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Blog on Tech Resources

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This is the blog page for Tech for World Language Teachers.

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awesome for homework, or to push the students who need a challenge

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Fun way to hear and see comprehensible, authentic language.

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Mini-stories that challenge your reading and listening skills. Read stories in Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese.

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Listen to episodes of the Duolingo podcasts for compelling, true-life stories that improve your Spanish and French listening and comprehension skills.

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Quizlet - vocab practice with pre-made lists

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Quizlet - vocab practice with pre-made lists

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students can also make their own lists, and hear pronunciation in French/Spanish

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Grammar practice for isolated skills

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Conjuguemos makes learning verb conjugations in Spanish, French (+ 7 other languages) easy with drill practices and fun multi-player games.

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Comprehensible text in French designed for language learners, updated daily

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Want to take it to the next level and improve your French listening and speaking skills? The audio recording of today's News in French is only available to members. Sign up today to gain full access immediately. Membership is just $5/month with a five-day free trial. (Want a custom subscription plan? Let me know.)
Are you already a member? Sign in.

Bonjour à tous. C'est mercredi, le 13 janvier...Le jour où, en 1898, Emile Zola publie sa célèbre lettre ouverte, "J'Accuse...!", dans un journal parisien. Dans cette lettre, l'écrivain a dénoncé le gouvernement français pour avoir injustement condamné l'officier Alfred Dreyfus, exposant l'affaire et le forçant à quitter le pays pour éviter d'être lui-même emprisonné pour diffamation... Voici les News in French d'aujourd'hui.

"Tombé" (2019), de M. Pokora. Parce que parfois, on ne se relève jamais... " On se perdra, c'est sûr, / Mais jamais longtemps, / On se retrouvera, j'suis sûr, / Comme un jeu d'enfants"... Disponible sur Youtube et Spotify.

Les robots compagnons interactifs, solution à l'isolement des personnes âgées? S'il y a quelque chose que 2020 nous a appris, c'est la valeur du lien humain, que nous tenons souvent pour acquis en des temps plus... normaux, disons. La situation de chacun est différente, mais vous aussi vous vous êtes peut-être senti un peu seul cette dernière année, peut-être en raison du manque d'interaction avec vos amis, votre famille ou même l'étranger au supermarché. Pour les personnes âgées, c'est une situation encore plus isolée... De : "" La pandémie a été un accélérateur pour nous, c'est presque notre raison d'être aujourd'hui!", remarque Antoine Bataille, fondateur de Cutii, un robot mobile à écran, présenté pour la deuxième fois au CES (Consumer Electronics Show) de Las Vegas, le grand rendez-vous de l'électronique et des technologies qui s'est ouvert en ligne lundi. Cutii permet aux utilisateurs de participer à des activités à distance (jeux, cours de gym, etc.) et de parler à leurs proches en visioconférence, sur commande vocale. Il peut être mis à jour à distance et être doté d'autres fonctions d'assistance ou de sécurité, en donnant l'alerte en cas de problème. L'entreprise a déployé ses robots en France en 2020, dans une trentaine d'Ehpad, ces établissements pour personnes âgées. Les Cutii étaient destinés à la vente aux particuliers mais le confinement a changé la donne. " On gère de l'isolement dans le collectif", raconte le patron de la start-up française, à la recherche de partenaires pour conquérir le marché américain. " On n'aurait jamais imaginé ça. " L'entreprise appréhende désormais mieux les besoins des animateurs d'Ehpad. Cutii peut distraire les patients pendant la toilette, par exemple, ce qui fait gagner du temps au personnel. Les spécialistes de la robotique sont aujourd'hui capables de réaliser des prouesses: les robots articulés de Boston Dynamics font sensation sur YouTube avec leurs chorégraphies en rythme, tandis que des chercheurs de la Cornell University travaillent sur des robots microscopiques, capables d'inspecter le corps humain de l'intérieur, en se déplaçant dans les tissus et vaisseaux sanguins. Mais les robots compagnons, eux, doivent surmonter des obstacles plus psychologiques que technologiques"... Pensez-vous que les robots compagnons sont une bonne idée? Le fait d'en avoir un chez vous deviendra-t-il un jour la norme? Pourquoi (pas)?

