Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
DAN DYER: Welcome to an interactive training on the ChromeBook.
The topic today is using the Chromebook as a tool to support education,
special education, and for students
who need assistive technology supports.
The reason I used the Prezi platform to build the training
is to enable you, the viewer,
to skip portions that you aren't interested in,
pause for as long as you want
on portions that you are interested in,
and just generally to try and make the presentation
more interactive and engaging.
I'll be using the help of a program called Balabolka today
to read aloud product descriptions in a computerized voice.
The program is an example of free software
that could be used in a classroom
to create audio content out of any text.
I thought it would be good to use that
to show the power of free tools
which most of the apps
and software I'm going to show in this presentation are free,
and can be installed on your ChromeBook
or on your PC or Mac if you running the Chrome browser.
I'm Dan Dyer and I work for
the Idaho Assistive Technology Project
as Academic Coordinator.
The Idaho Assistive Technology Project is a federally funded program
administered by the Center on Disabilities and Human Development
at the University of Idaho.
Our goal is to increase the availability of assistive technology devices
and services for Idahoans with disabilities.
One of the many services that the Idaho Assistive Technology Project offers
is a lending library.
And if you go to this link here, listed on this slide
you can actually request to lend a ChromeBook
from our organization for free to try out for a couple of weeks if you live in Idaho.
So now that we've got the formalities out of the way,
let's go ahead and take a look at the ChromeBook in this promo video that Google produced.
GOOGLE PROMO: [MUSIC PLAYING]
This is a laptop.
This is a computer?
This has the web?
That's weird!
Okay, so it's the web.
There are no programs?
So there's nothing to start-up?
Then how do I do stuff?
There's no messy desktop?
So no rolling hills of green.
Can I use it anywhere?
On a unicycle?
My calendars?
E-mails?
Documents?
Everything can be saved to the web.
That's crazy.
So I could throw this thing into a river,
and I won't lose my stuff?
It doesn't need virus protection?
What about annoying updates?
Or patches?
Or patches for the patches?
So it gets better in real time.
I wonder if people are ready for this?
It's kind of a new thought.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAN DYER: As you can see,
ChromeBooks are a unique device that combine features
from several different types of computer.
The first item on our Agenda
will be to help clarify what exactly the ChromeBooks can and cannot do.
The second item will give some specific recommendations on programs
to install on a ChromeBook
that can be helpful in school,
and the third item in our Agenda
will give some practical ideas
on how to use the ChromeBooks with students.
One of the great things about ChromeBook
is that you don't actually need to own one to get a good idea of what all it can do.
Any PC, Mac, or Linux computer can run
all of the same programs as a Chromebook.
All you need to do to follow along and try out the programs that I list in this presentation
is to go ahead and follow the two steps that are listed on this slide.
There are several different types of ChromeBooks
available from different manufacturers
with different specifications.
I listed three unique and novel versions on this slide
to give you an idea of the variety in them.
The first one listed isn't quite released yet.
It should be out later this month,
and it features an 11.6 inch screen,
wifi access to the Internet,
and a neat feature which is a built-in touchscreen.
The second item listed is similar to the first,
but it doesn't have a touchscreen.
But one thing that's unique about this ChromeBook
is that is has a 320 gigabyte harddrive.
And that's quite a bit larger than most ChromeBooks.
Most ChromeBooks only have a built-in 16 gigabyte.
So this second type of ChromeBook with the larger harddrive,
it's going to be good if you spend a lot of time outside of a wifi environment,
so that you can store more files locally on your device.
The third item is kind of unique because it has a larger screen,
and it can also connect to the 4G cellular networks
so that you can get on the Internet from where ever you are.
So is a ChromeBook right for you or for your students?
It's hard to tell.
It just kind of depends on their unique needs.
But there are some pros and cons to the device.
Some of the cons are listed on the slide.
So most of the types of ChromeBooks do have a small storage space.
So you can't store that many files locally on your device.
The ChromeBooks do not have a CD drive,
which can be a significant downside if you're wanting to listen to music
or running a CD in your computer.
The devices are not compatible with any hardware or software
that requires the installation of a driver.
So that's going to be any standard PC program
that you can run on your normal decktop or PC.
It's not going to work on the ChromeBook.
The only things that work on ChromeBooks
are apps that are found on their special online store.
Or devices that can be plug and play.
So if you have like a USB mouse
and you can plug that in,
and it works on a PC
without installing any software,
it will work on your ChromeBook.
And there's a couple examples
that I list on later in this presentation
of assistive mice and keyboards
that will work with the ChromeBook.
But just keep in mind that anything that requires installation
before it'll work is not going to be compatible on your ChromeBook.
And that's one of the significant drawbacks of using the device,
especially for students that need
assistive software or hardware
that requires that installation beforehand.
Most of the ChromeBooks have an 11-inch screen.
There's that one that I showed you with the14-inch screen.
That's not going to be optimal for people with low vision.
And ChromeBook does have a new operating system.
It's fairly basic.
It's basically just a Web browser
with a couple additional features.
But it is a new operating system,
so it takes some time
to get used to using.
There are some significant pros about the ChromeBook though,
and those will become more
and more apparent as I go
along in this presentation,
but one of the great things is that
everything is automatically backed up
to the Internet on your ChromeBook.
So you can access your files
from any device that you're using.
So if you have files on your ChromeBook,
they can automatically sync
to your laptop, to your PC.
You can even access them on your phone.
All those types of devices, which is great.
Most of the functionality, and then the apps
that you can put on the ChromeBook are free.
So that's a huge pro.
And more than anything else,
the ChromeBook really works as a tool
for working with peers, students
and collaborating in real time.
So you can video chat on the device.
You can share documents.
So that a group of students
can work together on a Google document
and they can see the changes
taking place in real time,
rather than having to wait
for a version to be sent to them via email
then making their changes
and sending it back.
The cost of the device is also appealing
as it is significantly less
than most laptops or even tablets.
The device boots up in just a few seconds,
so it can be very handy to just open up
and start using immediately in class.
Also it can help districts go paperless
because a lot of the functions
can be done virtually instead of
having to print out sheets of paper.
But keep in mind that all of the pros
do get balanced by the cons
you see on the screen,
as well as the fact
that ChromeBooks lose
a lot of their functionality
when they're not connected to the Internet.
So if you're going to be using the device
a lot of times when you don't have
a wifi connection, just be wary of that,
that a lot of things
that you could normally do
aren't going to be available offline.
So pictured on this slide is an Alpha Smart.
And these have been around for years
and you see them used a lot in schools.
They're great little portable word processors.
They can be good for students with disabilities
that make it difficult for them to hand write.
The main difference between the Alpha Smart
and the ChromeBook is just functionality.
The ChromeBook can do a lot more
than the Alpha Smart,
but that sometimes can be a bad thing.
If students get distracted easily
and they want to jump online
or go to YouTube, that kind of thing.
The Alpha Smart can be appealing.
The Alpha Smart runs on changeable batteries
so you don't have to charge it like the ChromeBook.
The Alpha Smart's a little bit less expensive
and you can get word prediction
and text-to-speech in your Alpha Smarts.
But that same functionality
can be put on the ChromeBook.
The Alpha Smart can beam the text
that you type into it
straight to a computer for printing,
whereas the ChromeBook can just print wirelessly.
So it's kind of a wash in that area.
The main difference between these two devices
is just functionality.
And there's a little bit of price difference.
So for a little bit more money
you get a lot more functionality
in the ChromeBook.
And actually the base Alpha Smart
is no longer made.
In order to buy an Alpha Smart these days,
you'd have to get the type pictured on the screen,
which is the dana.
So if you want to know the difference
between a netbook and a ChromeBook,
go ahead and click on the link
below that picture
and it'll give you a good breakdown.
I'd like to talk a little bit
about laptops versus ChromeBooks.
The most apparent difference
when you look at the specifications,
is that ChromeBooks
just don't have as good as specs.
And they don't have as much storage space as laptops do.
The Chrome operating system
is a little bit lighter
so it doesn't require as much processing speed.
The ChromeBooks do boot up in seconds,
which is a great advantage over laptops.
But they don't have a CD drive
and they don't support
that installed software or hardware.
