My Faves of 2010

2010 is wrapping up! In February, I started this blog almost on a whim, and it has been an amazing experience so far. It has been totally rewarding to have watched my audience of 2 or 3 grow more sizable over the months, something I have been able to view through Page Views, subscriber stats, Facebook "Likes" and Twitter followers. I'm really thankful that you are out there and keep reading, and I hope you are finding my posts helpful.

I'm going to take a little break to recharge until after the New Year, but I'll be back like gangbusters in 2011. I took some time to reflect on my own work and which posts I would like to emulate in 2011, in terms of potential utility to SLPs. So here they are (in no particular order) whether published here or elsewhere:

Introducing the SLP Blogs Bundle

Why Comment?

Exploring Settings in Google Earth

Choosing Classroom Activities- Intro to the FIVES criteria (and you can see a lot more on FIVES here)

FIVES as applied to Apps

SLP Zen

Saved by iPad, Part 1 and Part 2

ASHA Convention Philly Wrap-up and some favorite resources

Humor and Social Thinking

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

PLNs and Keeping our Brains Moving

Noms for 2010 Edublogs and Thoughts (!) on the Results

Visible Thinking

Happy 2011, folks, and enjoy the Holiday season!

Saturday Screencast: I hate Yahoo right now!

Well, no, I don't, totally, because their careless closing of social bookmarking site delicious is causing me to finally commit to using the superior diigo. This screencast discusses the calamity, shows you how to move existing (if you have any) bookmarks from delicious to diigo, and the basics of bookmarking with diigo (as well as the rationale for social bookmarking). More to come on this social bookmarking site!

Update 1: My bookmarks still haven't appeared in diigo, but there is a message on the site saying they are understandably being bombarded with requests. It's cool.

Update 2: The plot thickens. Or thinnens. I'm not sure. Delicious claims they are not shutting down. I'd still move your bookmarks to be safe if I were you!

A Call From Santa!

Santa...tricky I know in the public school setting, and with good reason.  However, this is such a fun resource I figured I'd let you know about it, and you can use your judgment.  Send a Personalized Call from Santa is really a giant ad for Google Voice that has a number of other purposes (one of which may be sending a call to a friend or significant other just for giggle's sake).  Visit the site and use choices to script a call from Santa, which you can send by phone (USA only), email, Twitter or Facebook.

Here's the one I made for you, SpeechTechie Readers!

Language Lens:

• One way this site could be used is for auditory comprehension- have the kids listen once through and then again to pick out the key categories that Santa talked about, draw a picture visualizing the call, or simply answer wh-questions.
• Students could make Santa messages for each other or a teacher that reflect their use of perspective taking (e.g. what gift would that person want), but be a little careful and/or gear this to an older grade level.  Unfortunately, Santa can be a little wild and say things like "hottie" and "sister from another mister" that you may not want to get into.  Maybe again, their could be an auditory comprehension component where you read aloud the choices and students are not allowed to see the screen for some made-up reason!

Again, I am just floored by Google's creativity!

2010 Edublogs: What I said, and what I wanted to say...

Let me tell you about the Edublog Awards ceremony.  It's truly something else.  It's hosted in an online environment called Elluminate Live, where a presentation can be given by moderators as attendees log in, listen to speakers and view slides, chat in a sidebar and, at the discretion of the moderators, can have their mic turned on to speak.  The organizers did a fantastic job at conducting the ceremony and it was quite an experience.  After an intro, we were asked to show our location by placing a star on the map (it was definitely an international crowd, numbering usually around 100 as people came and went).  Then it was time for the first category-mine!!  I was quite floored when the SpeechTechie logo and my face appeared on screen under the word WINNER, as the moderator read a description of my blog written by Chris Bugaj (thanks again, Chris, for the nom).  I "raised my hand" by clicking a button to show I was there, and the moderators turned on my mic and I said "Thanks, guys, I really appreciate it..." And then that was it.  Somehow, through either a technical glitch or a button I nervously pressed, everyone thought I was done and they moved on.  Hahaha! Anyway, it's fine and ultimately a humorous, ironic moment to happen to the author of a blog focusing on speech and technology.  Is it ironic or just unfortunate?  Can my Canadian slpeeps ask Alanis? The rest of the ceremony was wonderful to listen to (though eloquent speeches by educators and students made me feel a bit of a tool in comparison), and again I say kudos to the organizers for a great job.  Check out the other winners and runners up here.

So what I wanted to say would have been something like this: This is about YOU, the readers and visitors and emailers and commenters and tweeters, so thank you. When I started this project somewhat impulsively last February, I didn't really know if anyone would read it.  Edublog award notwithstanding, what's going on in our SLP (and other educator) social media hangouts (including all these places and #slpeeps) is remarkable, and speaks to a need among all of us that often really fly solo in our workspaces and feel isolated, whether we are SLPs, therapists, SPED teachers, or techies- we are finding a way to connect and share and collaborate online! Technology itself isn't the point either, it's that we are exploring ways to engage our students (and ourselves) while building skills in educationally relevant and fun contexts.