Un froid "historique" en Espagne. Quand on pense au climat de la péninsule ibérique, les adjectifs qui viennent d'abord à l'esprit peuvent être chaud, ensoleillé et sec. Mais ce n'était certainement pas le cas cette semaine... De : "Une grande partie du centre et de l'est du pays était toujours couverte de neige mardi après le passage d'une tempête inédite. Baptisée Filomena, cette dernière a aussi entraîné de fortes pluies ailleurs en Espagne et causé la mort de trois personnes ce week-end. Alors qu'une grande partie du pays est maintenant frappée par une vague de froid, deux sans abris ont été retrouvés morts lundi à Barcelone, selon les autorités locales. Les corps présentaient des signes d'hypothermie. Dans le centre et l'est de l'Espagne, le mercure est descendu jusqu'à -25,4 degrés dans un village de la région d'Aragon, au nord-est de Madrid, a indiqué l'agence météorologique AEMET, en évoquant des températures " historiques". Selon le porte-parole de cette agence, il est " possible" qu'il s'agisse de l'une des nuits les plus froides dans le pays depuis " plusieurs décennies". Avec -10,8°C, Madrid a affiché sa plus basse température depuis un demi-siècle, son aéroport de Barajas affichant même un -13,2 degrés, a indiqué AEMET. Le gouvernement a de nouveau appelé mardi les habitants des régions touchées à ne pas se déplacer à pied ou en voiture. " Il faut continuer à être extrêmement prudents " alors que l'alerte météo n'a pas été levée, a insisté le ministre de l'Intérieur, Fernando Grande-Marlaska"...

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Want to take it to the next level and improve your French listening and speaking skills? The audio recording of today's News in French is only available to members. Sign up today to gain full access immediately. Membership is just $5/month with a five-day free trial. (Want a custom subscription plan?

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Text and activity resources listed by language and topic

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Georgia Virtual Learning > Resources > WL Resources > WL Shared > Shared Spanish I

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Brief animated videos in French that answer a random question submitted by a kid - various topics, authentic French, comprehensible for intermediate and upper levels

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text and audio in authentic Castilian Spanish, comprehensible for intermediate and advanced learners

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Noticias de última hora, programas y series de televisión - RTVE.es

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Noticias, deportes, actualidad, álbumes, series y programas, y la última hora de España y el mundo.

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French news - text and audio, comprehensible for intermediate and advanced learners

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franceinfo - Actualités en temps réel et info en direct

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Pour savoir ce qui se passe maintenant - Toutes les infos livrées minute par minute par la rédaction de franceinfo. Photos, vidéos, tweets et vos interventions

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Beginner through advanced

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Maguaré - Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia

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Dulce María y el cangrejo

A Dulce María le encanta jugar en la playa y un día conoció a un cangrejo muy especial ¡Un cangrejo que cantaba! Descubre las aventuras de estos nuevos amigos. ¿Cómo imaginas que cante un cangrejo?

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Maguaré - Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia

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Maguaré, descubre imagina y crea, portal infantil de la Estrategia Digital de Cultura y Primera Infancia del Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia.

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Songs listed by grammar focus and vocab content

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Songs listed by grammar focus and vocab content

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0 Musique Française - Database - Email Christy.Miller@perrylocal.org to Contribute!

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Make free books

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Easy student-friendly tool to create books

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Story-building tool

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Free tool on Mac

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With Pages, you can create and collaborate on books from your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iCloud.com.

About iBooks Author

iBooks Author is no longer updated or available. If you've previously downloaded the app, you can still access it from your App Store purchase history. You can continue to use iBooks Author on macOS Catalina or earlier. And you'll continue to have access to books you've previously published to Apple Books from iBooks Author. You can also open and edit iBooks Author files (IBA files) in Pages.

About book creation in Pages

You can create books in Pages on your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iCloud.com.

Create and share books

You can create, collaborate on, and publish books.

Design books

You can use many features in Pages to help you design your book.

Add media to books

You can add video, image galleries, drawings, audio, and more to your book.

* This feature might not be available in all countries or regions.

Organize books

You can give your book structure and form.

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With Pages, you can create and collaborate on books from your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iCloud.com. iBooks Author is no longer updated or available. If you've previously downloaded the app, you can still access it from your App Store purchase history. You can continue to use iBooks Author on macOS Catalina or earlier.

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Telling stories through maps

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Telling stories through timelines

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Resource bank for CI

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By Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer.

Many Spanish teachers build a sense of community by using a special phrase or word as a password to enter the classroom. Each week teachers introduce a different one. They do so in the target language by playing our 27 second video to transition into the announcement of our next 'frase secreta de la semana' - your students will quickly grasp what to do and will remember to note the latest one when they hear the music. It also provides the vocabulary for those who don't know the secret phrase - see lyrics below.

La Frase Secreta - Profesora from ellen shrager on Vimeo.
Click here to purchase female teacher version. Click here to purchase male teacher version

Here are links to different Spanish ideas if you are looking for inspiration for Passwords.
Spanish Proverbs 40 Beautiful Words in Spanish Tongue twisters for more advanced students Top Ten Foods From Spain for Food Unit Top Ten Beaches in Spain For more ideas, Bryce Hedstrom has written a book on Passwords.
(Visited 532 times, 1 visits today)

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Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer.

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Spanish Class Password Frase Secreta Frase de la Semana Video to Introduce Concept and Stay in TL

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By Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer. Many Spanish teachers build a sense of community by using a special phrase or word as a password to enter the classroom. Each week teachers introduce a different one.

