Christopher R. Bugaj, MA CCC‐SLP is a founding member the Assistive Technology Team for Loudoun County Public Schools. Chris hosts The A.T.TIPSCAST (http://attipscast.com); a multi‐award winning podcast featuring strategies to design educational experiences. Chris is the co‐author of The Practical (and Fun) Guide to Assistive Technology in Public Schools published by the International Society on Technology in Education (ISTE) and has designed and instructed online courses for ISTE on the topics of Assistive Technology and Universal Design for Learning. Chris is also the author of ATEval2Go (http://bit.ly/ateval2go), an app for iPad that helps professionals in education perform technology assessments for students. Chris co-authored two chapters for a book published by Brookes Publishing titled Technology Tools for Students with Autism. Chris co‐produces and co‐authors the popular Night Light Stories podcast (http://nightlightstories.net) which features original stories for children of all ages. Chris has presented over 250 live or digital sessions at local, regional, state, national and international events, including TEDx, all of which are listed at http://bit.ly/bugajpresentations. His latest book The New Assistive Tech: Making Learning Awesome For All, also published by ISTE, is available now at http://bit.ly/thenewatforall
Sorry this post is up about 24 hours late, but here it is!
Episode #10 is up for your listening pleasure. Episode #10 describes the free software Talking Calculator. You can access a link for the free download from www.premierathome.com/products/TalkingCalculator.php.
Here is a screenshot of what it looks like once it is installed:
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:
Hey everyone,
Episode #9 is up for your listening pleasure. Episode #9 describes the free software add-on for PowerPoint called PowerTalk. PowerTalk is an open source, free download that reads the text on a PowerPoint presentation outloud. You can access a link for the free download from http://fullmeasure.co.uk/powertalk/.
Once you have it installed on your computer you simply navigate to your PowerPoint presentation file, right-click and then select “Narrate With PowerTalk”.
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:
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.
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:
Number 5- www.prometheanplanet.com. You can download free ActivStudio lessons from this website. If you don’t have ActivStudio, you can download the free FlipChart Viewer from here: FlipChart Viewer
Number 4- www.picnik.com. A fun online, free photo editing tool. It is very easy to upload pictures, edit the pictures, and apply different effects to the pictures.
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:
Hey everyone,
Episode #6 is up for your listening pleasure. Episode #6 is the first episode with the new format. Let me know what you think. The tip for this episode is http://www.readplease.com/. Readplease is free piece of software that you can download. It is a text reader/talking word processor. That is, you can copy/paste text right into it and it will read it out loud. You can also type right into the program and it will read it aloud.
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:
Hey everyone,
Episode #5 is up for your listening pleasure. Episode #5 briefly explains the my take on the convergence of the educational concepts of Universal Design for Learning, Least Restrictive Environment, and Differentiating Instruction using Assistive Technology. I also explain that future episodes will have less me talking about the principles of AT practice in public schools in favor of trying to fit in two tips per episode. Please let me know what you think about the format change. Good thing or bad thing for the show, what’s your take?
The tip for this week’s episode is on “Pacing Boards”. Pacing Boards are simply circles used to facilitate language development. You can watch a short movie on Pacing Boards here : Keeping Pace
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:
Hey everyone,
Episode #4 is up for your listening pleasure. Episode #4 contains a short synopsis of my take on FETC 2008 as well as the top 5 things I learned at FETC 2008 (Florida Educational Technology Conference). During the show I mentioned that I would post some movies and links. I hope you enjoy them and find them useful in your teaching practice.
#5: Frequency of Web 2.0 Applications is Increasing In Education
#4: Classroom 2.0– Social Networking site for educators
#3: Using Your Noodle On The Moodle (Alan Taylor)- Presentation Style Can Be Free Form, Dynamic and Non-scripted/rehearsed
#2: The Amazing Math Toolbox For Teachers (Ian Prietz)- Handouts with links to math resources (some free)
#1: www.voicethread.com– Allows users to post a picture and allows other users to have access to leave voice comments or text comments on the margins surrounding that picture.
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:
Hey everyone,
Episode #3 is up for your listening pleasure. I hope you enjoyed the special guest, B-bot. Also, thanks to Eric from Texas for the bumper. If you’d like to make a bumper (a short audio file) I would love to hear it and include it into a future episode of the ATTIPScast.
Here is a link to a tutorial on how to access the readability statistics of Microsoft Word: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP051896011033.aspx
And here is B-bot:
:
I hope you enjoy the show and please feel free to leave a comment here or drop me a line at attipscast@gmail.com
You can access the podcast from here:
The second episode is now up and ready for listening. You can find it on Cyberears.com (the link below) and you can find it on iTunes as well. This episode explores the varying ways districts have chosen to assign personnel to provide assistive technology services. The show also has a segment called “A.T. Tip of the Episode”. This tip is on how to use the sound record feature of Microsoft Word. You find a handy tutorial on this tip here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP052573441033.aspx.
I hope you enjoy the show and please feel free to leave a comment here or drop me a line at attipscast@gmail.com
You can access the podcast from here:
I just returned from sunny Orlando, Florida where I presented and participated in FETC 2008. FETC is the Florida Educators Technology Conference. I’m still gathering my notes from the different sessions I attended but as soon as I get that together I plan to do an episode related to “What I learned at FETC 2008” with content that is relevant to tools used to assist struggling students in the public schools.
Keep listening and I hope you are enjoying the show!
The very first episode of the A.T.TIPScast is now up and running. I just uploaded to Cyberears.com and sent it to iTunes for review. This episode is meant to be an introduction to the show. I hope you enjoy the show and please feel free to leave a comment here or drop me a line at attipscast@gmail.com
You can access the podcast from here:
Hello and welcome! If you are reading this blog it probably means you found the A.T.TIPS Podcast and have listened to an episode. The A.T.TIPS Podcast (A.T.TIPScast) is an acronym for Assistive Technology: Tools In Public Schools. The content of the show pertains to all and any technology (and I use that term in the broadest sense) or strategies used to assist struggling students in the K-12 environment.
Actually, at the time of this blog, I haven’t posted the first episode yet but I expect it to be up and active soon. I’m working on it! I hope you enjoy the podcast and I hope you leave a comment!
The Compendium Blog of The A.T.TIPSCAST 