Also ChromeBooks will need the wifi
to operate a lot of their functionality.
ChromeBooks do though have better
battery life than most laptops.
Also Google offers their online services for free
so Google's equivalent of Microsoft Word,
or their equivalent of PowerPoint, Excel,
those programs are going to be available
for free using the ChromeBook,
using their free online services, which is great.
Google also offers free services
like Google Forms
that you can actually use
to create quizzes for your students.
Send it out, they complete the quiz
on their ChromeBook,
and then it's automatically
graded for the future,
which is pretty cool.
Laptops do have a great advantage
in that they can support
installed software and hardware,
which that is what most of the
assistive technology traditionally has used.
It has used that installation which is required,
which only functions on PCs.
Also laptops do have more ports
for connecting devices and things to it.
I want to talk a little about IT support for these devices,
so ChromeBooks stay up to date automatically,
and it's a lot easier to manage
a fleet of ChromeBooks
than it is to manage a fleet of laptops.
For laptop service, you need an IT department,
you need expensive infrastructure.
Whereas with ChromeBooks,
it's really easy to manage them.
You can actually manage
all of the ChromeBooks from one point.
So a teacher can manage multiple ChromeBooks
in her classroom from her computer.
And to do that you just pay Google
30 dollars per ChromeBook
and that covers that management system
for the life of the device
and that's quite a bit cheaper,
30 dollars per license,
than trying to manage a fleet of laptops.
And for that 30 dollars you can set restrictions
on the ChromeBooks,
to make sure the students
aren't accessing stuff you don't want them to.
You can pull data from all your different ChromeBooks,
and just do a lot of kind of neat IT features
for a very low cost.
It's the nature of technology
to eventually break, get lost,
get stolen, or just quit working.
So when you compare the two devices,
a laptop and a ChromeBook, for this eventuality
the ChromeBook has to come out on top
because for the most part,
they're cheaper than laptops,
and also because all of your files and settings
are automatically backed up to the cloud.
If you lose or break your device,
all you have to do is get a new ChromeBook,
log in with your username and password
and all of your files and settings
are automatically applied to that device.
Really ChromeBooks seem to have a little bit
more in common with tablets
than they do with PCs.
The main difference between a tablet
and a ChromeBook is the keyboard
that the ChromeBook comes with.
Also ChromeBooks have a little bit
bigger screens than most tablets.
ChromeBooks are less expensive than most tablets
and a big one is that
ChromeBooks do support Flash.
So you can just log right into YouTube
and use that,
or importantly, if you're a virtual student,
a lot of virtual schools do use
Flash-based curriculum,
which would be almost completely
inaccessible on an iPad,
but can be accessed on a ChromeBook.
A couple years ago,
Google placed ChromeBooks in a few schools
to get some research about their benefits,
and also locally, some school districts
have started adopting them.
I haven't heard of too many people
using them in Idaho yet,
but there's a chance that they may catch on.
The next video, we'll talk a little bit about
one school that has adopted ChromeBooks.
[TECHNO MUSIC PLAYING]
NASSER: Kipp Academy is a LA USC Charter school
that was founded in 2003.
And it goes from 5th to 8th grade
and 350 students got enrolled this year.
MATTHEW A. PESKAY: Compared to other notebooks,
there's no software installed.
There's no imaging that needs to be done.
Once they're set up and deployed, the updates are
really happening on their own.
The less administrative overhead and burden you have
to manage the computers, the more computers you can put out
in the classroom, and sustain and maintain over time.
NASSER: We walk into Social Studies class,
we grab a computer,
we go to Mr. Sanders blog
that he created the day before
and we follow the tasks, or steps, that are set.
JAMES SANDERS: My class is entirely run online.
And so my courses shifted from more of a
direct instruction model
and the students do some type of graphic organizer,
some type of assignment.
To a more interactive base model
where the students are actually
required to think independently
and create, collaborate,
rather than just memorize and regurgitate.
I think it's definitely a better model for learning.
The learning becomes more authentic.
MARLENA RUCKER: There's so much information.
So many different ways to approach a topic.
In print form, I would have to give them one,
maybe two articles.