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Spanish Games is a free online resource for beginners learning Spanish, both "Castilian" Spanish as spoken in Spain and "Latino" Spanish spoken in South and Central America and Mexico. We offer a complete set of Spanish lessons, practice Spanish games and quick tests for over 100 Spanish topics, all free. Use the options in the box below to learn or revise any topic with any activity.

Spanish lessons at Spanish Games

Start your visit to Spanish Games with the Spanish Lesson for your chosen topic. Each of our 100+ lessons consists of an introduction to the topic language and 3 lesson activities - a yes/no activity, an either/or activity and a multiple choice activity. During the introduction to the topic, it is important that you repeat the audio after you hear it, and write down the texts to help your memory absorb both the sound and look of that language.

The 3 lesson activities are graded from easy to more difficult. As you work your way through them, you will find that your grasp and retention of the target language gradually improves. By the time you have completed the whole lesson, you should be able to recall and repeat the vocabulary for each of the topic items without prompting.

Games to practice Spanish

There are 13 free games you can use to practice the Spanish topic you are learning at Spanish Games. The games are quick and simple to play and improve language retention by excercising different areas of the brain. Try a variety of games for the best results! The games are free to use and work on both tablets (including iPads) and desktop computers.

Spanish tests at spanish-games.net

Complete your topic learning session by taking our 2 tests - a multiple choice test and a writing test. These will confirm that you have fully grasped and are able to reproduce the Spanish you have learned by doing the lesson and playing the games.

The writing test is harder than the multiple choice but is important if you wish to be able to write Spanish as well as speaking it! As you can see from the screenshot, there is a Help button if you get stuck...

How to use Spanish Games

To start using Spanish Games click here or on the "Start" button at the top of the page.

On the Start page you choose the first topic you want to learn. Once you have chosen a topic you will go straight to the lessons - there is an introduction to the language, a yes/no activity, an either/or activity and a multiple choice activity. Once you have worked through these lesson activities, play a few games to reinforce the Spanish for your selected topic. Then finally try our two tests - multiple choice and writing - to make sure you have learned the language correctly.

If you are a parent, you may want to check out our parents page for more information on how your child should use Spanish Games to enhance their Spanish language learning. There is also an FAQ page with more information on Spanish Games.
We also have a YouTube channel for Spanish learners with lots of video tutorials!
Who is this website for?

Spanish Games is for adults and kids (and the parents of adults, and the grandparents of kids!) who need or want to learn Spanish as a second language. You might be starting to learn Spanish for the first time, or you may need to reinforce what you are learning at night class or at school or with your tutor with additional lessons and tests.

You might be starting to learn Spanish for the first time, or you may need to reinforce what you are learning at school or with your tutor with additional lessons and games. If you are between five and fifty (or twenty five anyway), try out Spanish Games and make your Spanish learning a great way to spend some time.If you are between five and seventy five, try out Spanish Games and make your learning a great way to spend some time! If you are the parent of a child learning Spanish, you may want to check out our parents page for more information on how your child should use Spanish Games to enhance their Spanish language learning.

If you have any comments or suggestions, get in touch on our Contact page.

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Spanish games lessons tests free: Castilian + Latin American

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Learn Spanish free online with learning games, lessons and tests for beginners. Improve your Castilian and / or Latin American Spanish and have fun!

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Mi Vida Loca - Interactive Series with Curriculum Resources

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Mi Vida Loca - Interactive Series with Curriculum Resources

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BBC - Languages - Spanish - Mi Vida Loca

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Mi Vida Loca is an immersive video mystery set in Spain to help you learn simple Spanish

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Free Resources for Día de los muertos - Tech for World Language Teachers

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The day of the dead is just around the corner! Doing a lesson about the Mexican holiday celebration can be a great way to integrate culture into your World Language classroom. I have put together a list of resources to help you get some ideas.

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We are currently updating our look to make our website more enjoyable. You may still find older pages that have not yet been updated so please be patient.

SpanishTown.ca is full of free Spanish language learning materials for all levels and all ages. Children learning Spanish will love our free vocabulary lists. Download them in PDF format for later reference. Listen to the pronunciation of words and phrases. Virtually all of our introductory vocabulary has audio files that will let you listen to a native Spanish speaker pronounce the words and phrases in Spanish. Have fun with crossword puzzles, word searches or matching activities. Check back often as we are always adding new ones to the growing list. Teachers can download and use any of our free Spanish language material in their classrooms.

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We are currently updating our look to make our website more enjoyable. You may still find older pages that have not yet been updated so please be patient. SpanishTown.ca is full of free Spanish language learning materials for all levels and all ages. Children learning Spanish will love our free vocabulary lists.

