New Moon Girls-- A Wonderful Resource for Tweens

My daughter, now 13, has been receiving New Moon Girls magazine since she was 9, and absolutely loves it! When the newest issue arrives in the mail, she drops everything and reads it cover to cover, and then reads it again.

New Moon Girls "provides innovative, safe, respectful, and advertising-free spaces online and in the magazine where girls develop their full potential through self-discovery, creativity, and community" (from the magazine's inside cover). Overseen by the Girls Editorial Board, New Moon Girls has articles written about, by, and for girls from around the world. The goal is to empower girls with positive self-esteem, a healthy body image, and a strong voice. You won't find any dating advice, popularity contests, or dieting advice within the pages of New Moon. Instead you'll find poetry, short stories, articles on topics from world politics to the differently-able to sleep disorders, interviews, art, and projects.

The Web space offers everything the magazine does and chat, video, and articles in a moderated, educational environment. My daughter has been participating online for several years and has made some excellent friends. She has posted information and has been published in the magazine. During a developmental period that can be very confusing for girls and fraught with pitfalls and traps, New Moon Girls has helped to sustain her, build her self-confidence, and open her eyes to an exciting world of possibility.

To learn more about New Moon visit their website: http://www.newmoon.com/
Read an interview of New Moon founder, Nancy Gruver at http://www.ypulse.com/ypulse-interview-nancy-gruver-founder-ceo-new-moon
Read/join Gruver's blog for parents about raising strong, healthy girls: Daughters.com

More Online Accessibility

Again, I am indebted to Ira David Socol. His article "The Unhappy Place: What Libraries Can Do to Welcome Kids Who Struggle with Print" in the May 2010 issue of School Library Journal has many ideas for making libraries and computers more accessible to students with learning difficulties. You can read his article online at http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6727276.html

Microsoft Word can be customized for students who need help with spelling and grammar. In the Word program, click on help (or the little question mark in the top right hand side of the screen). Type"spell check" in the search box, and click search. Look for the following heading: "Choose how spelling and grammar checking work". Click on the link and follow the instructions. For help writing math equations, click on the insert tab, and then on equation (right next to symbol).

You can add the WordTalk plug-in to Word for free! WordTalk is software that will speak and highlight text as the student writes in Microsoft Word. It is customizable and has a talking dictionary. You can convert text to speech and then save it as a .wav or .mp3 file so you can replay it on your iPod or mp3 player. The web address is http://www.wordtalk.org.uk.

Users of Windows Vista or Windows 7 can install free voice recognition software. Windows Speech Recognition enables users to dictate documents and emails and to use voice controls. The web address is: http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windowsvista/speech.aspx.
Other Windows accessibility plug-ins, including onscreen keyboards and magnifiers, are available on the Windows accessibility page or http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/accessibility.

Here are some other free tools identified by Mr. Socol:

A Graphing Calculator, indispensable to anyone taking Algebra II, Trigonometry, or Calculus, available from GraphCalc (http://www.graphcalc.com/index.shtml).

A talking calculator is available from myZIPS (http://www.myzips.com/software/Talking-Calculator.phtml).

NaturalReader (http://www.naturalreaders.com/), free text-to-speech with natural sounding voices. Can read any text and convert it into audiofiles, and you have a choice of voices!

PowerTalk (http://fullmeasure.co.uk/powertalk/) speaks the text on PowerPoint slides.

Click-N-Type Virtual Keyboard (http://www.lakefolks.org/cnt/) is an onscreen keyboard. Type using your mouse!

Here's one my kids like to use: Create A Graph (http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx). Enter your data and make a pie, bar, or line graph.

More Accessibility: Free Audiobooks Available Online

To follow-up on my last entry about making the Internet more accessible to people with visual or reading difficulties, I thought I would highlight online sources of free audiobooks. Most of these are included on the libraries page of my website: The School and Home Library: The Online Library for Home Schoolers.

LibriVox Free audiobooks from the public domain (public domain works are creative works that are not protected by copyright and may be freely used by anyone. In the U.S., this includes books published before 1923, works for which the copyright has expired, books for which the author failed to establish a copyright, and works by the U.S. government). You can receive books in thrice-weekly podcasts, download complete books from the catalog, or subscribe through iTunes.

