Chapter Eleven
Glossary

 

ICLUDING ALL STUDENTS ON THE INTERNET

Teaching With the Internet:
Monica Ashburn's Class

• Monica had found a partner class to exchange e-mails with using Intercultural E-mail Classroom Connections, a resource sponsored by St. Olaf's College in Minnesota.

Orchestrating Equity in Your Classroom

   TEACHING TIP
Many web pages are inaccessible to students with various disabilities because of the way they are designed. Organizations such as the Center for Applied Special Technology and the National Center for Accessible Media have developed criteria that may be used to evaluate the degree to which a web site meets basic principles of universal design.
If you wish to evaluate the extent to which your classroom web site meets principles of universal design and access, be certain to visit Bobby. Here you can have your web site evaluated online. You will automatically receive a report indicating any accessibility and/or brower compatibility errors found on your page.

 

Opportunities for ESL Students

• To find a school with students who will speak the language of ESL to students in your class, you may wish to pay a visit to Web66 and explore their International Registry of K12 Schools on the Web.

• To help you find Internet resources about this country or culture visit Excite Travel. Follow the links to the country you wish to visit. Especially useful will be the country's major newspapers. These contain many interesting news items in the first language of your student.

• Or, you may wish to have your students listen to a radio station in the country or culture from which the ESL student comes. This can be done by visiting the Stations Guide location at RealAudio and searching for radio stations by the student's language or geographical region. Alternatively, you could visit Yahoo's Live Radio site and search for the on-line radio stations around the world with the Internet, especially if they have a partner with whom to exchange the information.

Other resources you may find useful on the WWW for supporting ESL students in your class include:

• The Internet TESL Journal
This is really one of the best central sites with links for teachers and links for students. It's non-commercial and "optimized for speed," containing no frames or graphics. It's updated frequently, so there are few dead links.

• E. L. Easton: Materials For Teaching English
Here is another excellent site with ESL links for a variety of levels and purposes, as well as to other relevant sites such as "flags of the world."

• Center for Applied Linguistics
A national center for language study and application with many links to a wide variety of ESL resources.

• Dave Sperling's ESL Cafe
This is one of the most popular general sites for ESL students and teachers. It seems to contain more commercial links than it used to, but it's still a good site for teachers and older students. It offers bulletin boards and chat as well as web links.


 

Opportunities for Children Who are Visually or Hearing Challenged

   TEACHING TIP
At the beginning of the year, develop an Internet Workshop session around the ThinkQuest resource Seeing DisABILITIES from a Different Perspective. A very simple way to do this is to have your class explore this wonderful resource and bring to the workshop session three ideas to share that they learned about disabilities from this important rresource.

• With the more recent Macintosh systems, this is already available to you in Easy Access. If you can't locate this feature, if you need to download this software, or if you wish to read about how to use this software, just visit the Apple location Access Features. If you use a Windows system, visit the Microsoft Accessibility Home Page for similar solutions.

You may also wish to visit these central sites for visually challenged students to locate additional resources:

• Blindness Resource Center The best central site for visually challenged and blind individuals. Set a bookmark!

• Macintosh Disability Shareware and Freeware
A wonderful set of links to adaptive technology developed by a person who is visually challenged.

• Apple's Disability Resources
Resources for your Macintosh machines.

• There are also locations on the web to support hearing challenged students. You might begin by visiting The Deaf/Hard of Hearing location of the Family Village site. This has links to excellent resources on the web, as well as information about chat and mailing lists for students. Another useful location is SERI Hearing Impairment Resources. Or, you might wish to explore DeafWorldWeb a central site for the deaf community.

• Several other locations may be useful for all students in your classroom. Sign Language Dictionary Online provides videos for many signs and will help your students learn more about deafness. A Basic Dictionary of ASL Terms provides an extensive signing dictionary.

   TEACHING TIP
Here is a way to conduct a simple Internet Workshop with your students, developing the ability to communicate with a limited set of ASL signs. Set a bookmark or a link to A Basic Dictionary of ASL Terms.

