Episode Overview:

Hey everyone,

Run! Run! Run for your lives! Episode #42 is up for your listening pleasure! Episode #42 features a visit to Count Edula’s mansion where he asks about some tools he can use to help organize his  “hypothetical” zombie army.  Chris’s suggestions just so happen to be useful tools to help students as well.

A.T.TIPS in this Episode:

A.T.TIP #60: Google Earth

Google Earth lets you to zoom anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. Google Earth is a free software program you can download and install on your computer.  When you launch the program you see a celestial view of the earth.  On the left hand side you see a search window.  Type in any location, hit the magnifying glass icon, and watch as you zoom to that location.  Also on the left side of the screen you’ll find a section called “layers” click on any of the boxes there to add additional features to what you see in your search.  So, for instance, if you select the “3D Buildings” layer when a 3 dimensional image of a building is available you will see that building in three dimensions.  Try it by searching for any major city, like Chicago, and you’ll see a three-dimensional representation of tons of different buildings or try doing a search for one of the lighthouses along the Outer Banks.  In more remote locations like those you can really see the difference between the 2 dimensional representations and the 3 dimensional representations.   There is a street view layer that is awesome where you can see, where available, a 360 degree digital image as if you were standing at a given location.  Students who have trouble visualizing how tall something is, or what something might look like, or how a structure might appear in real-life, can experience these places in a very tangential way.  Using Google Earth before or after a field trip or community-based instructional trip can bring a totally new dimension to the learning experience.  What’s nice about Google Earth is that it’s totally free.  Students can download it at home to explore on their own. Again, this is just scratching the surface of what it can do as there are all different types of layers, including shipwrecks, weather conditions and forecasts, and global awareness.

A.T.TIP #61: Google Earth Video Tours

Google Earth 5 allows you to create a tour by creating a movie. One of the icons is a little video camera.  Just click on that video camera icon and then the little red record button that appears.  Teachers can use this with students to give a little video tour of where they are going or where they have been.  Students can also use this feature to demonstrate their knowledge.  A student records themselves traveling from place to place in Google Earth to demonstrate they know how to get to a location from a location, that they know where on the globe an event occurred or where a place is actually located.  You could even use it as an alternative way to tell a story.  Instead of writing that essay on what they did over Winter Break, students can virtually take the teacher and other students to that location by showing it on Google Earth.

A.T.TIP #62: Mystudiyo.com

Mystudiyo.com  is a website that allows you to create assessments using all sorts of different media.  There are different assessment types to choose from, but the one that I think is easiest and most relevant to students is the multiple choice type of assessment.  Once you choose your assessment type the website takes you through a series of questions to set-up your quiz.  It’s like a quiz wizard that walks you through creation, step-by-step.   You can choose from different looks of your quiz and you can add introductory media using text, an image, or video to give directions which is perfect for students who might have trouble reading instructions.  You can also have text, an image or video accompany each question, which means you could read each question aloud and save it as a video to have a much more accessible assessment.  At the end of the assessment a student can be presented with a scoreboard to see how well they did.  Once you’ve finished creating your quiz the website generates a unique URL for your quiz.  Take that URL and distribute it to students  for them to take the quiz on your computers or, if possible,  on their own home computers.  See how well you can do on the quiz created by Count Edula for his zombie horde.

A.T.TIP #63: Shorttext.com

Shorttext.com allows someone to either type or copy/paste text directly into it.  Then, once they are ready, they click on the “Create URL” button to make a URL for that text.  In the future, they just go back to that unique URL to access that text again.  It’s a handy way to save information.  For instance, students who tend to lose things, like thumbdrives or assignments, can post it to Shorttext.com.  Then, all they need is the URL to go get it.  Unlike a thumbdrive, the URLs can be shared with a teacher or in a safe location that doesn’t get transported to and from school.  There are some other tools on the net that might be better for organization of assignments and such, but shorttext.com has a very simple interface without lots of buttons or other functions.  This makes it less intimidating, which is why I like it and which is why it might be perfect for some students and teachers.  Check out a piece of intercepted correspondence from one of Count Edula’s zombie field generals.

Points of Interest:

Mentioned in the podcast is an article by the New York Times about Wikipedia’s new policy about editing entries about living people.

Also, if you haven’t seen this Common Craft How-to video, well, it might be worth your time to help you prepare for the impending apocalypse.

Upcoming Presentation Information:

 The Building Blocks of a Successful Assistive Technology Team presented with Sally Norton-Darr – ISTE Webinar – October 21st- 4pm – 5pm EST

Eight is Enough: Ways to Use What You Got – Clarksville, Maryland – November 9th – 7:30pm – 9:00pm EST

Alternative Professional Development – Powering Up With Technology Conference 09 – Upper Marlboro, Maryland – November 14th- (Time TBD)

Alternative Professional Development – Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference 2010 – Orlando, Florida – January 28 – 2:45pm – 3:45pm EST

UDL 2.0 presented with Beth Poss – Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference 2010 – Orlando, Florida – January 29 – 9:15pm-10:15pm EST

I hope to meet you at any or all of these presentations. But, if you can’t make it to those, and you’re interested in any of this (or other) content for workshops in your district please contact me at attipscast@gmail.com. We can work together to set something up either in person or virtually!

Join the A.T.TIPPERS group on Facebook and/or Classroom 2.0 ! You can also follow me on twitter.com as @attipscast.

Leave a comment down below or drop me a line at attipscast@gmail.com. Let me know what you think of the show! You can access the podcast and register as a fan of the show from here:

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Thanks everyone and happy listening!