Thursday, March 3, 2011

Some Interesting Tech Tools

Over the past few months I have been collecting and archiving tech tools that I have found on a variety of websites, that I think would be useful to use with the students I work with. Many of these are tools that help to support differentiation in the classroom, and increase access for students who have learning differences.
This website is a neat tool for teaching money skills. Working in Special Education we are mandated to ensure that our students are prepared to transition from high school to post-secondary activities. This is a great tool for transition planning.
Students are always stating that they do not want to do things that they find difficult. How often have you heard the line "why do I have to learn stupid Algebra? I won't use it in my life anyways"?
Well here is a website that helps teach kids exactly how they will use math in their daily lives.
This tool is an interactive time line to support history instruction.
This tool allows students to create an account where they can upload clips of audio information that they record on a variety of devices. For example, a student who has auditory processing deficits can use his/her phone to capture important points in the lecture, and then upload it so that they can use it later.
This tool is designed to be used in trigonometry but I feel like it can be a useful tool for demonstrating certain core concepts in geometry as well, and provides a good visual at the same time.
I trust that these tools will be interesting and useful. I apologize for not providing sample lessons in this post. What can I say, school is getting intense. My midterms are coming up quickly.