ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

By all accounts the Web 2.0 workshop was a real success! I had a small group of teachers for whom this was an eye opening experience. Having a chance to work with some of the major Web 2.0 technologies helped them to grasp the power of the technology and gave them a lot of food for thought on how they could use the technology in their classrooms. During the workshop I had the opportunity to connect with Philip from OoVoo which demonstrated the power of video conferencing and its implications for instruction in the classroom. Reflecting on the workshop I can say wow there really is a lot going on with regards to educational technology that has the potential for changing the educational landscape. I hope the teachers that did participate in the workshop can go back to their classroom's and begin to utilize some of the Web 2.0 technologies that we discussed in the workshop. Time will tell!

I am just collecting myself tonight and doing some minor tweaks for my Web 2.0 Workshop to be held at the Middlesex ETTC, East Brunswick, New Jersey. I am really excited to be doing this presentation and have a lot of ground to cover. I understand that there will be a small group of teachers attending which will give me the opportunity to cover a lot of ground. During the workshop we will be covering RSS feeds, Social Bookmarking, Blogs, Wikis, and Web 2.0 applications. It should be really exciting wit lots of time to play in the Web 2.0 sandbox. I will let you know how it goes. One of my goals is to do the entire workshop using nothing but Web 2.0 applications. Wish me good luck!

As I thought about a Web 2.0 workshop that I will be doing at the Middlesex ETTC, East Brunswick, NJ on October 19th, I wanted to harness the power of the web and share with teachers the changing landscape. I have been trying to move away from paper handouts when I do presentations and have everything accessible on the web. As I was planning the workshop I thought about how I could do this in the most user friendly and accessible way and decided to use The PersonalBrain to put together my presentation. Here was my thinking. I could easily add URL links to my web as well as PDF files that my participants could access. Similarly, once I put together my Web 2.0 presentation in the PersoanlBrain I could easily export it to a Sitebrain HTML and put it up on web. One of the key benefits to this strategy is that my participants can quickly go to sites on the Internet as well as download PDF files that I have embedded in my PersonalBrain. After the workshop, my participants can access the site and dive deeper into exploring the material that I put up. If you would like to see the Web 2.0 Brain that I posted click here.