References:

Background information on graphic organizers and connections to UDL: Graphic Organizers and Implications for Universal Design for Learning: Curriculum Enhancement Report, Prepared by Nicole Strangman, Tracey Hall and Anne Meyer http://www.cast.org/ncac/index.cfm?i=4769

Session Highlights:

Note: page numbers refer to the Inspiration Quick Start Tutorial available online.

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1. Overview of the user interface – pull down menus, main tool bar, and formatting toolbar
2. Diagram mode and use of Rapid Fire(see pages 4 – 5)
3. Introduce the different ways that symbols can be created (pages 8 – 7)

1. Use the Point and type method or
2. Use the Create tool on the toolbar or
3. Use Rapid Fire with or without links (good for brainstorming with a class and one computer and a projection screen)

The Graphic Organizer Home Page This site is a rich resource for learning about graphic organizers, offering links, lists of references and books about graphic organizers, information about using graphic organizers for writing, guidelines for designing graphic organizers and assisting students in designing them, and samples of student work with graphic organizers.WriteDesign On-line The graphic organizers Web pages from WriteDesign On-line list 20 different graphic organizers and describe their use in the context of 8 activities: analyzing, brainstorming, comparing and contrasting, evaluating, hypothesizing, interacting, sequencing, and visualizing. The descriptions include visual examples.

Teach-nology This Web site offers 7 graphic organizer generators, tools that enable you to make customized graphic organizers. Users fill out a simple online form and are instantly provided with an individualized graphic organizer that can be printed and/or saved for later use. NOTE: there are many pop-ups when you open this site.

1. Go to http://edublogs.org
   • in order to create a blog you need to sign up for an account
2. Sign up in seconds… “start here” – follow the screen directions
   • select a “user name” that is easy for you to remember
   • create your own blog (next)
   • choose a blog domain (a name to identify your blog)
   • decide a blog title that will represent the intent of your blog
   • continue to follow the screen instructions

   3. Begin Blogging

Session Highlights

• Dashboard – user interface that, somewhat resembling an automobile’s dashboard, that organizes and presents information in a way that is easily accessible
• Write: post vs page
  • A post is a single entry in your blog; your blog is composed of multiple posts. Posts are time-oriented objects. You write them at a specific time, and that time defines their context.
  • Pages, on the other hand, are most often used to present information about yourself or your site that is somehow timeless – information that is always applicable
  • Categories are used to organize your posts.
• Manage
  • posts – pages – uploads – et cetera
• Comments
• Blogroll
  • Here you add links to sites that you visit often and share them on your blog. When you have a list of links in your sidebar to other blogs, it’s called a “blogroll.”
• Presentation – here you select your theme and your widgets (a small program)
• Plugins are custom functions created to extend the core functionality of the blog
• Users – you as the blog owner can assign roles to your blog users
• Options
• Support

NOTE: more information on jargon.

Support Strategy Instruction for Middle and High School Students

Problems to solve: Low reading achievement is a genuine and consequential problem for many middle school and high school students. Unfortunately, reading comprehension is an extremely difficult skill for many students to master and many content teachers at middle and high school do not have the needed methods, tools, and professional development to easily embed reading comprehension strategy instruction into their content area. Diverse students, including students with learning or reading disabilities, English language learners, and students who fail to engage with reading, all struggle to develop reading comprehension.

Solutions: Provide teachers with a promising approach to improving reading outcomes on the Web that teachers view as feasible to implement, and which is consistent with their curriculum goals and instructional approaches. Further, provide students with important tool for supporting students’ development of web reading strategies and digital literacies.

CAST proposes to provide professional development in strategy instruction to a cadre of approximately 40 teachers and to implement an efficacy study about the effectiveness of the professional development with technology supports and professional development with only traditional supports. At the end of the intervention period all participating teachers will receive the technology supports and professional development to effectively use the technology.

Benefit to students receiving the Strategy Tutor tool during the intervention period

• provide students with techniques and strategies for understanding content in varied areas
• provide students with models and guided practice in using these comprehension strategies
• provide students involved in the targeted intervention with the Web-based Strategy Tutor that
  • supports students in using reading strategies as they learn from information resources on the Web including developing background knowledge and vocabulary, and evaluating Web page quality
  • provides students with help to understand and evaluate content on the web, with the goal of developing and internalizing strategies that can be applied to print and digital content
  • provide an organizing structure and reduce outside distractions (such as manipulation of paper, pencils, and research materials), that can allow students to participate in academic activities with a level of independence that might not have been possible without such a tool, and can provide much needed comprehension strategies for students who may have difficulty with reading and making sense of age-appropriate material.
  • provide a challenging environment for proficient readers to be able to succeed

