Wrist saving measures

Computer jobs can be as hard on your body as manual labor. Oh yeah, vision, wrists, shoulders, back, neck- all can suffer from 6-8 hours in front of a monitor.

For some reason, using a mouse is harder on my wrists than a keyboard. So I am a big fan of keyboard shortcuts.  Not only do keyboard shortcuts save time, they decrease some of the stress of using a mouse. Some of these are familiar, Save, Copy, Paste, Select All, Print, and OK (Enter)  are nearly universal commands. Others should be - Undo, Redo, and navigating through dialogue boxes.

The trick is to practice a few so they become second nature. Sure, you can stumble on a program or browser that doesn't use the functions that you are used to, but for the most part the keyboard habit will work smoothly into your workflow. (Did you know that if you are browsing a folder for a file that typing its first character- or if you are quick - the first two or three characters, can take you to that file without scrolling? Or you can toggle a formatting change such as Bold (Ctrl B) by repeating the keyboard strokes when the formatting is complete? )

The University of California at Berkeley has provided a nice list of keyboard shortcuts that provide a good foundation, as well as a handy checklist for a healthy computer station.

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Bridging the Gap Apps!

I stumbled onto a wonderful site called BridgingApps.   The purpose of this site is to “bridge the gap between technology and people with disabilities.”  The website contains pathways of information organized according to whether you are a parent, therapist, teacher, institution, doctor, or have a disability.  The focus of the website is to provide information on how to use mobile device with apps to help accelerate learning and advance skills.  The website also has a place to sign up for a newsletter as well as information on new app reviews and some wonderful success stories.  This site could be one you want to save as a favorite!

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LEAP!

I missed the most exciting (at least to me) presentation at last week's SIDLIT.
I am providing the link that will explain it in more detail.
Essentially this company Leap Motion, has designed a device for Macs that

• plugs into your USB port
• is roughly the size of a jump drive
• works with a number of programs
• interprets your motions into actions
• can be preordered for $70

Essentially the device will replace your mouse and keyboard, acting in much the same way that the XBox Kinnect device does for gaming systems.

Special needs, artists, engineers, repetitive motion issues,- this is only the beginning, I think

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I've FLIPPED 4 UDL!

As I read through a magazine with the words "FLIP IT" on the cover, I got so excited about the concepts inside, that I had to share! You've probably heard about "flipping your classroom", but if not, take a few minutes and check into it. There's a ton of information but here are a few sites I liked:

• http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/the-flipped-class-conversation-689.php
• http://janediner.blogspot.com/2012/05/udl-science-and-flipping.html
• http://www.emergingedtech.com/2011/09/7-stories-from-educators-about-teaching-in-the-flipped-classroom/

In a nutshell, teachers have discovered that students are often more engaged, more active, and learn more in a flipped classroom environment than in a traditional one. By having students watch videos, read articles, or study on their own time, they can use classroom time for things like group projects, discussions, experiments, or practice work. Imagine actually being able to help them with the math problem they were stuck on?! Or watching them work it out with a peer?!


And the super cool part of this concept? It totally embraces UDL (Universal Design for Learning)! Many of our students need a little more time to process or digest the information, or watch the video/read the material/etc. multiple times, taking as much time as they need. How great is that?  If you decide you're ready to FLIP, let us know! We'd be happy to help and cheer you on!

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PowerPoint to iSpring

We recently updated the LOR to make the iSpring instructions reflect the newest version of iSpring. While we did it, I also wanted to take a moment to make sure everyone knows the value of iSpring. So, for those of you that are unsure, this is for you!

In looking over many great online class syllabi, I noticed many instructors linking valuable information, terminology, or reference material to a PowerPoint slideshow for their students to watch. However, unless you specifically include PowerPoint as a required software for your class, you may want to consider converting your PowerPoints to iSpring.

iSpring is free, UDL compliant, and viewable by anyone. And (here's the great part), you can import it as a SCORM, which means you can tie it to your gradebook and give points for watching it! Wahoo! You can require they pause on each slide X seconds, and do so on a certain number of slides. Then, once they meet your requirements, BAM!, they get X points in your gradebook! Visit the Online Instructors LOR for instructions (we've made it it's own section because there's so much great juicy information), or of course, feel free to call your course manager.

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SpeakIt by Google

I like to follow Google's latest developments, and recently I found out about Google's new speech-to-text feature.

This newest feature is so easy to use and I think it would be extra helpful to foreign students who need to better understand the English language. All you have to do is highlight the text that you need read to you, click on the icon for the feature, and it will start reading the text to you. It works great on most Websites, and the text is read to you by a computerized voice.

SpeakIt is the name of this feature, and can be downloaded for free from the Google Chrome web store.

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Can you hear me Google?

We have seen voice activated navigation for cars and calling on your cell phone, right?
Now Google has added Voice Search to its search engine.

As this site explains, you must have Google Chrome 11 or higher. You must speak English, too. This, we believe, will expand rapidly to other browsers and other languages

But we took it for a spin here and it works amazingly well. OK it wasn't great at recognizing me or Meg or Linda by name, but it had no trouble with hot dogs, tomatoes or Johnny Depp.

Thanks to Eddie Andreo, and Meg McGranaghan for leading me here.

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Have you ever wanted to create your own short movie for your class? One of the available services for this is Xtranormal.com, which is where I found the program to create this brief movie about how to NOT interview for a job.

You can download the basic version of Xtranormal for free, and you are given 300 free points to purchase settings and characters for your movie. I used my full 300 points purchasing the office setting and my two characters. Xtranormal is very easy to use and it is fun to add in gestures, movements, and facial expressions.

Also, to make the movie ADA compliant and more UDL friendly, I added captioning through YouTube, which is available on all new videos. You just have to type your script in Notepad, upload it with your video to YouTube, and YouTube will sync the text with the audio.

So, I made this movie for free, it is ADA compliant, AND I can use it again and again in my classes!

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Color Blind?

Color blindness is a form of vision impairment and is covered by ADA. According to the EEOC, "...approximately 10 million people in the United States are blind or visually impaired."

How does this affect us in online education? Obviously at some point we will have a color blind student, and it is our responsibility to make sure the colors and graphics in our classes can easily be read by them. This is where Vischeck can be helpful. This free service allows you to upload a file and see what that files looks like to a color blind person.

The original image shows you a PDF file that I use in my class for evaluation, but the Deuteranope Simulation shows you what my file looks like to a person with red-green color blindness, or Deuteranope. Taking into consideration color blindness when preparing files is also a great way to practice UDL (Universal Design for Learning) principles.

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