Now I can say,
"Here's a list of 15 articles
and their summaries."
There's now an increase in personal investment,
because there's more choice.
And when there's an increase in personal investment,
there's definitely an increase
in what they produce,
which increases achievement.
WHITNEY: You're free to have that one-on-one connection with your teacher,
rather then sitting in class and raising your hand all day
and never get called on.
I think that's just better.
ELLIOT: All my assignments in Google Docs are all stored.
And it's not all unorganized.
And I can easily send it to my teacher.
CHRISTOPHER: It gives open access
to different applications and programs, such as Google Moderator
where we can vote on different ideas
that our teammates give us.
DONOVAN: There are different ways you can make presentations
using the actual Presentation Mode on the documents and your Gmail.
WHITNEY: I think our grades
are going to go up, using this.
NASSER: The Google Chrome notebooks,
I think they're very unique.
They create the next generation of computers.
DAN DYER: Like all current computers and tablets,
the ChromeBook does have
some built-in accessibility features.
It could be very useful
for people that have disabilities.
To get to the accessibility features,
you go into the settings menu,
and you have the option to turn on or off
all of the features
that I display on my screen here.
You can hook up a Braille display to the device.
So if you read Braille,
that can be great for you.
There's also a screen reader built in
that works all right.
It basically reads aloud everything
that you're doing,
so if you move the mouse over an icon,
it'll read that aloud.
Or it'll read text on the screen
that's displayed on the screen
and give you helpful navigation tips.
You can do tap dragging.
So that is where you double-click
and then it can automatically highlight things,
or move icons around for you.
You can change it so that the mouse cursor
is a little bit bigger, it has higher contrast.
You can do voice search on the device.
So you can actually speak to it
and it will do Google searches for you
just based on your voice.
There are also some features for low vision
included beyond what I have stated.
So it's a pretty useful device
and it's great that Google thought ahead
and put in these accessiblity features.
Here are some tools that can be helpful
when used in a school.
AdBlock is an installation program
that will block ads, external ads,
distracting advertisements embedded in web pages,
or those ads that pop up
before you watch YouTube videos.
And a lot of ads can have
inappropriate content for schools,
so using AdBlock can get rid of those.
Google Cloud Services
offer a really neat feature called OCR,
Optical Character Recognition.
So if you snap a picture of a worksheet
or if you have a PDF that you've scanned in,
you can actually upload it to Google Cloud
and it will automatically convert that image
into editable text.
So you could take a worksheet,
snap a picture of it,
put it into Google Cloud,
it would turn that picture
into editable text so that the student
could then type their responses into,
or use that as a platform to spring off of,
to generate their own written material.
Just really neat.
And I'm going to be talking about some apps
that can be used in general education,
but because there is so many of them,
I can't possibly talk about all of
the different types and categories.
So a good place to start,
if you want to look into this yourself,
is to click on that link,
under Apps for General Education,
and it lists a ton of free apps
that Google has put online
that you can download
and use in the general education curriculum.
If you want to do some more research,
and find some more neat ways to use the ChromeBook,
just Google "teacher hangouts for ChromeBooks,"
or "ChromeBook wikis," "ChromeBook lists,"
"ChromeBook blogs."
There's just tons and tons
of resources like this out there.
NARRATOR: Optical Character Recognition in Google Docs.
DAN DYER: Speech recognition is a powerful tool
that can be used to supplant or support
physical writing or typing.
The ChromeBook actually comes installed
with VoiceSearch already,
but if you want to expand that to actual dictation,
and completing written assignments with voice,
there's a couple of ways to do that.
One good way is to use the TalkTyper website.
And that's pictured on this slide.
And so what you do is you click the little mic button,
you speak into it, and then it shows in red
what it thinks you just said.
And as long as that is correct, which most of the time it will be,
because it's very accurate,
you just click that little down arrow that's circled in red,
and it drops it into your document.
And then you continue dictating
until you've completed your writing assignment.
There's also another app called Voice Note.
That can be used with similar functionality,
but it's installed directly on your ChromeBook
instead of using a website like TalkTyper does.