Benefit to students receiving the Strategy Tutor Approach without technology during the intervention period

• provide students with techniques and strategies for understanding content in varied areas
• provide students with models and guided practice in using these comprehension strategies

Benefit to teachers

• provide all teachers with professional development in research based practices that support reading comprehension across the curriculum
• provide all teachers with techniques and methods for implementing reading strategy instruction in their content area
• provide all teachers with materials and resources needed to implement strategy instruction into their instructional practice
• provide all teachers with supports designed to increase teacher knowledge and application of reading strategy instruction, use of digital materials, and reading on the Internet
• provide teachers involved in the targeted intervention with the Web-based Strategy Tutor that
  • offers a web-based teacher authoring tool that can be used to create assignments and customize supports for strategies, vocabulary, and background knowledge for specific topics or particular Web pages
  • offers resources related to Reciprocal Teaching and strategy instruction, Universal Design for Learning, and Web evaluation. It provides models, mentorship, and an online lesson data-base to help teachers increase their skills in strategy instruction and digital literacies
  • supports educators who may not have the knowledge or experience necessary to help students learn to effectively and efficiently search for information on the World Wide Web
  • is a structure to introduce the process of online research and reinforces the use of explicit reading strategies as a component of any research, reading and writing activity

All teachers receive

• Five days of face-to-face professional development (4 days in the summer and 1 day in October), focusing on principles of universal design for learning, theory and practice related to improving reading comprehension, and specifically, reciprocal teaching, and guided practice with CAST’s Strategy Tutor Approach
• On-site follow-up session with each school so that we can problem solve and discuss Strategy Tutor implementation, problem solve as needed, and collect teacher and student data
• Technical assistance via email, phone, or video conferencing
• The Strategy Tutor Tool after the initial professional development

Proposed Impact:

• Improve reading comprehension, academic achievement, and engagement of diverse learners
• Increase teacher effectiveness in teaching reading strategies and strategic web reading strategies

How do I change the default voice in Windows?

1. Go to: Start, Settings, Control Panel.

   

2. Go to: Speech.
3. Choose the Text To Speech tab.
4. Choose the voice. You can also set the voice rate here.
5. Click OK. Your default voice has now been set.

Retold by Bridget

The peacock is known far and wide for its beautiful feathers. Did you know that long ago the Peacock was a dull, drab bird? He was quite unhappy and asked the god Juno to give him an amazing train of feathers. Juno granted his wish. The peacock was so proud of his brilliantly colored feathers that he strutted about, showing off to all the other birds. The other birds were a bit envious of Peacock and wished that they had his magnificent feathers.

One day, Peacock saw Eagle flying high in the blue sky. Peacock loved to fly and lifted his wings to take off. But to his dismay, his magnificent feathers were so heavy that he could not lift himself into the air. From that time on, Peacock has been stuck on the ground, unable to soar through the sky with the other birds.

Moral: Freedom is more important than beauty.

THE PEACOCK

by Aesop

The Peacock, they say, did not at first have the beautiful feathers in which he now takes so much pride. These, Juno, whose favorite he was, granted to him one day when he begged her for a train of feathers to distinguish him from the other birds. Then, decked in his finery, gleaming with emerald, gold, purple, and azure, he strutted proudly among the birds. All regarded him with envy. Even the most beautiful pheasant could see that his beauty was surpassed.

Presently the Peacock saw an Eagle soaring high up in the blue sky and felt a desire to fly, as he had been accustomed to do. Lifting his wings he tried to rise from the ground. But the weight of his magnificent train held him down. Instead of flying up to greet the first rays of the morning sun, he would have to walk the ground more encumbered and oppressed than any common barnyard fowl.

Do not sacrifice your freedom for the sake of pomp and show.

• concern that this might be a lot of work, but in the end saves time
• similar to a web quest but supports reading, background knowledge
• dangerous that all needs to be connected to the internet because schools use data base
• you might want to put kids on the web to find content in a supported environment

Tuesday Lightning Round

• working on historical fiction – Ashes to Roses – provide staff information; will do a bit on culture study; at HS will be working on Moby Dick (will provide background info) Strategies to be modeled with guidance
• Start with personal narrative and will work on a photo essay (memory, object, etc) – will get pictures posted up on the site and model examples and pieces of writing, POV
• HS: will use the tool with the novel – American history- with contemporary literature you might have to use alternatives, e.g. you might want to check out Amazon and see if some of the text is printed