Web+2.0+for+Diversity


 * WEB 2.0 for Diversity **

On this page, you will share a Web 2.0 tool. This can be the one you researched and chose for Task #3 or it can be a different one. **You must** ** link to that tool's site and explain how this tool allows for accommodations for individuals with special needs, ELL, cultural and ethnic differences, etc. ** To do this, type the name of the tool you chose on the Web 2.0 Tools page, highlight it, then choose "Link" in the Editor Menu Bar above. On the left side, click "external link" also choose to Open in a new window.. Please add your name as the author.

If someone else has already written about the Web 2.0 tool you wanted to share here, you must pick a different one.

I suggest you do Google searches to help you find Web 2.0 tools accommodating diversity. You will be amazed at what you will find. For example, search: * Web 2.0 tools for ELL * Web 2.0 tools for Diversityta * Can you think of others?

[|Xtranormal Amy Jones] Xtranormal is a text to speech animation tool. Teachers may use this tool in order to teach various concepts. Students may also use this to create their own videos to show understanding of the subject taught. There are many ways to meet various needs of students. A Special Education teacher may use the tool to teach social and behavioral lessons. A teacher with ESL students can create videos containing more than one language (two characters). If a teacher has a hearing impaired student they may upload the video onto YouTube and use the closed captioning option. This is also a great tool to keep the interest of students with attention concerns. For students who may have issues creating their own videos, the teacher may group students together into pairs or groups of three. Either way, all students will need training on how to use the program. When there are students of various cultures and ethnicity, the teacher has control of what goes into the video therefor they can incorporate those cultural differences.

[|www.schooltube.com] - Erik Jameson Schooltube is a site which has information for K-12 students, it also collaborates with glogster. The information was created by both teachers and students. This site could help diverse learners in a multitude of ways. First, the student who may not understand all the information being covered, he or she could go on schooltube and find a video about the topic and watch in hopes that the information gap would close. Second, perhaps there is a student who already knows the ins and outs of the topic being covered, he or she could use the program to one, find out more information on that topic or two, they could find out information on the next topic being cover so they are not bored and are challenged to learn more.

[|Spelling city] Laura Cortner
== Spelling city is a wonderful site for students to work at home or at school. Teachers can start pages and list the weeks spelling words. The list of words are then turned into games, search words, basic tests, and much more. It helps the diverse learner as they can work at their own pace and there are mulitple ways the words are taught and reviewed. The student can then add their own words to be reviewe as well. They are evaluated on site and results are automatic. My children's school uses it as part of RTI. My children enjoy logging in at home and sharing the site with us., ==

@http://www.freshbrain.org/ - Angela Chambers Fresh Brain, provides teachers and students with ideas for technology projects. On this particular site students and teachers can find projects in which they can work individually on or in collaboration with each other so they can build games, build iPhone and Facebook apps, make web pages, and mash-up videos. Fresh Brain also provides space and a forum for students to connect and collaborate, which can be a great way to link students together by abilities. You could use this site to have the groups work together online so that the group members do not know who each other are. Each member could do their part and never meet their fellow group members and then at the end of the project you could reveal that each group had members with special needs in it to prove that everyone can do great work. This helps students to see that students with special needs are also just like us. This site can help our students with paras to reach their full potential with just a little guidance. To complete each project that you do, Fresh Brain will provide a list of suggested tools and getting started guides. It seems to be very straight forward and I have heard some good feedback about this site. One of my friends who teaches special ed. says this allows her students to get creative and feel like they can do anything, which really helps to motivate them!

You Tube - BJ Stringer I believe You Tube is great for students with diverse needs because it allows them to watch and learn from a variety of sources as opposed to reading a potentially outdated boring textbook. And, as a tool to create a project showing how to do something or what they have learned instead of the traditional written paper.

vocaroo - Alison Toczylowski

Vocaroo is a digital voice recording tool for students. Students can record themselves reading and listen back to hear themselves. Vocaroo accommodates students with diverse needs. It also students to practice fluency, dialect, phrasing, accuracy, and expression in their reading through familiar or unfamiliar texts. It helps students to listen in and hear when they are making errors in their reading. I believe it will also help to build confidence in those readers who don't like to read orally. Vocaroo allows the voice recording to be shared also. No matter what a student's reading level or ability may be, they can practice on Vocaroo and gain oral reading skills.

glogster - Jennifer Gorton

Glogster is a great way for students to communicate their learning in a new way. Not all students are able to express themselves well in a "paper and pencil" way. Students with reading/language disabilities, ELL, and gifted students, as well as other kinds of students, can benefit from using this tool because it allows them to communicate differently. I would use this tool for students in place of a written report. A glogster poster is a multimedia poster that incorporates text, photos, videos, graphics, sounds, and drawings. Some students are visual learners, and this tool would also be a great medium for them. It would allow all of these different kinds of students to share their learning in a way that is meaningful and that meets their educational needs. I think it is a great way to differentiate learning.

livebinders - Kathryn Edwards

Live Binders is a free tool available to help organize multiple pieces of information in a format that works for you. When you have multiple sources of information it can get really confusing for students to have to remember to bookmark, change links and pages, and try to navigate through the web, but with Live Binder you can have everything organized by tabs and subtabs. Research can be very difficult for some students and being able to find information and copy whole pages instead just URL's. This can be done easily by students but can also be used by teachers who have students with special needs or ESL and have a binder already made so those students would still be able to discover new information but it would only be valuable information and it would cut out the part of looking through website after website which could be overwhelming for them.

[|WordSift]- Kellie Faszold

WordSift is a free tool online, and it is a great way for students to learn language. You put a sample text in, and it "sifts" it into a new image, from there you can click on each word and see pictures to describe the words. This is helpful for special needs and ELL students because if they do not understand a word, or definition they can be taught and helped by visual cues. The pictures can help describe the word in more ways that a person can. A picture is worth a thousand words. All students would have great access to a larger vocabulary and the meaning of words through use of the pictures. It is visually appeal to all students and makes for more fun than looking up definitions. It is a great way for students to learn new, even challenging words.

[|Google Translate] : Jennifer Wilhelm

Google Translate is a free online translater that can translate a section of text, document or webpage, into another language. It will tranlate numerous languages in just seconds. It is a great way for people to quickly translate their language into the language they are requesting. This would allow students to type a word that they now and have an immediate translation. Also, this can be used for gifted children at an early age to translate a new language that they are learning. It is quick and easy to use!

[|Wordle]: Rick Bradley

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your students or colleagues.

Twitter Darin Cissell Twitter is a great way to collaborate with students from all culture and backgrounds. It connects people based on interest and not on color, gender, or culture. It can be used to educate students about how people from all over the world live and what is important to them. It is free and a tremedous way to connect quickly with people from all over the world.

[] Andrew Patterson I-Station is a tool with games and funny cartoon characters that allow students to learn while having fun. This tool is used at Vineland and works with a diverse group of learners. Each student has their own password to log on with and the level of difficulty can be adjusted by the teacher according to ability. I-Station covers more than just spelling and writing, I-Station allows students to work on comprehension, life science, physical science, phonics, phonemic awareness and fluency. This tool can accommodate early reading, advanced readers, Spanish and ranges from pre-K -12th grade.Students are very eager to spend time on I-Station, Laura Cortner has a link to Spelling City which is used at Vinland. This too is a good tool for teachers to use who have a diverse group of learners. Bit Strips for Schools David Edgington

Bit Strips for Schools is a website which students and teachers can create their own comics. The biggest asset I see in this site is its ability to use words and pictures together in a comic/cartoon format. They have a number of activities already geared toward ELL/ESL learners. Bit strips gives you the ability to change facial expressions, the color, hands, height, and outfits of the characters. The format allows work to be done individually or as a group. I also believe it could be used for multi-cultural units finding scenery and making characters from different countries as well as different decades of certain events!

Vox Swap-Nathan Leslie VoxSwap makes learning a language fun by connecting people through a learning focused social network. VoxSwap matches native speakers of different languages in order to help each other in the learning process. This collaborative site could be used by ELL students to increase the amount of exposure they get to the language through a free one-on-one environment. I could also be used as a tool to expose students to different cultures and people.

Smart Notebook - Jaclyn Gilliam

The download information for the Smart Notebook technology can be accessed through: []

Smart Exchange is the online forum where individuals may share their own creations as well as access the presentations that others have developed. [|http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0]

Smart Notebook allows students to engage in interactive lessons. This program has pre-made slides and activity templates to make creating a lesson easy. It has wonderful functions such as disappearing magic ink, picture taking capabilities, drawing tools, shape recognition, SMART recorder, presentation highlighter, screen shade, and handwriting recognition. Optimal learning is created for students when using this program since they can add their own drawings or information and move the words or objects around on the screen.

The Smart Notebook being used with a Smart Board adapts to students with special needs. For example, the teacher can move the tool bar to the bottom of the board or adjust the height of the board for students in wheelchairs or disabilities relating to height or reach ability. Another example is that other objects can be used to interact with the program for the special needs students that are unable to grasp the pens. Also, for students with eye problems or focus problems, the font can be enlarged and text can be colored with a different color background.

280 Slides - Ambyr Lay 280 Slides is a Web 2.0 technology tool that is similar to PowerPoint from Microsoft Office. It is used to create slide show presentations.However, because of the enhanced interactive capabilities of the tool, users may now benefit from being able to access their creations anywhere they have internet access. The presentations are stored securely on the site's server.In addition, you may easily import an existing PowerPoint presentation as well as download a new creation to PowerPoint.Other user friendly features of the technology include its AutoSave Recovery feature that prevents your work from being lost.Sharing your work is also easily done! This is a fascinating modern Web 2.0 take on a familiar favorite! Visit the site and see for yourself: 280 Slides @ []

[]- Keely Sutton
 * Delicious ** (formerly **del.icio.us **) is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter in 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. By the end of 2008, the service claimed more than 5.3 million users and 180 million unique bookmarked URL. It is used to store bookmarks that are beneficial to the user. As an educator, I use the tool to store resources for various resources and contents. As I establish my bookmarks, I can also be linked to other users who have found the resources valuable and we can share resources. It icellent tool to uses an is very easy to set up.

[|www.myfamily.com] - Susan Long My Family is a site where a classroom could create a group page that is exclusive to their classroom. The students would be able to post pictures and information about themselves, their families, their culture... and share it among themselves and their families. Kids could make an "About Me" page. The teacher could have them use the site to find similarities among themselves. These types of activities have been shown to help decrease prejudices and build a sense of "community" for classrooms.

[|Read Write Think] : Trisha Watson Read Write Think is a website that has interactive reading and writing applications. I have used this websites tools on numerous occasions in my classroom. Some of my favoirtes are the friendly letter generator, bio cubes, animal inquiry project, and the character trading cards. All of these tools take information the student has read or learned and makes them apply it in a new and interesting way. I think these tools would work with diverse learners due to the fact that the interactive tools vary in their levels of complexity, students could choose an interactive tool to apply what they have learned based upon their own needs.

spelling city Debra Koch I chose this website because it lends itself to numerous applications in my classroom. We can use it as a group and study our words on the smart board or they can use it individually at home to review and study with their parents. There is a nice feature built into the program that says the words and reads the sentences for ELL students and those students who may have trouble reading all the words. That is why I like the customizable definition and sentence part of the program. The sentences can be customized with words that the students know and can read to help with their literacy confidence. I also have a hearing impaired child in my classroom that has difficulty making complete sentences when he speaks. He can have the sentence read to him by the application and repeat the sentence as he hears it to improve his sentence fluency. The words can also be spelled for those auditory learners who need that extra support.

Museum Box Lesley Dimmitt I chose this Web 2.0 due to the amount of presentations that are submitted in grades 3-8. Students today need constant change and motivation and this web tool provides a new educational experience. This web tool will motivate the students to create a presentation while learning about the chosen topic. It will also enable the students to work on their speaking, writing, and reading skills, in addition to the topic subject. To support diverse learners, I will provide one-on-one assistance and make a tutorial available for students to refer to while learning about Museum Box. Limiting the amount of boxes that is to be included in the presentation is also an option in the Museum Box web site. Working individually with each diverse learner can aid the students to complete the necessary steps. It can also be adapted for those students with speech/language deficits, in addition to ESL students, due to the fact that narrations can be created by simply speaking into a computer microphone and saving the sound clip within Museum Box.

Tikatok Lori LittleTikatok supports individuals with special needs through varying accommodations. Because it is an online project, students are able to work at their own pace and time restrictions are not an issue. This works as an advantage with students who need more time than normal for assignment completion as well as those students at the other end of the spectrum who do not need a lot of repetitive instruction time and allows them to move at a faster than normal pace. Tikatok also furthers language development and enhances expressive language skills. Students are able to demonstrate success with a finished product which also creates an opportunity to connect the classroom and individual families together.

Penzu Danielle Guenther Penzu can easily be used for class writing projects or students can access the program for keeping their own personal notes (accessible from any computer).Penzu is a free web-based private journal and diary. One of the best things about Penzu is that it's incredibly easy to use. Whatever you write is saved automatically and you can insert images if you like. Students can keep journal entries private or email them to their teachers. Penzu can easily be used for class writing projects or students can access the program for keeping their own personal notes (accessible from any computer).

__**goanimate.com: Jamie Bredensteiner **__

<span style="color: #008080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**This is an excellent way to meet the needs of a diverse learner. This will aid the visual learner because it is something they can watch and rewatch as needed. Animated videos seem to stick in the minds more also. It also is good for the audio learner because they can hear it in another voice besides their teacher's voice. It is also a great tool for the higher kids in the class to try out instead of writing a book report, they can make a video.**

=‍<span style="color: #008080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">This would be great for ELL students or students with cultural or ethnic differences because it could be a quick reminder of something "new" to this student. It could not only tell them about routines but also show them what it looks like. = = = =[|Create a Graph] Ann Matoushek= Create a Graph is a website that teaches students the fundamentals of graphing and provides step by step directions with kid friendly language. This could be an excellent tool for students with special needs, specifically students that have a difficult time organizing and planning their assignments. Not only does it give the student a defintion for each part of the graph but also assists the student in selecting the right type of graph for their project. This can be especially useful to provide additional guided practice for students. It provides a clearly labeled visual for the student as well.

=<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__If it were my home__- Nancy Morgan = ==I chose the 2.0 tool If it were my home. This site is an awesome site that students can compare their country to any other country. Some students are visual learners and they can visually see the size of their country in comparison to another. This site also shows disasters and how it would affect if it were in the students area where they live. There is also a place that a comment can be added about the site. It is interesting to bring up countries in comparison to the United States and see how many states the country covers. I believe this site would be great for diverse learners because they could get a visual picture as to how their country (if not from this culture) compares to the United States or any other country. The interesting facts also give the student an idea compared to another country, for example in Botswana there is a 92.02% of a child dying in infancy than in the United States.== []