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Map Lessons and Quizzes by language

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Spanish Speaking Countries - Map Quiz Game - Seterra

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Spanish is a Romance language and is sometimes also called Castilian. There are 21 Spanish speaking countries in the world. The five most populous countries where Spanish is the official language are Mexico, Colombia, Spain, Argentina, and Peru. The smallest country is Equatorial Guinea with a population of around 750,000.

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Resources for teaching French and Spanish

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Welcome to MisCositas.com! Click on the images below to find materials for your language!

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Celebrate Latino Heritage and Culture with Public Television!

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LATINO AMERICANS is a landmark six-hour documentary featuring interviews with nearly 100 Latinos and more than 500 years of History.

LATINO AMERICANS is the first major documentary series for television to chronicle the rich and varied history and experiences of Latinos, who have helped shape North America over the last 500-plus years and have become, with more than 50 million people, the largest minority group in the U.S. The changing and yet repeating context of American history provides a backdrop for the drama of individual lives. It is a story of immigration and redemption, of anguish and celebration, of the gradual construction of a new American identity that connects and empowers millions of people today. Learn More...

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Latino Americans is a landmark three-part, six-hour documentary series that is set to air nationally on PBS in the fall of 2013. It is a story of immigration and redemption, of anguish and celebration, of the gradual construction of a new American identity that connects and empowers millions of people today.

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General Spanish teaching resources

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Son muchas las horas que hay detrás de la creación, la maquetación o la revisión de los materiales de esta página, a lo que hay que añadir otro trabajo que puede pasar más desapercibido como el mantenimiento de una página que tiene unas 300 000 visitas al mes. Todo ello conlleva un gasto de recursos personales y económicos muy elevado. Sabemos que sería totalmente legítimo cobrar por todo nuestro trabajo, y bien podríamos habernos planteado restringir nuestros contenidos creando una área premium o haciéndolos de pago, pero no lo queremos hacer porque creemos necesario un espacio para el intercambio libre y gratuito de actividades y recursos para profesores y estudiantes de español. Sabemos el esfuerzo que supone tener que estar suscrito a mil zonas de membresía o pedir a nuestros estudiantes que compren todos los libros de los que nos gustaría sacar actividades. ProfeDeELE nace para ayudarte. Siempre colgamos de manera fácilmente accesible nuestros recursos en la web y recibimos dinero de la publicidad, de donativos o de la venta de algunos materiales, pero todo esto no es suficiente.

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ProfeDeELE | Recursos y actividades de español como lengua extranjera

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Son muchas las horas que hay detrás de la creación, la maquetación o la revisión de los materiales de esta página, a lo que hay que añadir otro trabajo que puede pasar más desapercibido como el mantenimiento de una página que tiene unas 300 000 visitas al mes.

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Spanish4teachers.org

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This is divided into 3r teaching the Spanish time and anything related to this theme. Within the sections, each resource is categorized as elementary, middle or high. Spanish Telling The Time Page
sections, Lesson Plans, Powerpoints and Worksheets, containing specific resources fo

Teachers please feel free to use these Spanish teaching resources, but we ask that you respect the copyright and footer information of all of them.

Spanish Telling The Time Lesson Plans & Activities:

El Juego Del Reloj - Telling time in Spanish Lesson Plan (middle school) a game to practice the time and routines.

Expressing the Time in Spanish Unit Plan (middle school) a complete unit plan on telling the time in Spanish

(all levels) great interactive clock that allows you to change the time to then tell the time in Spanish. Great to practice pronunciation and all times of the day. The class could be divided into groups and each group has to say the time before the clock does. It is also a great homework tool.

(High school) introductory lesson of telling the time in Spanish. Ser and Estar grammar are used. Complete lesson with materials and Powerpoint presentation. Lesson, activity and materials are all in Spanish .

interactive activity to practice telling the time in Spanish with the school schedule (la hora y el horario)

Que Hora Es - Interactive Game interactive game to practice the time in Spanish

interactive game to practice telling the times in Spanish. Choose the clock that shows the given time.

Spanish Telling The Time Powerpoint Presentations:

T elling The Time in Spanish Powerpoint (La Hora) ( m iddle school ) complete and didactic presentation to teach telling the time in Spanish

Tell the Time in Spanish Powerpoin t (middle/high school) easy explanation of how to tell the time in Spanish

(high school) powerpoint to practice telling the time in Spanish and the daily routine. Includes a reading comprehension exercise.

(high school) Slideshare presentation in Spanish to teach and practice the time.

Spanish Telling The Time Worksheets & Handouts:

Worksheet Que Hora Es (The Time in Spanish) Spanish 4 Teachers.org (middle /high school ) long unit review worksheet to evaluate everything related to time in Spanish (Que Hora Es? A que hora...?), schedule, classes, early (temprano), late (tarde), soon (pronto).

