6B Best Practices

3. A teacher applies a current and comprehensive repertoire of effective planning, instruction, and assessment practices to meet the learning needs of every student. 

In my classroom this year, more than half of my class is reading at or below a third-grade level.  As we all know, this presents many challenges when it comes delivering grade level curriculum in science and social and then meaningfully assessing what the students know without their reading levels hindering their ability to share their knowledge. One of the ways I have differentiated my teaching and assessment is through the integration of a variety of technology tools (I'm sure that is a shocker!)

More Tech Tools & Ideas from Jennine!

With all the create tech tools out there for text to speech, I still haven't found anything that will read Google Slides to students. I often use Google Slides within projects as another way to give students information for their research. To get around this gap, I use a Google Chrome extension called "Screencastify" to make videos of myself reading the slides. The reason this extension is preferable over some of the others that exist is its ability to import the videos directly into Google Drive. So using the webcam, I record a video of myself reading each slide (with a sticky note over the camera so it just shows up as a solid color), and then I insert the video on the corresponding slide. I then go into the video settings and set the video to auto-play in presentation mode. This means that when the students open up the presentation, the recording will play automatically without them having to do anything special. Adding these recordings allows students to access the information whenever they need it, and without their reading ability getting in the way of their capacity to learn the social or science content. 

Here is an example of an automatically reading slide deck: 

The second thing that I do is put my assessments in Google Forms. Using an extension called "Select and Speak", students can highlight the questions and have it read to them. For chunks of text that are an image (We use a lot of past PAT questions to help prepare students), I will insert a youtube video of me reading into the quiz. An added bonus of using Forms is that it has the ability to be set into "quiz mode" now, and if you set up your assessment properly, it will grade all your multiple choice questions automatically for you, which you can then open in sheets and print out for your assessment binders. Below is an example of an assessment that includes a youtube video for one of the questions. 

One last example...
Below is what is called a hyperdoc- (Melanie and I are the founding members of the hyperdoc fan club down in the boonies) Hyperdocs are a great learning tool that I love to utilize in my classroom because they allow students to work through the content at their own pace, and the kids find them really engaging. This is also an example of how I use the slide decks with the recordings in my classroom to differentiate the learning for students. 

Other accessibility tools that I find helpful for students are

• Voice typing in Google Docs
• Kaizena in Docs for leaving voice feedback- Great tool!
• Read and Write Gold for reading their documents to them (And Read and Write for Google Chrome)
• Select & Speak Extension
• Announcify: Cleans up the website and removes distractions so it is easier for kids to read. 

Accessibility using Web Tools

Pam was asking me this morning about R&W gold and other accessibility tools to use with Chrome, and so I thought I would share a few. We all have those students who struggle with basic literacy skills (reading and writing) that can make independent work a struggle once they reach division II. Since we can't help them every minute of the day, it is useful to leverage technology to teach them strategies for being independent when the situation warrants it. (Especially in science and social where we aren't necessarily assessing these reading and writing skills, but rather working on concept knowledge). 

In Google Docs

• Read and Write Gold (Download extension from the chrome store)
• Reads the text students have typed back to them
• Also works on Blogger as it turns out! Worth trying out to see where else it works on the web. 
• Tools: Voice typing
• Speech to text program
• Add-on: Speech recognition
•  Speech to text program
• Add-on: Kaizena Mini
• Leave voice feedback for students on their work

Chrome extensions 

1. Speak it- reads text 

2. ISpeech- reads texts

2. Announcify ( removes distractions and highlights a paragraph at a time) 

3. Clearly- opens up the site without distractions 

You can also download an extension called ChromeVox, but it can be really irritating because it reads EVERYTHING since it is designed for the visually impaired. 

Other Tools and Tips

• You can click on the little microphone beside the search box to use the voice search in Google Chrome
• Sadly, Google removed the option to filter searches by reading ability :(
• You can create custom search engines (cse.google.com) so that when students are searching you can ensure the resources they are getting as a result of their queries are in kid friendly language and at the appropriate level. 

IPad

• Voice typing in Chrome and in Google Docs using Siri

Food for Thought

- I created a bunch of projects using Slides, and I can't find a tool that will consistently read them to students. However, if I had created it in Docs, I would have easily been able to find a tool to have the text read to students. So... it is a good idea to reflect on the projects and the ability level of the students and how they will be able to access resources independently and structure your projects around that to save yourself headaches! 

How to add extensions from the Chrome store:

Great Google Extensions!

If you use Google Chrome as your browser with students, there are a few Google extensions that I would recommend having them (and yourself!) download that are pretty awesome If you click on the name of the extension, you will be directed to the Chrome Store where you can download them. Remember, you will need to log into your Chrome Browser to be able to access your extensions and apps. 

1. Share to Classroom 

This extension allows you to push online sites and resources to your students' browsers as they are working in a specific class. It syncs through Google Classroom. Again, n order for it to work, they must also have the extension. You can also add resources right to your Google Classroom for that subject. I really like this extension because it keeps a record for students of all the resources you have shared with them in each subject that they can access whenever they need it. My explanation is not doing this amazing extension justice!

2. Google Tone

Similar to the first extension, Google Tone allows you to share URLs (websites) with students. However, this extension works by playing an audible tone that other computers pick up. Students must have this extensions on their chrome browsers in order for this to work. This extensions does not keep track of URLs shared, and does not link to Google Classroom. However, it is really handy for kids who struggle to navigate to the correct page! Would be a good way to quickly send students to a site for an exit pass or activity during class to minimize transition times. 

3. Diigo

This extension is less for the classroom and more for teacher time-saving. Diigo is a bookmarking extension, that allows you to quickly save sites that you might want to use for later. It is easy to do because all you have to do is click on the extension, tag the site and it is saved for you for later. There are way more features that that, but definitely worth checking out. I use it a lot when I am planning a new unit and want to keep track of resources. 

4. Chromevox

This is an accessibility tool. What it does is read all of the text on your Google Chrome, including your Google docs, slides, etc. While the default voice is a tad annoying, this extension is great for students who struggle to be independent in class because of their reading level. It will read their search results etc.