Read and Write for Google

Have you used Read and Write for Google lately?  Were you aware that all students at CVSD have premium accounts and that all teachers can get one, too?

Read and Write for Google is a UDL (Universal Design for Learning) tool.  Here are some features (copied from their web site).

• Hear web pages and documents read aloud to improve reading comprehension, with choice of natural voices
• Understand unfamiliar words with text and picture dictionaries
• Develop writing skills with word prediction and a grammar, spelling and confusable words checker
• Support independent student research with valuable study skills tools
• Offers bilingual support for a growing number of languages and more.

I just used Read and Write myself the other day to listen to a passage I needed to read for a course I'm taking.
Another great feature is vocabulary lists -- Read and Write will take words you've highlighted in a document and generate a vocabulary list, which you can then edit.
Finally, speaking of the highlighting tools, you can highlight in four different colors, then combine your highlights (by color) into a new document.

So, if you haven't used it in a while (or ever), why not give it a try? I'd love to help.

Recording & transcribing voice (and other audio)

Anyone remember Dictaphones?  They were small voice recorders that people used to record/dictate their thoughts and conversations for later transcription or playback.  They're yet another device made obsolete by smartphones. 

A teacher recently asked what students can use on their Chromebooks for dictation. 

Here are two tools that work well for audio recording

TwistedWave is a very simple audio recording tool.  You may need to enable Flash to get it working the first time.  You'll also need to allow access to your computer microphone.

SoundTrap is more like an online Audacity or GarageBand. It allows you to record multiple tracks and has lots of other features (such as musical loops and effects).

There are also tools that convert your speech into text on the fly

Google Voice Typing is built into Google Docs.  Find it under the Tools menu.  Just click the microphone icon and start talking.  When finished, click the icon again, then go in and clean up any errors.

Read and Write for Google is a tool that is available to all CVSD students.  Teachers can also use it for free (see me to get it set up).  It has a text to speech tool among other helpful reading and writing assistants.