Bookshare Free accessible books and periodicals for individuals with print impairments (loss of sight, visual impairment, physical disability, learning disability, developmental disability and ESL). Free reading software and Braille options. Others may join; however, registration and annual fees apply.

Project Gutenberg Over 32,000 free books to download to your computer, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, or other portable device. Human-read and computer generated audiobooks. Sheet music. All materials are in the public domain.

Accessible Book Collection High interest, low-reading level digital texts (formatted for individuals with visual disabilities) for qualified people with disabilities. The html text can be used with text-to-speech software. Subscription required.

Internet Archive A free digital library of Internet sites (active and archived), downloadable software, movies, audio, live music, ebooks, and texts including children's books, fiction, historical texts, and academic books. Software is available to convert text-to-speech for users who have blindness, low vision, or learning disabilities.

For text-to-speech software, see the last entry in this blog or consider:

• vozMe Install a speech synthesis bookmarklet into your browser. Then, just click the vozMe button to listen to the text. Free!
• Humanware Hardware and software for individuals with blindness, low vision, and learning disabilities.
• Don Johnston Software for a variety of learning disabilities or impairments including autism.

Members of Bookshare (see above) may obtain Humanware VictorReader Soft Bookshare edition or Don Johnston READ:OutLoud software free with their membership.

Making the Web Accessible with Firefox

Mozilla Firefox has many free, easy to install, add-ons and extensions that make the Internet more accessible to users with disabilities, particularly visual disabilities and print impairments. To find them, visit the Firefox Accessibility Extensions page. Here are just a few of the many useful tools available:

• CLiCk Speak With the click of a button, CLiCk Speak will read any text you have highlighted or can automatically read the contents of any web page.
• Fire Vox A text-to-speech talking browser extension that reads web pages and the Firefox user interface including menus and sub-menus. Keyboard shortcuts are customizable.
• FoxVox reads highlighted text. It can also be used to create audiobooks in mp3, ogg, and wav formats and can turn blogs and articles into podcasts.
• Quick Dictionary Lookup Press shift + right click on any word; get a pop-up with definition, usage, and audio pronunciation.
• Readability Remove unnecessary page elements to reduce clutter and make the page more readable (reduces distractions).

I am deeply indebted to Ira Socol whose article "The Unhappy Place: What Libraries Can Do to Welcome Kids Who Struggle with Print" in the May 2010 issue of School Library Journal brought the Firefox accessibility add-ons to my attention.

Virtual Choir

Here is the penultimate example of the power of Internet for collaboration and creation, and for pushing the boundaries on the possible. Eric Whitaker created a choral piece with 185 singers from 12 countries, each singing their part to musical accompaniment while he conducted, and then combining their video and audio. Amazing!



Here is the link to Eric Whitaker's blog where he explains how the recording was made. This is the potential we offer our children when we teach them how to use technology to explore their own interests, to connect with others, and to participate in the creation of new knowledge!

Shmoop

Black History Month

Although I believe that African-American history should be taught part and parcel with American history, February is Black History Month and today is Martin Luther King Day. In honor of the men and women who have contributed so much to our country, and who deserve to be included in our national consciousness of who we are--not relegated to one particular day or several weeks--I am sharing a number of wonderful resources well-worth exploring. Please note that my list is not exhaustive, nor does it provide a complete history, but it is certainly a good place to start.

Please see my wiki whitneyswikiways for a list of picture books, chapter books, poetry, videos and websites.

Below are a number of excellent web sites.

Civil Rights Legislation

Civil Rights Center
FindLaw for the Public

A collection of articles and resources on the topic of Civil Rights. Links lead to legal definitions, specific types of discrimination, and a timeline of significant events. Information is provided from a legal perspective, and links to relevant Constitutional Amendments, federal and state law, and litigation are included. The site is very easy to use and written for the lay person, providing both depth and breadth of information. For those wanting detailed information about a specific subchapter or section of a law, links are provided to FindLaw for Legal Professionals.

