nd focuses on connecting school life to real life.  In the talk I ask the question, "If school should be preparing young people for the world, why does the world behind school doors look so different from the world outside those doors?" I explain that if we want students to be successful in the real world, schools need to get better at connecting school life to real life and give students the freedom to learn.

Here is the presentation I used as I spoke.  It was created so others can download, copy/edit and share.  I invite others to take and share these ideas. 

Click on the picture and the presentation will open in a new window.

Here is the talk.


I was thrilled to be joined by some of the most influential members of my PLN on this day including Chris Lehmann, Tom Whitby, Steve Anderson, Christian Long, Adam Bellow, Shelley Krause, Dale J. Stephens and others!!!!
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If you are a 21st educator, this is one event you should attend.  There is a special rate of only $1.40 for educators.  Shhh...don't tell.  Regular folk have to pay like $140 bucks.  You can find the educator application here.  I hope you'll be able to attend.  If you have any presentation feedback, please share.