vizZle» : VizZle

Pam — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:38:29 +0000

Welcome to the 2010-2011 school year! It’s been a busy summer here, and VizZle creators added tons of great new lessons to Share. Use the slider (to the right) to check out a “best of” list below!

Great New Social Stories:

ID 15537, ID 15540 & ID 15545 Body Language
ID 15568 & ID 15612 Telling Truth Kindly
ID 15615 & ID 15634 Who Do You Call? (with Ghostbusters’ “Who ya gonna call?” custom celebrations)
ID 15693 Calming My Body

New Upper Level Science:

ID 15003 Laws of Motion (game) awesome upper level physics
ID 15006 Laws of Motion 1 (book)
ID 14956 Matter Phases
ID 14968 Phase Changes Review
ID 14866 Phase of Periodic Table Elements

Way-Cool One-Offs:

ID 15680 Around the World adapted social studies lesson–a taste of different cultures and languages from around the world that uses lots of video (including short clips of familiar children’s shows in different languages)
ID 15180 Proloquo2go cool tutorial in a game form to practice using the AAC device
ID 15150 Kira Kira a great example of how traditional standardized testing materials can be adapted using VizZle
ID 15703 ABC Circus Upper/Lowercase (with a fun intro video)
ID 15081 Fruit ABCs (gets kinda cooly obscure–good for the older kids that have low level reading skills)

Entire Units Devoted to a Specific Topic:

13 books, 26 matching boards and 13 games of Idioms check out ID 15390 book 10 for my favorite image–Dead Ringer (run Keyword “idioms”)
Tons of new lessons to practice Generalization (run keyword “generalization”)
A group of lessons on The Newspaper both parts of the newspaper and newspaper-related vocabulary (run keyword “newspaper”)
Setting up a token economy For home use (run key word “token economy”)
Squares/Roots and Cubes/Roots (run keyword “roots”)
How to Play… rules for various group games (run subject search for “OT/ADL” “Play Skills” “Game Cooperative Play”")
Socially Appropriate Responses (run keyword “socially appropriate”)
Currency ID lessons for Canadian currency and Euros
Higher level math (area, volume, angles, basic measures, metric measures, English measures)
Alphabetizing for filing
Numeric Ordering for filing

And a final couple of hints for your new school year searching:

All lessons for telling time will come up using keywords “telling time” (using just “time” brings up multiplication etc.–”telling time” will give you just time lessons)

If you are looking for identical matching practice (of which there are tons) use keyword “identical” (because using “matching” brings up every matching board)

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:05:34 +0000

Visuals is the theme of the recently released August issue of Autism Classroom.com Magazine, and VizZle is featured. Check it out!

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:05:20 +0000

Asset Wrangler Jeff and his art cats have continued to add new media to the VizZle image database all summer long. Scroll down for a small sample of last week’s additions.

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:05:08 +0000

Demos, Trainings and Tchotchkes Coming to a Town Near You!

Scroll down for all the info!

The VizZle road warriors are bringing demos, trainings and the all important tchotchkes to conferences across the country this year. Come for live training, see a visual language presentation, or grab a goodie at our booth at these upcoming events:

Stark County ESC/SST 9 – VizZle Hands-On Workshop

July 29 (Thursday)
9:00am-3:30pm
Note: Currently this workshop is at capacity, contact June Ring (jring@monarchtt.com) for information about future sessions

Penn State National Autism Conference

August 2–6, 2010
The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel • State College, Pennsylvania
Click here for more info

Northwest Ohio Educational Technology (NWOET) Conference

August 10–11, 2010
Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio
Click here for more info

Autism New Jersey 28th Annual Conference

October 7-9, 2010
Atlantic City, NJ
Click here for more info

Ohio Occupational Therapy Association (OOTA) Conference

October 15-16
Holiday Inn, Independence, Ohio
Click here for more info

Closing the Gap

Preconference Workshops – October 19-20, 2010
October 21-23, 2010
Minneapolis, MN
Click here for more info

Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) Chicago

October 27-30, 2010
Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center
Schaumburg (Chicago), Illinois
Click here for more info

2010 Annual Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence (OCALI) Conference

November 17-19, 2010
Greater Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, OH
Click here for more info

2010 ASHA Convention

Leadership into New Frontiers
November 18–20, 2010
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Click here for more info

To See All Our Updated Conference Information, Visit Our Website at www.MonarchTT.Com

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:04:48 +0000

Next on the MTT employee Hot Seat is June Ring, Autism Software Consultant at Monarch Teaching Technologies. Use the scroll bar to the right to find out how she answered questions like “What is your Secret Super-Hero Name?”

The Hot Seat Quiz

Name: June Ring

Position: Autism Software Consultant

Photo Caption: VizZle Makes Me Smile!

Touchscreen, Stylus, Keyboard or Pen? Ergonomic keyboard on my desktop computer – does that date me?

Favorite Music? Anything my youngest son plays on his guitar

Cat, Dog, Fish or Pet Rock? My elderly chocolate lab Duke, and any neighborhood cat that stays out of my house but has an appetite for pesky moles

Favorite Website? Other than www.monarchtt.com?? How about www.pittsburghese.com – I love my hometown!

What is Your Secret Super-Hero Name? Junebug

Baseball, Football, Basketball or Dancing with the Stars? Cavaliers basketball wins in our house

Zodiac? Not into astrology, but yes, I was born in June and named the same

What Do You Want The VizZle Community To Know About You? I think I have the best job in the world, because I get to interact every day with the special education community that has meant so much to our family over the years

Show Us Your Boards: I am not a prolific VizZle author, but Common Birds ID 9812 is mostly mine…with tweaks from our gifted librarian, Pam (she can fix yours, too!) I’m also loving the lifeskills lessons found with keyword “MTEP”

Thanks June!

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:04:31 +0000

Welcome to summer! The 4th of July is just around the corner, and VizZle authors have added some great new holiday-themed lessons to Share. Use the slider to (to the right) to check out the list below!

ID 14493 The Fourth of July (book)
ID 14505 The Fourth of July (matching)
ID 14570 The History of the 4th of July
ID 14578 Betsy Ross and Our Flag
ID 14575 Original 13 Colonies
ID 14496 Going to the Fireworks
ID 5989 Symbols of the United States (book)
ID 5991 Symbols of the United States (matching)
ID 14400 Fireworks
ID 14402 Color Words (Fireworks)

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:04:11 +0000

Media Master Jeff and his team have continued to add new photos and line drawings to the VizZle image database. But even more impressive are the ongoing grooming and improvements that Jeff’s team focuses on.

In Jeff’s latest update, he notes:

-We have been taking the time to remove backgrounds from images whose subject might have blended into the background or backgrounds that might have otherwise been too distracting

-We have improved images that weren’t centered or might have been too small within the image frame by re-cropping them

-We have been improving our keywording, for instance by adding scientific names (to plants and animals)

-As we came across images in the database that could be used in other less traditional ways, we added keywords, so they could be found in Search

-We have been improving the communication value of select images by re-coloring or redrawing them based on autism teacher suggestions

-Finally, we monitor the most popular image searches and have added images specifically to expand choices for images that have been highly requested

A Small Sample of Last Month’s Additions:

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:03:52 +0000

Advance Magazine, a professional journal for Speech Language Pathologists, recently ran an article featuring an interview with several of The Monarch Center for Autism’s SLPs about their use of technology and visuals in the classroom. Check it out!

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:03:35 +0000

MTT unveiled the brand new home of VizZle information on the web this week, making it easier than ever to find information and sign up for free trials or training. Check it out!

Pam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:03:18 +0000

Courtney Monastra, Autism Unit teacher in the Highland Local School District’s Hinckley Elementary School, her students, and MTT’s own Lauren Stafford were recently featured in a news story about VizZle on WKYC, Cleveland, Ohio’s NBC affiliate. Check it out!