Primary Documents/Curricula

Teaching Documents/Lesson Plans
The National Archives

This website, part of the National Archives Education service, provides detailed lesson plans that are correlated to National History Standards and National Standards for Civics and Government. All lesson plans are based on primary documents and can be accessed by clicking on “Lessons by Era 1945 to 1970s” or one of the bulleted topics (“Civil War and Reconstruction” or “Postwar United States”). Lesson plans are available for specific topics, such as the arrest records of Rosa Parks or letters and telegrams to the President from Jackie Robinson. Background information and pictures of relevant documents are provided along with creative, thought provoking teaching activities and suggestions for using the documents. All necessary worksheets are provided as PDFs.

The Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Resources for Teachers
The National Archives

Part of the Never Lose Sight of Freedom project, this website provides detailed lesson plans along with teaching materials, historical documents and photographs, transcripts of speeches and personal histories, and the text of associated laws and court decisions. An online video of the March is also available. Links to other websites, including the Spider Martin Photo Gallery of the 1965 Montgomery Voting Rights March and the National Voting Right Museum are provided. All lesson plans include all necessary materials in html and PDF versions, and were written by Alabama teachers whose qualifications are provided following each lesson.

The King Papers Project
The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University

Since 1985, the King Papers Project has been editing and publishing the works of Dr. King. The site includes transcripts and some audio of Dr. King’s sermons and speeches, excerpts from his autobiography, and numerous scholarly articles about Dr. King. A comprehensive encyclopedia of the Civil Rights Movement and an inventory of Dr. King’s sermons, speeches, letters, publications, notes and outlines are also provided. The website provides the Liberation Curriculum, an educational resource for high school teachers which includes lesson plans and classroom resources.

Virtual Tours

We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement--A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary
U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Transportation, The Federal Highway Administration, and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers.

In addition to a brief history of the Civil Rights Movement, this site provides a map and a list of places associated with the movement. Links lead to a page for each place on the map or list. Each page includes pictures of the place and people associated with events at that location, and an explanation of the location’s significance in the Civil Rights Movement. Internal links lead to biographies, explanations of events, and other historic places. Links to the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places are also included. A bibliography of histories, biographies, autobiographies, reference sources and other web resources is provided.

Voices of the Civil Rights
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Library of Congress

This site chronicles the Voices of Civil Rights Bus Tour which retraced the route of the 1961 Freedom Riders, and includes videos from stops and events along the route. Voices of the Civil Rights collected thousands of personal stories and oral histories of individuals involved in the Civil Rights Movement. These stories will be housed at the Library of Congress, but are available from archives in the website. A timeline of events, music, video, introduction to new activists, and evaluations of the civil rights movement in the present and future are included. Links are provided for other oral history projects, websites and other online resources, and books.

Online Exhibits/Museums

National Civil Rights Museum
National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN

In addition to providing information about the museum (hours, location, etc.), this website has an online exhibition which includes pictures and written material about major events and brief biographies about people in the movement. The museum’s annual Freedom Awards, honoring people who have made significant contributions to the advancement of civil rights nationally and internationally, are archived and include brief biographies of the recipients.

African-American Oddyssey
The Library of Congress

This website is an online exhibit based on a 1998 exhibition at the Library of Congress which showcased the Library’s African American Collection in all three of the Library’s buildings. The exhibit divides the history of African Americans into nine sections which include Slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Depression. The ninth section focuses on the Civil Rights Movement which presents documents, artwork, and photographs of people and events along with descriptive narrative. The site includes a complete list of objects included in the exhibition with links to items found in the online exhibit and to the LC division where the item is housed.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Seattle Times

In addition to providing links to articles and commentary about Martin Luther King, Jr., published in the Seattle Times, this website includes a photo gallery and biography of the Civil Rights leader. A timeline details significant events in Dr. King’s life, as well as in the Civil Rights movement. Links are provided to audio and transcripts of Dr. King’s speeches and written work, including “I Have a Dream” and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. A study guide, quiz, and list of resources are also included.

If you have gotten all the way through this list, don't forget to look at my wiki where you'll find all kinds of picture books appropriate for all ages (nobody is ever too old for a read aloud).