These are two options for speech recognition
that work fairly well and are free,
like most of the things in this presentation.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: For students with print disabilities,
accessing their reading material electronically
can give them equal access to the curriculum.
Bookshare is the world's largest online library
of copyrighted content for people with qualified print disabilities.
Installing this extension enables text-to-speech
and word level highlighting for the Bookshare Web reader.
For students who do not have a print disability,
electronic reading material can still be useful.
Google offers an ebook reader app that lets you choose
from over 4 million books on Google Play,
and take your favorites with you for reading offline.
The app makes your books available for reading
even when you are not connected to the Internet.
You can change font and layout, and search within the book.
You can highlight text, add margin notes,
and select words to find definitions,
to translate, or to search online.
Another option for reading material is the app Meegenius.
It includes beautifully illustrated and enhanced books
featuring many of your favorite titles for free.
Read each book with audio playback,
word highlighting, and automatic playback.
If you want to read it yourself,
just click the pause button, and then turn the pages manually.
DAN DYER: Here's an add on dictionary by Google.
That any word that you can click on, it'll show you that definition,
and then you can also have the word pronounced out loud.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: A more advanced spellcheck engine
can be useful for students who struggle with writing.
Ginger is the only proofreader
that corrects 30 types of grammar errors
and provides the most accurate spelling corrections.
Ginger offers corrections based on the context of your writing,
for mistakes such as commonly confused words.
Then/than, homonymns, you're/your, slang,
what if, LOL, and more.
Ginger has an easy to use interface that allows you to correct
multiple mistakes with one click.
Ginger allows you to improve your English
in popular platforms such as Gmail, Facebook,
online forums, blogs, and others.
DAN DYER: Here's an app for abbreviation expansion.
And what this app does,
is you can define any keystroke or keyword
to automatically expand into a phrase,
or a paragraph, or a sentence, or multiple paragraphs.
So this is very useful, especially for people with motor disabilities.
If it's difficult for them to type,
and they have to type common phrases like their name,
you can set this up so they only have
to put in one or two keystrokes
and it'll automatically input that longer string of text
into the document that they're working on.
Here are examples of two math apps
that you can get for the ChromeBook.
The Carrotsticks app, which is pictured,
is kind of neat because you can actually
compete against other students,
either in the class, in the school,
or anywhere in the world.
And so it's kind of like an interactive activity
that has a little bit of competition in it,
that teaches math skills.
For calculations, here are two apps
that you can install in your ChromeBook.
One is just a basic calculator.
The other one includes graphing features
and other neat tools.
And there are just a lot of different calculators out there.
These are just two examples that you can use.
This is a plugin specifically for Google Docs,
and I highly recommend this plugin.
It's called the Read and Write Toolbar.
And it really gives you access to some pretty advanced features.
So you can have the text
that you type read aloud to you.
And it can actually read that aloud as you go,
so that your eyes and your ears can double check your writing
to make sure that there aren't any errors.
And there's a lot of really
neat additional features built into it,
so it has a word prediction feature
so that as you type
it tries to predict what word you're typing,
which is great if you have difficulty
and you fatigue when you write.
Or if you have trouble with spelling
and you're not quite sure what word you're going for,
that prediction list can really help you.
There's other great tools,
like you can extract the highlights
that you put into the documents,
so that you can study key words or key phrases.
There's a picture dictionary.
Just a lot of really neat tools.
So I definitely recommend this one.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MALACHI'S MOM: When Malachi was a toddler,
he did not talk.
He didn't start talking until
probably around three or four.
MRS. WATERS: He's thought of himself as not able to read,
not able to write, not able to place words.
And I thinks he's told himself that so long
that he really believes it.
So he would go off into his little dream world.
MALACHI: Well this is my room.
And it looks like a giant superhero city really.
You can make any kind of superhero,
so I thought why not if I was a superhero.
So I made a superhero story about myself.
Origin of a Real Hero.
Hi, my name is Malachi. I'm a hero.
MRS. PYATT: He has a lot of ideas,
he's very creative.
Malachi just has a very hard time
getting his thoughts on paper.
The whole writing mechanics
is difficult for him.
MR. BURGIN: It would take him
an entire hour to write one sentence.
