Hi everybody. I have a secret to share with you
I figured out how to
predict the future. And I'm not HG Wells
I'm not Doctor Who. Heck, I'm not even Marty McFly.
but I have figured out how to predict the future
this piece of equipment right here is something called a Magic Touch window
A Magic Touch window, the way it works is you take this piece of equipment and you
hang it on a computer monitor
when you hook it up it helps somebody who has a physical difficulties
controlling the mouse, they can now control the computer
by touching it with their fingers. In the video
that is playing here behind me you'll see a student using something called "word
prediction" technology. Now
the way word prediction software works is that as a student types
it's predicting with a set of words based on the context that the student uses.
So, let's say that the student is trying to type the word "encyclopedia"
they would type an "e" and an "n" and a "c" and a list of words would come up
like "enclose", "encounter", and "encyclopedia"
and they can choose from that list of words what they were trying to put in.
Word prediction software significantly decreases the number keystrokes a student needs
to make to get the words in
and, as the theory goes, it increases
their spelling ability because
they're not practicing spelling the word over and over and over
again the wrong way and then using spell check to correct it
they are seeing right the first time and that's something called
"errorless learning". The Magic Touch window
and word prediction technology both of those came out in around 1986, 1987.
So, now, all of you, let me see your devices.
Hold them up. Hold them up. Let me take a look.
Right? Now you to take a look at them. How do you access your device?
It's through touch screen technology, right? And then
when you flip that thing on and you're texting your loved ones or your
emailing somebody or you even doing something as simple as a Google search,
what's happening? It's word prediction technology, right? The words are coming up
to help you
and proficient users this decreases the number of errors they make and it increases
their productivity.
So, two pieces of technology that came out in the late 1980s
are now used widely by the rest of us. So they got me thinking,
what other pieces of technology are out there being used by people with disabilities
that really could be used by all us?
So, let's take a look at some different disabilities groups, shall we?
We'll start here with people who have hearing impairments or who are deaf.
There's a piece of technology they've used for years and that we could all benefit from.
It's
closed captioning. Closed captioning
is available on just about every single television and
as studies show that people who use closed captioning
actually turn out to be better readers. It helps them with reading comprehension.
So, I thought, why don't I see closed captioning at more people's homes
and in more classrooms? Maybe it's because teachers don't know how to turn on the
captions. Maybe people at home, don't know how to turn on the captions.
So, let's do an activity. Will you do one with me? Will you do one with me? Alright, let me see your thumbs. Can you put your
thumbs up in the air?
Stick them way up there. I promise, this won't hurt at all.
Now, shake 'em around and then drop the hammer down
If you can do that, move your thumb or finger up and down
you can turn the captions on and you can help students become better readers.
Now that's, of course, if you're doing TV but what about Internet video? Internet video has become
widely popular
Um, There's this one website, I don't know, it's kind of an obscure website. You might not have heard
of it before
it's called YouTube. Woah! It is great
because there's all sorts of instructional videos that you can use there.
And, guess what? YouTube has a closed caption button.
But again I go into a lot of classrooms and very rarely do I see the captions on.
So I thought, I'm a trainer at heart. I like to teach people how to do these things.
Can you zoom in here on me for one second?
If your gonna watch this video later, the closed caption button
is right down here, okay?
If it's not there it means the video is not captioned
but many, many, many YouTube videos are captioned
and, of course, many commercial videos as well.
So, closed captioning so important to help people become better readers. People
ask me all the time, "Chris, what's your favorite reading app?"
"What's your favorite reading website?" My answer is, "Did you turn the captions on?"
Turning the captions on is so important. I asked teachers
all the time, if you're a teacher in your classroom,
make your captions, make your classroom a "captions on" classroom.
If you're a principal, there's some principals in the audience,
make your school a "captions on" school. If you're a superintendent
make your school district a "captions on" school district and if you're a parent
make your home a "captions on" home.
Your students will become better readers. Now that's all helping people with reading
difficulties, right? Or people learning to read
but what about people with reading difficulties? What do they need?
What's one strategy we can use with them?
We use something called text to speech. Text to speech is nothing more than taking
digital text on your screen
hitting a little play button and it plays it back out loud to you.
It's actually built in to your
phones, especially if you have an Apple devices.
Um, it's built in there and if it's not, if you don't, if your students don't have
these devices
they're using desktop computers, there's plenty of free software out there
that works.
There's plenty of commercial software too where you can get just the right voice just for
you.
Why is text to speech so important? Because anyone who's learning to read,
they come to a word that they don't know, they hit that little play button and then they
listen to it, right? Now they can learn what that word is and if it's a sentence
they can learn what that sentence is and they can help understand the meaning
using the their auditory. Text to speech,
how is that useful for the rest of us? Well anyone,
anyone who ever does any writing can use text to speech
as an editing tool. Put yourself back into third grade.
Remember when you're in third grade and your teacher gave you your editing checklist?
You had to check for spelling, check for punctuation, check for capitalization
Hey, did I read it over? Yes.