 

Opportunities for Other Students Who are Challenged

• Special Education Resources on the Internet (SERI)
This is one of the best central sites on the Internet for special education resources. It contains a comprehensive and well organized set of links to locations important for special education issues.

• Family Village
This is an excellent central site about mental retardation and other disabilities. Set a bookmark!

• Internet Resources for Special Children
This is another central site, very useful, with extensive resources on special education.

• The Council for Exceptional Children
A major professional organization in special education.


 

Visiting the Classroom:
Fred Roemer's Fifth Grade Class in Florida

• We have just finished exploring a portion, a portion mind you, of the classroom web page for Fred Roemer's fifth grade class in Pinellas County, Florida: Mr. Roemer's Fifth Grade Polar Bears.

Instructional Resources on the Internet

• Activities For ESL Students
Just what it says. A nice location with useful resources.

• Apple's Disability Resources
Here is the location for getting in touch with all kinds of information about adaptive technologies provided by Apple Computer and other companies. This location also includes many free or shareware programs to use with your computer, links to disability related resources on the WWW, and opportunities to communicate with others about disabilities and teaching/learning issues. Set a bookmark!

• Autism Resources
A site with many links to resources related to Autism and Asperger's Syndrome including links to on-line discussions, mailing lists, news, treatment methods, research, and much more.

• Blindness Resource Center
A great location with extensive information about blindness and resources to inform teachers and assist students.

• ESL/LINC Learner Sites
Here is a useful site which links to many ESL reading, writing, and listening sites; it provides site quality ratings and lists grade levels.

• ESL Multimedia Language Learning
This is a site with links to reading, writing, and listening sites; it also includes an academic section and cultural information section.

• Inclusion Resources
A nice collection of links related to inclusive education. The information at this location can provide useful background information to teachers new to inclusion.

• Inclusion
An outstanding collection of resources designed for the teacher who practices, or will soon practice, an inclusion model in the classroom. Links to teaching strategies, strategies to prepare for inclusion, and many supportive Internet resources.

• Intercultural E-Mail Classroom Connections
This is a site to find keypals and partner classes with speakers of other languages.

• Interesting Things For ESL students
Just what it says. Pay a visit!

• Learning Disabilities Association of America
The home page for this organization with over 60,000 members. This location provides links and resources for individuals interested in learning more about learning disabilities.

• Learning Disabilities
This website contains a booklet from the National Institutes of Mental Health. It explains learning disabilities to parents.

• International Dyslexia Association
The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) is an international, non-profit, scientific and educational organization dedicated to the study and treatment of dyslexia. This location provides access to its many resources related to this important learning disability.

• Microsoft Accessibility Home Page
This is the location for links to many accessibility technologies if you use a Window operating system. Many free downloads and links to important resources appear here.

• Pizzaz
This a great site for creative writing with handouts for all ages and levels.

• Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
This site contains nice listening activities. It requires RealAudio or Shockwave plugins but these are free on the Internet.

• Special Needs and Technology Resources
Here is an extensive collection of links to a wide variety of technology resources.

• The Family Village Inclusion Resources
Another nice location to provide resources for teachers interested in inclusive education. Contains links to locations to communicate with others, research, on-line newsletters, and web sites related to inclusion.

• Theme-Based Pages
A location that is great for discussion topics and debates, as well as persuasive writing assignments at the high school level; assembled by an ESL teacher, but most sites are not specifically for ESL learners; topics are most appropriate for secondary learners.


 

Listservs/Mailing Lists for Including All Students on the Internet

• DEAFKIDS - listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu
A discussion group for children who are deaf.

• CHATBACK - listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu
A discussion group on special education.

• INCLUSIVE-EDUCATION - mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk
An Inclusive education discussion list.

• SPECED-L - speced-l@uga.cc.uga.edu
A special education discussion list.

• TESLK-12 - listserv@cunyvm.cuny.edu
A discussion group on Teaching English as a Second Language in grades K-12.


 
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Chapter One Chapter Four Chapter Seven Chapter Ten
Chapter Two Chapter Five Chapter Eight Chapter Eleven
Chapter Three Chapter Six Chapter Nine Chapter Twelve