A ll About Time in Spanish Worksheet Spanish 4 Teachers.org (middle /high school) l ong unit review worksheet to evaluate everything related to time in Spanish (Que Hora Es? A que hora...?) , schedule, classes, early ( temprano ) , late ( tarde ) , soon ( pronto ) .

Spanish 4 Teachers.org (middle /high school) a collection of clocks with different times to write the time in Spanish.

40 worksheets in one booklet to practice telling the time in Spanish.

printable flashcards with clocks showing different times. Good to practice asking for and giving the time in Spanish.

Spanish time infographic (as shown below) - Download it here: La Hora en Español Infographic

Telling the Time in Spanish Videos:

Uno, dos, tres. Que hora es? Song to practice the numbers and telling the time in Spanish

Learn to tell time in Spanish and some related useful phrases

How to tell the time in Spanish - Practice

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Spanish La Hora - Spanish Time Worksheets, Spanish4Teachers.org

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This is divided into 3r teaching the Spanish time and anything related to this theme. Within the sections, each resource is categorized as elementary, middle or high. Spanish Telling The Time Page sections, Lesson Plans, Powerpoints and Worksheets, containing specific resources fo Teachers please feel free to use these Spanish teaching resources, but we ask that you respect the copyright and footer information of all of them.

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Makes interactive icons

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Free icon images

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Free Icons and Stickers - Millions of images to download

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Download Free Icons and Stickers for your projects. Images made by and for designers in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and CSS formats

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Interactive platform for slides/audience engagement

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Your browser either doesn't support Javascript, or you've turned it off. To use Mentimeter, please make sure to turn Javascript on. How do I enable Javascript?

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Interact with your audience using real-time voting. No installations or downloads required and it's free!

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Building a multilingual home library can be costly and challenging for non-native overseas families. Thankfully, in this digital era, many websites and apps offer stories for kids in Chinese, Korean, English, French, Spanish, and other languages!

This article highlights some of the best websites and apps with free multilingual books for children.

The first 5 multilingual book resources are available in numerous languages; the last 8 are free Chinese books for kids.

Free Multilingual books for Kids

1. Mutilingual books from Unite for Literacy

Website: uniteforliteracy.com

This is a wonderful resource for beginner language learners who need listening practice.

The books introduce vocabulary and simple sentence structures about common everyday topics through simple stories as well as questions and answers.

Almost all images are clear photographs, which is my preference over the typical cartoon.

The downside is that the text is in English only.

Available languages: Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, Cup'ik, Danish, French, German, Greek (Ελληνικά), Hindi (हिंदी), Karenni, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese
Related: 5 Reasons Books are the Best Gifts for Multilingual Kids
2. Multilingual Books from Storybooks Canada

Website: storybookscanada.ca

Storybooks Canada has dozens of stories from the African Storybook with text and audio in the most widely spoken languages of Canada.

Available languages: Arabic, Cantonese, Chinese (Mandarin), English, German, Korean, French, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Turkish, and Urdu!

For families learning Chinese, you'll be happy to know that both simplified and traditional Chinese are offered as well as Mandarin and Cantonese.

Cantonese for Families gives a detailed overview of the Chinese options from Storybooks in this review.

3. Multilingual Books from World Stories

Website: worldstories.org.uk

World Stories offers a growing collection of multilingual books in the most common languages in the United Kingdom. Registration is free but required for access to stories.

While I like that the focus is on the audio narration due to the lack of animation and minimal illustrations, I found the website to be a bit slow and confusing. I had to click around a bit to figure out how to listen to audio and was stuck on music for a while.

However, I do think this website has great potential to help many multilingual families.
Related: 5 Ways My Child and I Learn Chinese from Audiobooks
Available languages: Akan, Albanian, Arabic, Cantonese, Danish, English, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Kannada, Mandarin, Manx, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Scots, Scots Doric, Scottish Gaelic, Somali, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, Welsh, Yoruba, Zulu

4. Bible App for Kids

The Bible App for Kids has animated bible stories in numerous languages.

We have explored this app in the past but have not really used it as generally read the Bible as a family in English. However, this is an excellent resource for those who wish to learn the Bible in minority languages.

In our experience, the downside would be the distracting animation and games. Each page allows for "exploration" of the image through touch.

Once my daughter discovered this feature, she no longer focused on listening and just wanted to touch everything on the screen. The games are also not useful for reinforcing Biblical concepts in the target language.

While we prefer to use a regular children's bible for our family, I think this could be helpful for families who need more minority language exposure and don't have a physical bible.
Website: https://stories.audible.com/start-listen
Available languages: Afrikaans, Arabic, Belarusian, Bengali, Cantonese, Chinese (Mandarin - Simplified & Traditional Chinese), Dutch, English (UK), English (US), Farsi, Filipino (Tagalog), Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hindi, Indonesia, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portugese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Zulu
Related: How I Taught My Child 1000+ Chinese Characters as a Non-Fluent Speaker
5. Audible

Audible is an Amazon company that streams stories in 6 different language on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet.

