A.T.TIPScast Episode #8: VSTE 2008 (Top 5)- Part 2

Hey everyone,
Episode #8 is up for your listening pleasure. Episode #8 is the second of a two part episode where I rank the Top 5 things I learned at the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) Conference 2008. This episode includes:

Number 3- www.emilychang.com/go/ehub–

This website is the personal website of a web designer named, Emily Change, out of San Francisco. There is so much out there and so many new web applications updating every day, this site can keep you up to date on the latest Web 2.0 applications.

Number 2- www.soundsnap.com

This is a great resource to find free sounds. I think one under utilized activity for students with difficulties following directions or auditory processing difficulties is listening to and discriminating between sounds. Sounds can be used as story starters as opposed to the traditional text-based or picture based story starter. Sound effects can be used to enhance digital storytelling activities, movie making activities, or student produced podcasts. Adding these sounds might allow the students to feel like their production has a polished and fun quality.

Number 1- Mail Merge functions of Publisher to create Picture Dictionaries and Identification Cards

A teacher from Norfolk public schools named Jennifer Durkin presented on different ways she uses Publisher. One strategy she showed what how you could take lists of items in Excel and Merge them with templates created in Publisher to easily make picture dictionaries and identification cards. Picture dictionaries are a great way for students to review difficult spelling words, review vocabulary from any content area, or maintain their own “difficult for me to remember” list of words. Identification cards are also a useful tool for students with communication difficulties. The ID card might have saying on them like “My name is… and I am lost” or “Can you call my mom for me? My phone number is …”. I wrote Jennifer and she gave me permission to post her hand-outs here. vste-presentation-handout.pdf

I hope you enjoyed the show and please feel free to leave a comment down below or drop me a line at attipscast@gmail.com
You can access the podcast from here: