Repost:
I posted this on my blog and thought I'd share this resource with the group:

The people at Simply Entertainment/ 7-128 Software, make "mainstream, family-friendly, computer games that are designed from the ground up to be accessible to gamers with a variety of special needs, including: blindness, low vision, color blindness, deafness, and motion impairment".

They recently added a free on-line service for people searching for free or low-cost accessible computer games suitable for learning or rehabilitative environments.

According to the website, the Accessible Learning through Entertainment and Recreation service provides the following useful information:

* Where to get those games, at low cost, or for free
* What to look for in selecting those games, quickly and with fewer costly mistakes
* How to apply those games to your learning objectives, without a lot of mystery
* Who to go to for free help

"This information will be updated over the course of 2008, especially the growing series of How To articles."

Another resource on the Simply Entertainment/1-129 Software website is a section dedicated to links to 25 highest-rated websites that focus on games that are accessible for people who are blind. Many of the linked websites offer free on-line games.

Thanks to John Bannick and his colleagues at 7-128!

Hi Lynn, I'm up north of you, near Roxboro (a little ways from the Virginia border). I'm new to North Carolina and haven't been to Charlotte but I've loved learned about American history since moving here - we've visited Manteo and Wilmington. They were both FABULOUS.
:-)

hello Lynn.....so, tell me about web 2.0 and your school. Whatcha using? We are looking a ning,facebook and twitter.

good to hear from you.
matt

Hi Lynn,
I live and teach in Yadkin County. My husband teaches in Iredell-Statesville Schools. Not too far north of you. I haven't had time to explore this place. I;ve been working with Edusims and trying to get it running on my SmartBoard. Have you found anything interesting here?
Cris Delete Comment

Hi Lynn,

I've not been really active as of late because I am helping to Implement Project Lead the Way Curriculum at my Middle School this year. Glad to meet you!!!

flickr is the best tool I've used for digital photography.

amazing. email if you want to learn more.

Hi Lynn,

You are really active on this forum! Are you connected with the NWP folks in Charlotte? It's powerhouse group.

I was thinking about trying out Ning in my ECU classes...but I'm not sure about it yet; right now, I have been using Moodle and Drupal. Jury is still out!

Kindest regards,

tbf

wow..that site is incredible !!!

It's a good ramble... I think you would find the UNC-C NWP folks aligned with your teaching ethos. They're good people, and very encouraging. They're interviewing right now for their (free) Summer Institute.

I noticed your interest in UDL. Thought you might be interested in how Huffington has been following this: http://www.huffenglish.com/?p=502#more-502

Best,

tbf

Hi Lynn,
Truthfully, its can be very challanging in the public system from financial need standpoint :). The purchasing money is / budget is not what we would like it to be....but so goes education....right? I've came over from Dell about 3 years ago and why I like it...a lot, Its not entirely without stress.
Anderson is halfway between Charlotte and Atlanta on I85 about 20 minutes past Greenville. Its a good size community and growing.
K-12 security issues? That is an interesting subject because its an ever-going issue. We had a huge issue with that the year before I got here which led to a budget increase.....so it turned out good for us. :)
We poured a lot of money into our systems and tightened down our network and changed the way we did everything - security wise....which I think also led to some other problems with our network which is now sending us to a migration from novell to windows.....its a balance but I think we are winning.
The one think techies are really missing is the "customer relations" aspect. Having an education background...or in my case, coorporate mngmt experiece, really put me ahead of the game in my climb through the IT world, it gives perspective on issues others dont see and you can actually carry a conversation with someone who doesnt know anything about what youre telling them.
Its good to hear from you, whats your interest in IT coming from the school psychology? Not a jump that I would normally associate. I started poking around this site a while back just trying to stay in touch with education tools that we might suggest for teachers from a technology perspective, which Is one of my responsiblities as well

Craig,

I responded to your message, but my log-in timed out.

Basically, I started taking computer classes out of my frustrations with user-unfriendly database systems, and the lame educational applications for students

I was initially inspired by the work of CAST in the area of Universal Design for Learning, the increase in interactive whiteboards in educational settings, the increase in the use of PDA's and other hand-held devices for education, and serious games, specifically games for education, social skills development, and mental health promotion.

I realized that after 20+ years in the schools that no one was going to magically make things much better in terms of technology, so I decided to become part of the solution. At least, try.

-Lynn

I posted this in the Forum's Conference and Workshops section:
I recently received a link to this workshop and call for papers:
Workshop on Education Informatics: Steps Towards the International ...

Here is information from the workshop web-page:

Objective

Could an international group provide free access to primary and secondary school curricula, aligned with national, state and local standards, delivered by our best AI tutoring technologies, in several languages, over the Internet? The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the feasibility of an International Internet Classroom Project, specifically...

…to sketch the core requirements for such a project and the immediate needs to get the project started. One critical requirement is that the core should be extensible, so researchers can incorporate and test the efficacy of their new technologies within the infrastructure – and with the participant pool – of the International Internet Classroom;

…to review the available sources of content, tools, platforms, student modeling methods, educational data mining techniques, pedagogical strategies, modes of content delivery, and concrete experiences deploying technology-based education;

…to explore the feasibility of common standards for representing content and student data and to review previous standards efforts in academia, the private sector, and government;

…to build connections among people who work on related projects and sketch a plan to build the International Internet Classroom.

