Halloween is coming soon!

A good place to find interesting resources tocelebrate Hallowen and use with students is on Pinterest. I have just found some nice on ideas Edutopia Pinterest . I will share some of things that I will use this week:
A video from National Geographic about the History of Halloween:




The Skeleton Dance is also nice to use with younger kids. It is fun and it can be used to teach left and right.

From ESL library News:

10+ Wicked Web 2.0 Activities for Halloween 


You can find more ideas and resources at 
Pinterest Edutopia Halloween

Have fun!

Cities are big, noisy classrooms.

Isn't this true?

Cities can be large laboratories where we can be life-long learners:

"Cities teach us how to live with and learn from people totally unlike us, draw on the past and push into the future, and be entrepreneurial and resilient. No grades; just transformation."

Get to know The City 2.0

"The City 2.0 website is a platform created to surface the myriad stories and collective actions being taken by citizens around the world. We draw on the best of what is already being discovered by urban advocates and add grassroots movers and shakers into the mix. What's emerging is a complex picture of the future city--a place more playful, more safe, more beautiful, and more healthy for everyone."

Learn more at:

http://www.thecity2".org/themes/education

A Free-to-use Font for Dyslexic Readers

This blog was created as a part of my professional portfolio. During the last school year, my professional goal was to research about technology information to be used to enhance learning. I ended up doing that but not being able to update my blog as often as I wanted. I think it is time to go back and try to share here some of things I read and research everyday.
 October is the Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, a time to make people aware to children and adults with learning disabilities.Therefore, I think it is  a good opportunity to suggest something that will help children and adults with dyslexia.
According to the British Dyslexia Assciation, there are some definitions and descriptions for dyslexia. I picked one from there:

"Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that mainly affects the development of literacy and language related skills. It is likely to be present at birth and to be life-long in its effects. It is characterised by difficulties with phonological processing, rapid naming, working memory, processing speed, and the automatic development of skills that may not match up to an individual's other cognitive abilities.
It tends to be resistant to conventional teaching methods, but its effect can be mitigated by appropriately specific intervention, including the application of information technology and supportive counseling."

Some recommendations are made to educators and administrators:

" high expectations for all learners with accountability measures that indicate how individual students are doing; early-childhood programs that prepare children for reading and identify young children at risk of having reading problems; curricula, instructional practices and tools, and assessments that are science-based and accessible to all students; and teacher training and ongoing professional development that incorporate findings from neuroscience as well as best practices for how to teach reading." (source: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2012/10/the_other_achievement_gap_c.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)

Having all this in mind, some accomodations might be needed. One of them is the use of information technology.  There is a free-to-use font called OpenDyslexic, that can help people to read online. It is easy to download. There are other fonts for dyslexic people but they are paid fonts. This font, created by Abelardo Gonzalez,  can be an option for dyslexic readers.  

My sources: (and suggested readings)
http://dyslexicfonts.com/
http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/further-information/dyslexia-research-information-.html
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2012/10/the_other_achievement_gap_c.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
http://gradelevelreading.net/
http://www.ldonline.org/calendar/ld