Malachi's writing is horrendous.
His skill in actually writing the letters
on the page really got in the way
of him doing the work.
That was where the problem was.
MRS. WATERS : So the computer
was the best option for him.
Last year we used the mini-laptop.
It was about that big.
It took it, Malachi's generally about
five minutes to turn on.
By the time he got it turned on
and started working on things,
his frustration level was really high.
He had difficulty knowing how to save it.
So 90 percent of the time
he would not complete an assignment.
In August, we got our set of ChromeBooks.
When we opened the ChromeBook
and it turned on, the kids were in shock!
They were like, "What? No five minutes?"
When Malachi got into the settings
and found out how to change the icon
on his login screen I was just flabbergasted.
When he types a document, he knows it's saved.
And it's done.
He had never been able to do that before.
I really don't know what the difference was.
I think it has something to do with the speed.
He didn't get frustrated.
The ChromeBook browser is structured in a way
that in his head he understands it.
MR. BURGIN: For somebody who I had prodded
to write one sentence in an entire hour,
wow, in five minutes he had a sentence done!
He typed some more.
Wow, he had two sentences done!
I was telling everybody,
"Malachi got three paragraphs written!"
MRS. WATERS: From then on, it never stopped.
He just went.
I asked the students to write an essay.
Once Malachi understood what I was asking him to do,
he wrote four and one-half paragraphs.
A personal best for Malachi.
I read it at home on my computer and cried
because I couldn't believe that he
had accomplished that much
knowing where he has come from.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MALACHI: Sometimes the ending
is really hard for everyone to see.
What will happen to Malachi at the ending?
But all I know for the ending
is that my character Malachi
will live his happy life in Superhero City.
Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAN DYER: For students with print disabilities
and who struggle to read text,
it can be very helpful to have a program
that will read any text aloud to you.
And there is various ways to do this
on the ChromeBook.
Some of the ones that I found
that work fairly well I listed on this slide,
including Speakit! and Chrome Speak.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Timers are important
to mark daily schedules
and to alert students to transitions.
The timer app includes timer countdown
and alarm clock and stopwatch.
You can choose any YouTube clip to use
as an audio alarm.
The app runs offline.
You can use any image on the Web
as background.
DAN DYER: Here's an app with good functionality
for creating interactive diagrams.
And diagrams can be used for a lot of purposes.
One way to use them is for students
that have cognitive disabilities,
to put information in a way
that they can more easily understand it.
So instead of having dense paragraphs
and thick text with a lot of confusing keywords
and syntax, you can actually
distill the key points of that information
into a diagram using this app
to make it more accessible
for those students.
There are several ways to create Mind Maps
on the ChromeBook.
Any online service for Mind Mapping should work,
like Inspiration Online.
That should be fine.
Or anything else that you come across.
If you want a specific app
that will work for it,
you should take a look at the following video.
as it's a fairly interactive
and neat looking Mind Mapping program.
DAN DYER: Who doesn't remember
practicing typing skills in class?
Well you can actually do this
without a teacher using apps
like TypingClub or any of the other ones
that can be found on the ChromeBook store.
And they work fairly well.
Some of them are geared more towards games,
to increase attention and focus of students.
Some are geared more towards traditional
typing lessons.
The apps listed on this slide
allow you to block certain URLs
for a time period.
Or for the entire day.
Or to only give you access
to those URLs for certain amounts
of minutes per day.
And so this is a way to block access
to games websites, or YouTube
for your students.
Or only give them access
to those websites, to those recreational websites
for a certain amount of time each day.
For students that have difficulty typing,
an on-screen keyboard can be used.
The Virtual Keyboard Interface
shown on this screen
is a plugin you can put
on your ChromeBook.
And then anywhere you
can actually physically type,
you can just double-click the mouse,
this onscreen keyboard will appear,
you can use it to input text that way.
And there's something around 90 to 100
different keyboard variations,
so you can experiment
with different keyboard layouts for your students.
For students that have difficulty
accessing a computer with
the traditional mouse and keyboard,
alternative mice
and alternative keyboards can be used.
And there is just almost an endless amount
of these types of equipment.
Some of the more common ones
are shown on your screen.