We seek papers, including position papers, from all sectors – academia, industry and government – on all these subjects. Authors are encouraged to present their research, systems, tools, evaluations and deployment experiences in terms of and as contributions to what we hope will become the International Internet Classroom Project.
Submission Guidelines and Important Dates

Please submit papers using the final camera-ready formatting style specified in ECAI 08 Style Guide. Our requirements are not identical to ECAI's: Papers may be up to 6 pages long and should be submitted directly to Paul Cohen (cohen@isi.edu). All submissions must be sent in PDF or PS format.

Deadline for paper submission: 14 April 2008
Notification of acceptance/rejection: 12 May 2008
Deadline for camera-ready paper: 26 May 2008

Workshop Dates: 21- 22 July 2008

Organizing Committee and Program Committee

Paul Cohen USC Information Sciences Institute
Carole Beal K12@USC, USC Information Sciences Institute
Niall Adams Imperial College London


Carole Beal, one of the program organizers, is an educational psychologist at USC. She's worked on the Wayang Outpost.

This will give you more information about her work:

According to the K12usc.edu website:

"The Wayang Outpost is a web-based tutoring system for high school mathematics, with a specific emphasis on preparation for high-stakes achievement tests such as the SAT-Math exam. Students complete brief assessments of their learning style, including spatial cognition, math fact proficiency, math achievement, and mathematics motivation. They then receive multimedia tutoring on practice test items, and can select from either algorithmic explanations or more visually-oriented solutions. Integrated SkillBuilder units provide practice in specific math topics. Students receive motivational and progress feedback based on a model of learner engagement."

"Evaluation studies indicate that, after working with the system, students improve 20-25% on average on the integrated pre- and post-tests of math proficiency, and the improvement is greatest for students with the weakest math skills. We also find that students who describe themselves as disengaged from math are most likely to access the multimedia help in an effort to learn, suggesting that technology-based instruction can offer discouraged students a path to success in math."

"The Wayang Outpost tutoring system includes "virtual adventures" that embed math problem solving in narratives about environmental science, specifically, an imaginary research station in Indonesia. Students interact with virtual role model characters based on real scientists and researchers who use math in their field work."

The Wayang Outpost project is supported by National Science Foundation grants HRD 0411532 and REC 04118

Tift's great! Where do you live? Near here? Best, Cathy

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for your message. Are you currently a practicing school psychologist? Are you using this technology now in some way? I am working on establishing a high school utilizing this Web 2.0 and a social networking platform. It's been quite a learning curve for me so far!

Hi Lynn, thanks for linking me to your web world. What's your Twitter user name?

Hi Lynn,
SoundHouse Australia , based in Melbourne Australia has developed the "Banana Keyboard", designed for people with physical disabilities to make music on computers - that might be well worth exploring, I can give you the contact there if your are interested, it's Ken Owen, I can give you his email.

My son is very much into Gary's Mod, now that's 'modding' on a game engine, he works collaboratively with kids from all over the world building objects and stuff in 3D environment.

There are other games where the participants invent the scenarios, one I've heard of is "Spore" here is the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(video_game)

I replied to your Facebook message! I see James Gee is a friend!
He has been very influential on my thinking about games and learning.

Anyway, let me know if any of this helps :)
Kind Regards,
Gavin
Gavin

Hi Lyn try this link to get info about the SoundHouse Access Kits:
http://www.theartscentre.com.au/discover/education/special-access-k...

Contact in Melbourne for Banana Keyboard Access Kits:
Ken Owen, Executive Officer SoundHouse Association
email: owen.ken.r@edumail.vic.gov.au
phone: +61 3 9376 6833
Just tell him Gavin sent you! LOL :)

This is the SoundHouse Assocaiation web site:
http://www.soundhouse.org.au/b_association.html

Hi Lynn,

In your research of web technologies I recommend you take a look at Wiziq's virtual classroom and authorstream's web based power point presentation platform. Both web based platforms have proven to be very useful to me in my online class.

Hi Lynn,

That's one of the reasons I like it. :) If you have a question or need help please let me know. It's a powerful virtual classroom, I recommend you set up a session and just play around with it.

Hi Lynn,
It's nice to see another psychologist interested in technology. I enjoyed reading your blogs. Check out www.cpschallenge.com if you have time. I am looking for someone with a good background in technology and school psychology to do a review. Take care.

http://www.bkwsu.com/
James

I've been slow getting back to classroom 2.0. I've gotten into working with Project Lead the Way, and I've been consumed with getting that going for the past 18 months. I should be able to get back into this forum now that PLTW is running successfully.

Popular music and lyrics are excellent tools for engaging all learners especially at-risk students.

Great for social and emotional learning/character education and lessons focusing on identity, self-esteem, healthy risk-taking and goal setting.