Having actually won is just gravy- it was really marvelous to be on that list in the first place, and to have you reading.  Please check out all the nominees (click on the categories on that page to see all nominees) over your holiday break-that list is a gold mine that I'm still mining.  Congrats to everyone!

Oh, and I get to keep this:

Wow!

Time's Best Inventions of 2010

Kids tend to love gadgets, and things that are "now." Time Magazine's web article on the 50 Best Inventions of 2010 meets both these criteria, as well as being a good opportunity to explore categories (note in the picture that the inventions are organized into categories) and descriptive schema. Try having your students pick their favorite invention in a particular category, use a descriptive graphic organizer to break down the information, and create an ad (video or print) for the invention.

Of course I agree with this particular selection...

20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web is a wonderfully accessible interactive book released this past month by Google.  The book covers a lot of Internet vocabulary and concepts that would be helpful for anyone to know, especially SLPs looking to integrate web-based technology into their practice. Some of the extremely relevant "Things" in the book include an understandable description of HTML-5, the programming language that makes some of the latest and most interactive web content possible, including the book itself, and the importance of maintaining a "modern" browser (easy to do through simple and free updates).  I recommend that everyone give this book at least a quick skim.  I learned a lot from it!  Also, it has totally cute illustrations.

**Technical note- you will need to update your browser to the latest version of Safari, Chrome, or Firefox in order to access this book.  Sorry, I just don't do Internet Explorer.

It's all about Sharing...

...and don't miss the commitment to sharing Karen Janowski is making over at her blog, EdTech Solutions- Teaching Every Student, where she is embarking on a trip "Around the Web in 80 Days." She plans to dedicate the next 80 days to highlighting "free, online resources to help meet the needs of struggling learners in innovative and creative ways."  Cheer Karen on and subscribe to her blog (subscribe to button is in her right sidebar-and don't worry, Karen, we won't hold you to sharing 80 resources in 80 days)!

I particularly love one of the sites Karen just shared, Into the Book, (video on her site demos the activities) which is a tremendous and easy to use interactive website that reviews these VERY language-based comprehension strategies (stressed in balanced literacy programs): Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and SynthesizingU.sing Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing
Consider breaking Into the Book into an 8-lesson series with one of your upper elementary or middle school grade levels- it will be right on-point!  I tried this site with a 3rd-grade class, and they were totally engaged in using the strategies while working through the quest-themed story of the site.

Screencast Saturday: The SLP Blogs Bundle!

Google Reader allows you to create and share "bundles" of feeds with others, so that they can easily follow blogs of interest. I made a bundle of SLP blogs, and show you how to access it here:



You will need to sign into Google Reader before going to this link to subcribe to the SLP Blogs bundle. Good thing you can edit your bundles, because I realized after shooting the screencast that I accidentally left out the PediaStaff blog- a great blog that is there in the bundle now! Please let me know if you think anything else was inadvertently left out of the bundle- or if you'd rather yours not be there.

To make your own bundle in Reader, click on Browse for Stuff (I know, not intuitive) in your Reader sidebar.

Please let me know if you are an SLP with a blog and you'd like to be included.

Language and Math

Many of us shy away from math curricula and concepts (or are teaching skills that classroom teachers consider to be mathematical without knowing it, as SLPTanya recently pointed out), but truth is, there is a TON of language in current math curricula, from vocabulary to sequencing of steps, etc.  Valerie Lill, one of my co-bloggers at ADVANCE also wrote a great post on this topic recently.

Check out my colleague Brian Marks' and his cohort Leslie Lewis' excellent website Yummy Math.  This website strives to place math in real-world contexts for kids by sharing lessons that draw on engaging and current topics, such as sports or food. Yummy Math just featured a lesson on the top grossing holiday movies, and in addition to the math components of the lesson, it would also be a great opportunity to work on oral narrative for upper elementary, middle or high school students.  Have the students research the movie plots or watch their trailers (a really fun way to work on inferencing skills as well), then share a summary with peers! Follow Yummy Math on Google Reader (there's a link to subscribe in their right sidebar) to get all these great lessons as they are posted.

SLPs, YouTube and Gingerbread

Hi folks,

Two posts to tell you about that recently published elsewhere:

Please check out my post on ADVANCE about YouTube, an amazing therapy resource. The post contains strategies for minimizing student distraction when using a YouTube video, and also how you can still avail yourself of the site if your district blocks YouTube.

Gingerbread! It's a reasonably non-sectarian topic for speech and language therapy around the holidays. Click on over to the Mindwing blog for links to discuss characters and create them as gingerbread men, and also a 3D Gingerbread House activity (with screencast).

Enjoy!

Disclosure: author is a paid contractor for Mindwing Concepts Inc, but in no other instances is compensated for product/website/app reviews.