Now, this day and age, we have one other strategy we ask students to do. That is,
Did you listen to it? Plenty of authors
go back and listen to their work before they turn it into their publisher
or into their editor. Why? Because their
ears will catch the mistakes that their eyes didn't, right?
So, anyone can use text to speech. I ask teachers all the time...
I say, okay, well, in fact, let me just do another demonstration. Will you participate with me?
I'm going to ask you a question. You yell out the answer.
But you have to be really loud because I'm the only one mic'ed.
Okay, so yell it out, as loud as you can.
What's three plus three?
Let's see if you can do better. What's four plus four? You just know that, right? That's in you. So now I'm going to ask you, if you're a teacher
"What's your text to speech tool?" If you don't, someone knows their text to speech tool, cool!
If you don't know what your text to speech tool is that's your homework
go back out there, find out what your text to speech tool is. Make sure there's one
on
any device a student ever touches because they can use it
to help them become better readers and better writers.
Okay, text to speech, primarily an auditory tool, alright? Listening.
So, people. There's a whole
population out there people who are have been using audio for a long time.
That's people with visual impairments. People who are blind or have low vision
have been using audio for a long time. In fact, one of the pieces of technology we used to use
back in the day with something called, you might remember this?
Books on tape. Right, listen to audio stories.
But, books on tape moved away and now we have something called
audio books, right? And look at that vast library of audio books
at our public library that my kids are staying in front.
Yeah, it's small, right? Because audio books are kinda, these audio books on CD
they're kinda going the way of the Dodo too, right? Because now we're doing something called
downloading stuff from the Web right to our phones. Around 2005
this new technology came out and it was called podcasting.
And podcasting has grown ever since. There's still some people
who are like, "What's a podcast?" Well,
let me show you. Podcasting has grown ever since
and it's got lots of fiction and non-fiction content that people can download and listen to.
I'm not here to tell you all about podcasting I'm here to tell you about
one podcast
in particular, Nightlightstories.net.
Now, Night Light Stories is done, produced by a husband and wife team
and the wife in this husband in wife team,
woah, she's gorgeous
she smart, she's funny and she's got the voice of an angel
You're gonna fall in love with her voice when you listen to it.
I know, because I did. I fell so deeply in love with your voice that I married her.
I'm the husband in the husband and wife team.
and we write Night Light Stories together. So, what that, what that means is
at night we get together. We write up our stories. My wife puts on her teacher voice,
She records them. We put them up for free in iTunes
for teachers and students and anyone in the world to download and listen to.
We currently have 58 stories...Uh, I'm sorry wait. What?
What?
Yeah honey, I told them. I told them how smart you were. I told them how funny you were.
Yeah, yeah, can I get back to my talk? Okay, great, great.
Um, so Night Light Stories is out there to take from the Web and use it
how they want.
One way teachers can use, listening centers have been around for a long time too, right?
My daughter
came home last night from, she's in Kindergarten,
and she came home with a pencil and she said, "Look what I earned for being good all
week, Daddy! It's this pencil!"
And then what happened to that pencil? You know what happens because it happens to your
kids too.
They get this pencil and they're so proud of it and then it goes and gets thrown in the junk drawer
with all the other pencils they've earned all week and I they never use and never see
it again.
But what some teachers do is they take our audio stories, and
even if you don't like Night Light Stories there are tons of other audio content out there,
You take it and you burn it to CDs. Here's an example right here.
And that's what goes in the prize bucket
So, we've been doing this for a number years now and we found out that, we just started to do some research,
found out that just listening to audio stories,
just listening,
helps students become better readers
So, we take those stories, burn them to CDs. Students then get those CDs.
They take them home and now, they go, instead of throwing it
in the junk, junk drawer, they go home and they listen to it
or they'll say, "When we're going grocery shopping, Mom, can we listen to the
Night Light Stories?" Or, "Hey, before bedtime or bathtime, can we listen to Night Light Stories?"
In this way their falling in love, falling in love with literature even at an age when
they can't read.
This picture, by the way, isn't from us.
This picture was sent to us by a listener who had this other great idea.
She listened to the stories and you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to burn them down to CDs and I'm going to give them out as
goody bags.
Instead, of goody bags at my kids birthday party. Because I'm giving the
gift of literature that way. It's cool.
That's Night Light Stories. There's one
other place that I think students can really be using audio.
And, that is during their commute.
When students drive, are on the bus, on the train, or walk to school, or whatever
many of them are listening to devices, yes? Right? And
what are they listening to? Usually it's music. But I ask you,
how often can you possibly listen to Taylor Swift tell you
that she is never ever, ever getting back together with you
ever. It's exhausting .
Students can be listening to audio stories in the car
on the bus and, um, I know some students that are on the bus for two hours a day
They drive an hour there and an hour back on the bus. That's two hours where the school
district
is responsible for the student, the student's safety, but no educational
content is happening.
But it could be. Teachers could be using that audio content to either complement
their curriculum
or simply just to get fall in love with literature. Hey, you know who else commutes?