Available languages: Japanese, Spanish, German, French, and Italian. Sadly no Chinese.

Apps with Free Mandarin Chinese books for Kids

1. Ximalaya FM

This is hands-down my favorite resource for free Chinese audiobooks. They have thousands of Chinese stories and even free Chinese music, and I can find stories easily by searching the title.

Ximalaya requires basic Chinese listening comprehension skills. If you are just starting to learn Chinese, the narration will be too advanced, and you should start with one of the above resources instead.
Related: 20+ Educational Chinese Apps
To learn more about Ximalaya, please check out the following articles:

2. 凯叔讲故事

凯叔讲故事 has numerous free Chinese stories for children in Mandarin Chinese! What's unique about is that many stories are narrated by a gentleman in contrast to most children's stories which are narrated by women. This is important for kids like ours who have only really spoken Chinese with females due to lack of diversity in our local community.

This app has a wealth of free Chinese stories and songs in Mandarin Chinese! The Chinese audiobooks are best suited for preschool and early elementary school-aged children.

4. 糖果姐姐說故事

App: 糖果姐姐說故事 on iTunes and Google Play

糖果姐姐說故事 (Candy Sister Telling Stories) is an app with narrated Bible stories as well as other stories. The narrator's voice is pleasant and easy to understand, but the content may more suitable for elementary school kids and up. You can read Mandarin Mama's review of the 糖果姐姐 CD for more information.
Website: learningchinesethroughstories.com
5. 咔哒故事-儿童睡前故事大全

This is one of the first apps that we used when we were first learning how to speak Chinese. The app features many popular stories with simplified Chinese text. Some stories are free while others require a subscription fee.

Websites with Free Mandarin Chinese Books for Kids

1. Learning Chinese Through Stories
Website: chinese.littlefox.com
Learning Chinese through stories is one of my favorite audio resources!

Their Mandarin podcasts have 3 major proficiency levels:

Each proficiency level has sublevels of high, middle and low.

The podcasters teach common Chinese vocabulary and idioms in the context of stories. The stories have definitions of key words with Pinyin and English translations.

2. Little Fox Chinese

Little fox Chinese is a free language learning curriculum that offers 5 levels of reading practice.

Level one begins with pinyin, basic words, and daily expressions and progresses to longer sentences through animated stories. The program offers hundreds and stories and songs through their website, app, and YouTube channel.

If you're trying to minimize screen time like our family, you can print out the books and add them to your home library!

When we first started to learn Chinese a few years ago, I wish I knew of this program! It looks like fantastic option for beginner learners.

For more details, Polygot Kiddos has a review of Little Fox Chinese and how her kids are learning with the curriculum.

3. Huayu World

Website: http://biweekly.huayuworld.org/

Huayu World is a Taiwan-based website with numerous free Chinese stories for children that cover a wide variety of topics, including everyday life, Chinese idioms, Chinese festivals, and fiction.

The website is entirely in traditional Chinese, and the stories have Zhuyin next to the traditional Chinese characters.

When viewing the Chinese stories, you can choose to have either the illustrations or the Chinese words enlarged.

4. Stories for Teaching Chinese
Website: http://childrensbook.pct.org.tw/
Website: wp.nyu.edu/steinhardt-startalk

The New York University StarTalk Immersion Training Program for Teachers has several narrated and beautifully illustrated stories in Mandarin Chinese.

Native families will recognize familiar traditional folktales, such as 司马光砸缸 (Si Ma Guang Breaks a Jar).

Please note that some stories discuss relatively mature content, such as the history of opium in China. Parents should first preview the stories and consider deferring some topics for elementary school-aged children and older.

Teachers and parents may also appreciate the lesson plan breakdown and options to print the PDF files of each story or view the audiobook on iBooks.

5. 美好腳蹤系列有聲繪本

Taiwan Presbyterian Church offers free Bible-based audio books on their websites in 3 language versions: Mandarin, Taiwanese and English. The website also has Chinese Christian music, cartoons, printable lessons from preschool through high school. The website is in traditional Chinese.

Which free multilingual books are the best?

For those who are just starting to learn a minority language, I recommend exploring Unite for Literacy and Storybooks Canada. In addition, beginner Chinese learners will find Little Fox Chinese to be a valuable resource.

As your child's proficiency improves, the other resources will help expand your child's comprehension skills, vocabulary, and grammar while cultivating love and appreciation for the minority language!

Of course, many other websites and apps offer multilingual stories beyond this list. However, I have elected not to make this an exhaustive list of everything that's available. We all reach a point where we have too many resources and not enough time!

Chinese audiobooks has been a big help for improving our Mandarin fluency and literacy. Personally, we use only Ximalaya regularly, because it has most of my children's favorite stories. Learning Chinese Through Stories is my other favorite source for studying new vocabularly.