So on the left there is a BigKeys keyboard
that has larger keys and is also color coded.
On the right is shown a trackball
and joystick mouse.
And these are some of the more common ones
used with students.
And actually these devices shown on the screen
will work with the ChromeBook
because they're plug and play.
Which means you just plug them in
and they work.
There's no installation required.
Evernote is a powerful tool for taking notes.
And you can put this on your ChromeBook
and then you can take Web clips,
you can take audio, you can type,
you can take snapshots of your screen.
Put it all into the Evernote app,
organize it into binders,
and then it will automatically sync
with all of your other devices
to keep your notes current between devices.
Evernote's great.
Its' used pretty widely
and it's pretty neat that it's
available for the ChromeBook
in this application.
So this is another one
that I would definitely recommend
for students that are needing
to take notes with the ChromeBook.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: For students who cannot speak,
there are a few communication programs
available for the ChromeBook.
One of the better free ones available
is called Picto4me.
With Picto4me AAC Communication Boards,
you can create, edit, play
and share communication boards
by using the easy online software.
It is switch accessible
and the communication boards
can be printed.
DAN DYER: Telling stories digitally
is becoming more
and more important in schools.
A way to publish your work is also important.
And this is especially true now that the
Common Core state requirements are in effect.
There's many ways to do this online.
One such way is actually to use Prezi.
So Prezi's what I'm using
to build this presentation,
and students can easily use it
to build their own stories
and generate their own work
to show to the class.
For a more comprehensive list
of online tools to do this,
go ahead and click that link
below the picture.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Here are some tools
for helping struggling readers.
CruxLight automatically distills the Web article
to it's essence thus helping the user
get the gist of the article.
Readability is a Web and mobile app
that zaps clutter and saves Web articles
in a comfortable reading view.
TLDR, Too Long Didn't Read plugin,
is a free extension that creates
a summary of any Web article
without leaving the original page.
DAN DYER: I'd like to talk
just briefly about some ideas
and some tips on using
ChromeBooks in schools.
So as previously stated
in this presentation,
you can use Google Docs
to collaborate in real time
to build lesson plans,
to build assignments in a small group.
And this is kind of a neat tool
because it's similar to what modern day
people are using in the workforce
to both collaborate in person
but also virtually.
Google comes with something called Sheets,
and it's really similar to Microsoft's Excel.
And so if you input data into Sheets
it'll look a lot like if you're just using
Microsoft Excel.
But then you can also use Sheets
to visualize that data.
So it'll take that raw data
and then publish it into tables or charts.
And that can be helpful
to help students visualize information.
If you have students that are home bound
or if you have students that are out sick
or maybe even if the teacher is out sick,
you can use Video Chat through Google Plus
to stay connected.
Or maybe you want to use Video Chat
to bring in outside lecturers
or professionals from around the country
to speak to your students.
You can use Google Sites to create
a free website.
You can use that for your class
And so you can publish
teacher material to that website,
that your teachers can go on.
Or maybe each student wants to create
their own websites to display their work
throughout the year.
You can use Google Forms
to give your students pre-assessments
at the beginning of a class.
And then you can go ahead
and modify your instruction
based on the results of that.
And then at the end of the class
you can give students an exit ticket
to see what they've learned.
And you can also pull some data from that.
You can kind of do away with
sending students to the computer lab
if you have ChromeBooks in your classroom.
You can use the devices with students
with attention related disorders
because they pop on and turn on really quickly.
They can be a great tool
for students that have difficulty managing paper,
and who have trouble with handwriting.
You can use the calendar function
to assign projects
and use it to remind students
when assignments are due.
And with the ChromeBook
it's really easy to
access Web-based resources.
Any of the links listed there,
you can jump on and use.
Like Khan Academy to help
supplement your instruction.
Google actually offers
a couple of educational related services,
such as a YouTube that only shows educational videos.
There's also something called Google Scholar,
that when you do Google searches,
it will only return scholarly results,
which can be useful for your students.
So thanks from the
Idaho Assistive Technology Project
for viewing this presentation.
If you'd like more information,
or want to contact us,
please just visit our website at idahoat.org.