Pretty much everybody. Teachers commute and that's why I created
something called
The A.T.TIPSCAST. The A.T.TIPSCAST is my podcast where it's got
every episode features at least one technology tip that's
free. Right? We call it
"technology to differentiate the learning experience", right?
Um, and then teachers can then use those technology tips and they can't go back
and apply them in their class. But there's something that's always bugged me about
this, right? And that is,
well, again, can we do a little
role play again? Let's all pretend that you're teachers, okay? Some of you are.
but let's pretend you're teachers. And you have stayed after school
and you're participating in a professional development workshop and I'm giving
the workshop and you're learning all these strategies, right?
You would get staff development credit for doing that.
But what about the guy right now who's on the treadmill watching this TED video?
He's getting the exact same content. Good job guy on treadmill. Keep going. Only
couple more minutes left. You're good. Keep going.
That, that guy gets no, no
staff development credit and it doesn't make sense to me. The person who has
downloaded these
episodes. There's like 120 episodes they could download, they're listening to it in their
car on their own time and that person gets no staff development credit.
Here, in our contemporary society, where we have all these different modalities where
people could be learning
we need to start honoring those. So knowing that, what we've done is, we've taken the
A.T.TIPSCAST and we burn it down to CDs.
And, uh, we take those CDs and we make a little, a couple, a couple question book,
like a couple questions. Those are question booklets you see on the other side of the CD.
And, uh, teachers then check these out. They listen to the,
and if they know about the device, If they have an iPod, they can download it
to that. We burn it on to these CDs because
that's the, um, that's the more universal approach, right? There's still so many
teachers that don't know how to use these devices. They're still learning how to use
them. So, we use the technology they know, CDs
to teach them the technology they don't know. Instructional websites,
low-tech tools and apps and things like that.
This has been an extremely popular form of professional development because
we're respecting the teacher's time. We're
respecting their commute and, uh, people seem to like it.
Okay, I have one, one last group to tell you about
and that is people with cognitive impairments.
People with cognitive impairments
need to have, need to have technology or need to have content presented to them
in small,
small digestible chunks, need to be broken up.
In fact, that's the name of the instructional strategy, is chunking. Not
long blocks of text. Short, short blocks of text or shorter videos.
You know who else like information broken up into short, digestible chunks?
Everybody, right? Everybody. If you haven't been paying attention, Twitter
Facebook, LinkedIn, Pheed, Vine, All of these
social media platforms present information in short
digestible chunks and that is one of the reasons they're so popular.
So, knowing that, the the assistive technology team that I work on
use that strategy of breaking stuff down into small digestible chunks
and we created something called a Strategy-A-Day calendar.
The Strategy-A-Day calendar is just that. We got out and meet with teachers
and we brainstorm instructional strategies and then we come back
and we split up the work and we all just create one, put one
instructional strategy per day on a calendar slide.
Then, what we do is we print them out. We give it to our vocational center, so it's
actually students working on this.
They cut it, glue it, and they put the cardboard backing on it
and that's how, um, we produce our Strategy-A-Day calendar.
Incredibly popular form of professional development.
You can, the problem, there's one problem with it and that's we, it's paper-based, right?
Some people like it because they get to rip it off but
there are plenty of teachers out there that we just can't afford to give it
every teacher in our school district. We just don't have the budget for it.
So what we do is, we put this up on our website as well. That's at
lcps.org/at, and if you had turned the captions on you would have see that down at the bottom, lcps.org/at.
. So anyone can then,
anyone can participate in the Strategy-A-Day calendar. But I'm not really here to talk
to you about
our Strategy-A-Day calendar. I'm here to talk to you about YOUR Strategy-A-Day calendar.
I created one up in Google Slides. I gave this out to a bunch of teacher
friends of mine. We started it and
just said, "Hey, anyone in the world can participate by going this link.
Take your favorite teaching strategy. Give it a title.
Give it a description. Maybe a word or two about how you use it.
Give it a picture, and then give it a URL if there is a URL. There's alot, plenty of low-tech
strategies out there too that don't have a URL associated.
We have created this virtual
Strategy-A-Day calendar that anyone,
this open source Strategy-A-Day Calendar that anyone can participate in.
They can go in, so any school district now,
could go and they could pull slides from this Strategy-A-Day calendar to make their own calendar.
Now, just
imagine if every teacher
took five minutes, maybe seven minutes, to make one calendar slide.
We would have thousands, maybe millions, of slides that we could pull from
so districts could then create their own calendar slides. Oh, I like this
strategy. I like this strategy. This one, not so much.
This one, oh, we have that in our district too. And people could make their own
and distribute to their own teachers.
So, take that idea and run with it.
All of that said, I have one final thought and that is this.
All of these strategies were born from working with people with disabilities.
So what if we changed our instructional approach? Instead of planning for
students that
don't have disabilities and then making all sorts of modifications and
accommodations for students
that do have disabilities, what if we change that whole thing and flipped it on its ear?
What if we planned and created materials for students that have disabilities
and then just applied those to everybody else?
Thank you.