Have you used any of these multilingual book resources?

If there is a truly superb resource that I have neglected to include here, please let leave a comment below so that other families can learn from it, too!

WHERE TO BUY CHINESE BOOKS FOR KIDS

Whenever feasible, physical books are preferred over digital books, especially for young children.

For more book recommendations, please explore our favorite Chinese books for kids!

If you're wondering where to buy Chinese books for children, please click here for a list of the most popular online bookstores!

Tips on creating a multilingual learning environment at home

Happy reading and learning, friends!

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Free Multilingual Books for Kids in Chinese, English, Korean, and more!

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Building a multilingual home library can be costly and challenging for non-native overseas families. Thankfully, in this digital era, many websites and apps offer stories for kids in Chinese, Korean, English, French, Spanish, and other languages! This article highlights some of the best websites and apps with free multilingual books for children.

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La Casa Azul (The Blue House) was the place where Frida Kahlo, the most renowned Latin American artist in the world, came into this world, lived, and took her last breath. The building, which dates to 1904, was not a large-scale construction. Today it has an 800 m2 building surrounded by property measuring 1200 m2. Diego and Frida filled it with color, folk art, and pre-Hispanic pieces to show their admiration for the peoples and cultures of Mexico. The construction underwent two major modifications. When Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky lived with Diego and Frida in 1937, the property today occupied by the garden was purchased. In 1946 Diego Rivera asked Juan O'Gorman to build Frida's studio. The interior of the house has been maintained virtually intact. This was respected by the poet and the couple's friend, Carlos Pellicer, who designed the museum display for the space after Frida's death. Therefore, the house and its contents preserve that intimate atmosphere.

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Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico, Mexico - Google Arts & Culture

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La Casa Azul (The Blue House) was the place where Frida Kahlo, the most renowned Latin American artist in the world, came into this world, lived, and took ...

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The history of the museum, of its building is quite unusual. In the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. So the building itself could be seen as the first "work of art" in the Musee d'Orsay, which displays collections of art from the period 1848 to 1914.

Open from 9.30am to 6pm daily, except Mondays
Late night on Thursdays until 9.45pm
Last tickets sold at 5pm (9pm Thursdays), museum cleared at 5.30pm (9.15pm Thursdays)
Closed on Mondays, on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December

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Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Paris, France - Google Arts & Culture

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The history of the museum, of its building is quite unusual. In the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum w...

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Information about the case can be found on the bulletin boards. This is your best starting place!

Your assistant, Agent K, can be reached via the walkie-talkie. He can give you clues when you're stuck! You may need to poke around a bit to find some clues to solve Agent K's passwords.

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Bonne chance!

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Les Enquêtes d' Agent Secret 018 - Enquête #1: Opération Diamant

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Information about the case can be found on the bulletin boards. This is your best starting place! Your assistant, Agent K, can be reached via the walkie-talkie. He can give you clues when you're stuck! You may need to poke around a bit to find some clues to solve Agent K's passwords.

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The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam houses the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) in the world. The permanent collection includes over 200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh, 500 drawings and more than 750 letters. The museum also presents exhibitions on various subjects from 19th-century art history.

For more information on Vincent van Gogh, please visit the section Vincent van Gogh's Life on the museum's website.

View the Van Gogh Museum YouTube Channel

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Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands - Google Arts & Culture

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The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam houses the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) in the world. The permanent collection includes ...

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National Museum of Anthropology - Mexico City

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National Museum of Anthropology - Mexico City

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The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City - devoted to the archaeology and history of Mexico's pre-Hispanic civilisations. It was inaugurated in 1964 and designed by Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez.

Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more

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The National Museum of Anthropology - Mexico City - Ziko van Dijk / Wikimedia Commons - Google Arts & Culture

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The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City - devoted to the archaeology and history of Mexico's pre-Hispanic civilisations. It was inaugurated in 1...

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Santuario Historico de Machu Picchu - Casa de los Nobles - Google Arts & Culture

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 1200 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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El Museo a Cielo Abierto en la Pincoya, es un proyecto social de intervención muralista en las calles de la población. El objetivo principal es retratar la historia de la población con una mirada profunda de la realidad histórica popular por medio del arte mural.

El mural social tiene una historia importante en la población, ya que en los años de la dictadura cívico-militar expresaron los dolores más horribles. Desde las desapariciones y ejecuciones de sus pobladores, hasta murales de amor colectivo. De aquellos años, donde las conciencias de los pobladores pudieron ser tocadas por los colores sentimentales de obras realizadas por colectivos muralistas improvisados de pobladores, y por aquellos de estilos de la Brigada Ramona Parra, siempre tratando de amarrar los sueños que son de todos.

