Video of the Inauguration Speech (With Captions)

Part One

Part Two

Use http://mediaconverter.net to download the video, if YouTube is blocked at your school.

Barak Obama Bookshelf from the Tar Heel Reader

Obama – President Elect

Our First Black President

Three Little Words

Other Readings and Resources

Slater Software Symbol Resources: http://slatersoftware.com/document.html#jan

• A New President 6 pages, 984 KB, PDF (Book, Symbol Supported)
  Inauguration – PixWriter v3 Mac wordbank 412 KB, ZIP archive
  Inauguration – PixWriter v3 Windows wordbank 812 KB, ZIP archive
• Free Symbol Search: http://slatersoftware.com/PixLibrary.html?CHEER.GIF=Cheer!

Weekly Reader Resources (Note they are Flash Intensive(Trouble with screen reading): http://www.weeklyreader.com/election/

Kate Ahern’s blog post: How to Watch the Inauguration Live (via the web) Link to AAC Boards

PBS Front Line: Dreams of Obama:  Tons of resources, including a reading list for older readers, interviews, and the link to watch the full program. This is a truly excellent resource.

PBS Kids President for a Day

PBS Kids Send an EPostcard

http://superobamaworld.com (The video game is questionable content, yet it may be just the thing to hook in that one student.  Use with caution)

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The Tar Heel Reader just reached the one thousand books mark this past week.  This is so exciting for students and teachers alike.  So much thanks for the work of the UNC Center for Literacy and Disability Studies and for the Computer Science work of Gary Bishop and now his class.  I think that the Tar Heel Reader offers some initial proof of concept that we can create solutions to questions and challenges that we have by working together.  In this case, everyone submitting a book or two truly makes a difference.  See how it becomes even more powerful when you get a teaming of literacy specialists with computer scientists.  The internet and low cost computing really does offer an unprecedented platform for collaboration.  I look forward to seeing this idea grow and blosom.  Also, it is exciting to consider the next steps and the refining of initial goals.

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My friend and co-worker authored these Disney Interest books.

You can access the bookshelf here

Kim Possible

Thats So Raven

The Proud Family

High School Musical

Hannah Montana

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One of my team members authored this book about Hannah Montana.  It is in between a transitional and conventional text.  Go to the online version or download the PowerPoint here: hannah-montana book.

Also, here is the word analysis:

Core: Can, is, be, my, the, a, like, I, with
Fringe: Fun, cool, dog, named, great, friends, sing, dance, keyboard, guitars, posters, 3-D movie,
Names: Hannah Montana, Roadie

Hannah Montana

by ShellyBelly

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So your summer camp is winding down, or maybe you are stuck inside in an extended year program.  Maybe your home with your children during a few weeks they have off from camp.  Why not take a golf break?  Make a day of it:  Do guided reading with the book about Tiger Woods.  Check out the videos from YouTube.  Talk about it.  Write about it.  Spell some words at the level the student is at.  Then break out the Nintendo Wii if you can get one and play 3 or 9 holes.  Take some pictures while your doing it and do some more writing later that day or another.  Enjoy! http://otot.wikispaces.com/Tiger+Woods

Books

• Tiger Woods Can be a Friend

Tiger Woods Cover From Book, Tiger Head shot, looking, and swinging

Transitional Text

Readings

• Tiger Woods: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Tiger Woods Timeline for Enrichment

• Sports Illustrated Kids Tiger Woods Interview (2008)

Videos

• Tiger Woods Age 2

• Tiger Woods and some of his great golf shots pgatour

• Tiger Woods – Bay Hill 2008 18th Hole

• Tiger Woods’ Perfect Swing (SWING VISION)

• Tiger Woods Amazing Golf Shot

• Download the above videos in .mpg, converted from the original .flv with www.zamar.com http://drop.io/tigerwoodsvideos

Writing

• Golf Chart.zip Intellitalk Chart Writing (I can…)

• Use a graphic organizer to brainstorm what you want to write about.

http://aex.intellitools.com/searchdetails.php?act_key=basicwebgraphicorganizer

Screenshot of Basic Web Graphic Organizer

Working With Words

• Idea: Do a simple spelling activity creating the words I, can, win, the, like. Then practice finding those with the AAC system. Link to Printable Letter Cards and more formal and systematic phonics ideas: http://alltogether.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/printable-making-words-cards/

Motivation Connection

• Play Nintendo Wii Sports Golf.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kara/1859304076/

• Paper and Pencil Golf Craft May and Miguel

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Children, teenagers, and adults need books to be able to learn to read and getting accessible books to them is the goal of the Tar Heel Reader. This open source library of books that are switch accessible, talking, internet accessible, and downloadable will grow exponentially due to the terrific job Gary Bishop, a computer scientist from UNC Chapel Hill, has done designing the Worpress powered interface. This combination of efforts between computer science and education is phenomenal. He presently teaches a course in Computer Science focused on accessible software and hardware. Karen Erickson, Gretchen Hanser and Gary Bishop have been meeting and collaborating for quite some time. It is inspiring to me to see as an example as I emerge into the research phase of my teaching practice. From earlier efforts from this team of computer scientists, The Tar Heel Typer and Dance Dance Revolution mods, to the present and into the future, they surely serve as a powerful example of what we can do as educators to team up with computer science programs. Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver have worked tirelessly on the concept of creating accessible texts that are age appropriate, rich in quality, and powerful in the literacy instructional process. See the Beginning Literacy Framework by Karen Erickson, Caroline Ramsey Musselwhite, and Ruth Ziolkowski to understand types of texts helpful to early readers. This project has the potential to make texts available to people in a way only possible with the advent of the internet and the concepts behind the Read/Write web and Web 2.0.

I believe in this project and concept with all my heart and am more than happy to be now seeing it come into the world. As I step forward from teacher to both teacher and researcher, I have seen a very powerful lesson: combine your dreams, visions, gifts and technical skills with others who have other dreams, visions, gifts, and technical skills and you can create and help more than ever imagined.

So start getting these books to your students and start authoring. Remember if one thousand people each work for one hour on a project with agreed upon standards you can create…

Go to the Tar Heel Reader

Let’s See the Books and How it Works!

Here is how you choose a book.

Here is a page from a book:

You have multiple options for accessing the books:

• on the web
• download the PowerPoint File
• Open Office Impress File
• Flash File

Speech can be enabled or disabled.

Switch Scanning

Switch Scanners can access the books with various keystrokes, including most of they keys on the keyboard. (soon to be optimized to go forward and back)

The power of this project is in the exponential amount of material to be available for all types of individuals learning to read. I have been working on this concept quite a bit and I believe that this is a One to One Thousand scenario. One key concept is the availability of age appropriate texts on an unprecedented level.

Here is how the book building process works:

• You use images from the Creative Commons section of Yahoo’s Flickr.

• The images are automatically cited. See how it works here.
  
• You add your text to each page you create.

• Add some keyword tags, such as words about the content, if it is an enrichment, transitional, or conventional text, or anything else you would like.
• Click to post your book. A talking book that is switch accessible and and able to be downloaded offline is created.
  
• It is that simple. No more PP notes citations, large file problems, conversion nightmares! Hallelujah.
  

Let us rally behind this amazing project in a way never before seen! Let’s go! We can do it all together!

Go to the Tar Heel Reader

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