SPED+Toolkit+for+Teachers

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General Disabilities Information

 * ** National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY): ** A central source of information on disabilities in infants, toddlers, children, and youth. You’ll also find easy-to-read information on IDEA, the law authorizing early intervention services and special education. State Resource Sheets will help you connect with disability agencies and organizations in your state.

Teaching Tools

 * ** Apps for Students with Special Needs: ** Apps for Children with Special Needs (a4cwsn) produces videos that demonstrate how products designed to educate children and build their life skills really work from a user perspective. The website's aim is that these videos, along with relevant information and advice from an independent source you can trust, provides valuable insight into whether a product is suitable for its intended purpose or not, enabling sensible buying decisions to be made.


 * ** Special Education Resources for General Educators (SERGE): ** This website was designed to provide general classroom educators with quick access to information and professional development about addressing the needs of students who have disabilities and special education.


 * **CAST Learning Tools (Center for Applied Special Technology):**CAST is a nonprofit research and development organization that works to expand learning opportunities for all individuals, especially those with disabilities, through Universal Design for Learning.


 * **Technology in Special Education:** This is a website to collect and share tools, hardware and applications available for the enhancement of technology in edudcation with emphasis in Special education.

Free Web 2.0 Tools

 * ** Bookshare: ** Bookshare.org works closely with schools, educational agencies, libraries and other nonprofit organizations to provide accessible electronic books to individuals with qualifying disabilities.


 * ** Storybird: ** "Artful Storytelling" a global community of writers, readers and artists focused on visual storytelling. Teachers can signup for free and quickly create students accounts (without emails). Students can read stories by Storybird authors and get inspired to write their own stories by browsing the website's collection of stunning illustrations.


 * **Diigo:**Diigo is two services in one -- it is a research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other. Diigo provides a browser add-on that can really improve your research productivity. As you read on the web, instead of just bookmarking, you can highlight portions of web pages that are of particular interest to you. You can also attach sticky notes to specific parts of web pages. Sign up for an educator account today!


 * **Readability:** Readability turns any web page into a clean view for reading now or later on your computer, smartphone, or tablet.


 * **Screenr:**A web-based screen recorder that allows you to create and share screencasts across the web. Just click the record button, capture your screen and voice, and share the link!


 * **StudyBlue:** Use Study Blue to study millions of flash cards and online quizzes or if you cant find what you are looking for, create your own. Available in mobile formats as well. Study Blue is a powerful tool. Tip: Use Study Blue to practice language skills when learning new words. Create a class and share notecards with students. Sign up for a teacher account today!


 * **VoiceThread:**A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, [[image:walthamlibrary/Wallwisher.png width="197" height="117" align="right" link="@http://wallwisher.com/"]]audio file, or video (via a webcam). Waltham Public School teachers can register for a free account by using their WPS username and password (NOT WPS email). Click on the VoiceThread link to signup now!


 * ** Wallwisher: ** Wallwisher gives you a blank page (a wall). You put anything you want on it...words, videos, audio. Wallwisher can be used a a powerful brainstorming tool or for jigsaw lessons, or even to review and assess vocab.

Online Databases
**NOTE:** Visit Your Library 24/7 to access the online databases's usernames and passwords.


 * **NBC Learn:** NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, is dedicated to making these historic stories, images and primary source documents available on-demand to teachers, students, and parents. Our original videos and a[[image:walthamlibrary/NBCLearn3.png width="168" height="60" align="right" link="@http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12"]]rchival news stories are correlated to state standards and the Common Core. Videos are generally short, less than six minutes in length, enabling instructors to engage and enlighten their students without wasting precious class time.


 * **Culture Grams:** The CultureGrams Online Database is a leading reference for concise, reliable, and up-to-date cultural information on countries across the globe. Some features include, a photo gallery with thousands of images, downloadable slideshows, downloadable and streaming videos build-your-own sortable data tables and graphs, interviews with native children and adults from countries around the world, five recipes for each country, short biographies of five to ten famous people for each country, and printable detail and outline maps.


 * ** Grolier: ** The Grolier databases include: New Book of Knowledge, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Americana, Amazing Animals of the World, America the Beautiful, Lands and Peoples, The New Book of Popular Science, La Nueva Enciclopedia Cumbre. Use the // Lands and Peoples // database to access newspapers from around the world and compare statistical data about each country (i.e. culture cross).


 * **World Book Advanced, World Book Student,** and **Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos:**The World Book Web is a suite of online research tools that includes encyclopedia articles, primary source collections, educator tools, student activities, pictures, audio, and video, complemented by current periodicals and related Web sites.

Recommended Websites

 * **Google Cultural Institute:** With a team of dedicated engineers, Google is building tools that make it simple to tell the stories of our diverse cultural heritage and make them accessible worldwide. Google has created this site to provide a visually rich and interactive online experience for telling cultural stories in new ways. Discover exhibits by expert curators, find artifacts, view photographs, read original manuscripts, watch videos, and more.

eBooks & Audiobooks

 * **WHS Library eBooks and Audiobooks:** Download eBooks and audiobooks to your Kindle, Nook, smartphone, iPad, and computer for free! Visit the eBooks page for information on how to access the collection and download the books to your device. You can also print out the instructions below. [[image:dlwh.jpg width="320" height="57" align="right" link="@https://secure21.libraryreserve.com/walthampublicschools.lib.overdrive.com/5BD13DDE-E2AA-4C98-8F8F-DEEEE55DDBE8/10/42/en/SignIn.htm?url=Default.htm"]]

WPS Hardware to Support Special ED Teaching & Learning

 * Technology Toolbox Assistive Technology
 * High School Instructional Technology Toolbox - Hardware

Exit Ticket

 * Wallwisher Exit Ticket