Struggling+Learners

= Reaching struggling learners with assistive technology =

During this session, we will highlight a few online tools that will address these three issues and provide you with an arsenal of resources to support struggling students.
 * So, why do some students have a difficult time in school? Consider these three general reasons:**
 * Poor organizational skills
 * Lack of motivation
 * Identified learning disability

For a comprehensive list of web 2.0 tools and other resources for struggling learners, visit Christine Southard's wikispace--@http://whereitisat.wikispaces.com. A Discovery Star Educator and coordinator for the New York Discovery Educator Network's Leadership Council, Christine has had extensive experience working in full inclusion settings at the elementary level.Below is a smaller list of tools that we will cover in our session, but be sure to visit Christine's wiki; it provides many more resources that are categorized by subject area.

Tools highlighted in this session:

 * ﻿Wallwisher
 * A virtual bulletin board where students can post "sticky notes", pictures, audio and video links
 * Wordle
 * Generate word clouds using typing in or copying/pasting text into the form field. More prevalent words will appear larger in cloud.
 * Class ideas:
 * generate visual poetry
 * show relationships (i.e, copy text of Jim Crow laws to show students meaning/relationships within the laws)
 * Interpret theme from main ideas of a novel/short stories
 * story problems in math...most important words...
 * elementary geometry: properties of shapes
 * audiobooks
 * This is a link to Heather Butchy's Delicious list of the most popular (and free) audiobooks available online.
 * The Awesome Highlighter
 * A digital highlighter that lets you select certain text for students to read from a web site and saves it as a small link; includes a "sticky note" option
 * Use it to teach identifying main idea, topic sentences, supporting details
 * form an adapted article for learning support students
 * Vozme
 * A text-to-speech tool; simply copy and paste text into the form field, choose your preferred voice, and create an mp3 of the text.
 * Online flashcard tools
 * Cramberry
 * Quizlet