Nuestro proyecto busca ser una actividad de compromiso social con la población, reflejando las historias propias desde el pueblo y para el pueblo. Buscamos enviar un mensaje de igualdad, soñando una sociedad más justa para nuestros pobladores, que sufrimos de la discriminación, la exclusión en la educación y la salud, el endeudamiento hasta para alimentar a las familias, entre otros problemas. La realidad del Chile de abajo, de nuestros barrios. Los colores en los espacios de la población influyen en todos quienes pasan y ven un mensaje que busca cuestionar la realidad, para reactivar la neurona de la unidad y la lucha social, porque Chile es un país muy solidario, pero que está adormecido.

Los murales que hemos realizado buscan estar relacionados a las históricas luchas populares: la Olla Común, Colonias Urbanas, Mujer Pobladora, Los Trabajadores, Los Niños, la Educación, Pueblo mapuche, etc. Murales que están enlazados con las demandas sociales históricas y actuales. Para nosotros, el mural es una herramienta que busca la transformación social, al mismo tiempo que busca embellecer y poner alegría en lugares donde la desolación es más patente, para tocar el corazón de quien pueda cuestionar el mural, transformando las tristezas y penas de la población en rebeldía contra las políticas antisociales impuestas por los gobiernos neoliberales de centro-derecha.

Es sabido que la población la Pincoya fue un lugar de organización subversiva en los tiempos de dictadura, planificándose en sus suelos el atentado fallido al dictador Pinochet. Por lo tanto, la población antes y ahora, tiene ansias de liberación, las cuales tienen más sentido cuando cada uno de sus habitantes se hace consciente de la profunda injusticia social que nos afecta en su mayoría.

Hoy el proyecto se ha transformado en un grupo innumerable de amigos, muralistas y graffiteros. Cada día son más los artistas urbanos en distintos rincones de Latinoamérica y Chile, que quieren aportar a la causa, haciendo un mural en la pobla. Esto nos inspira más a romper las fronteras en todos los aspectos, porque el sueño es grande y tiene sentido. Algunos de los artistas que hasta ahora han participado corresponden a creadores provenientes de diversos barrios latinoamericanos (Argentina, Colombia y Perú) y de nuestro Chile, reconociéndonos como hermanos en una misma Latinoamérica subyugada a la maquinaria del capitalismo global, pero que está buscando su liberación.

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Museo a Cielo Abierto en La Pincoya, Santiago, Chile - Google Arts & Culture

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El Museo a Cielo Abierto en la Pincoya, es un proyecto social de intervención muralista en las calles de la población. El objetivo principal es retratar la historia de la población con una mirada profunda de la realidad histórica popular por medio del arte mural.

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We offer free content in the form of audio podcasts for each of the seasons of Coffee Break French. In the audio podcasts you'll be able to build your understanding of French and hear how words are pronounced. However, there's no guidance on how the words are written. This is where the online course comes in. The course offers additional materials:

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If you're serious about learning French we would suggest that you consider the online course to help you make faster progress with the lessons and build a deeper understanding of the language.

*Please note that the video lessons currently feature only in Season 1 and 2 courses. We plan to add video versions of the Season 3 and 4 lessons soon.

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We offer free content in the form of audio podcasts for each of the seasons of Coffee Break French. In the audio podcasts you'll be able to build your understanding of French and hear how words are pronounced. However, there's no guidance on how the words are written.

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News in Slow French offers a unique language learning experience with engaging content at a slower pace to help all learners. Covering a range of topics and difficulty levels, it features current events, grammar, expressions, and original miniseries.

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podcast in Spanish designed for language learners

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Your browser does not support the video tag. Immersive Spanish podcasts created by an international team of journalists and linguists. News in Slow Spanish features native speakers discussing current events and culture. News stories you care about at a pace you can understand.

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Learn French: Free audio lessons to learn basic French. Part of a collection of free audio and video lessons for beginners in French.

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This is by far the best "learn French on your own time" system I've ever encountered. I'm a fluent, high-intermediate learner of French, and I find even the beginner lessons useful for tips on pronunciation or little grammatical points that I missed or forgot. The format is interesting and effective.

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Add New Row Edit ElementClone ElementAdvanced Element OptionsMoveRemove Element - SPACER - [vertical_spacing height="300"] Edit ElementClone ElementAdvanced Element OptionsMoveRemove Element ¡Un café, por favor! [headline style="1" font_size="36" font_style="bold" font_color="#ffffff" font_shadow="dark" align="center"]¡Un café, por favor![/headline] Edit ElementClone ElementAdvanced Element OptionsMoveRemove Element Introducing Coffee Break Spanish [headline style="1" font_size="20" font_font="Droid Sans" font_color="#ffffff" font_shadow="dark" align="center"]Introducing Coffee Break Spanish[/headline] ...

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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EDUCATING ALL LEARNERS IN ALL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

An alliance dedicated to equity for complex learners

Search Resource Library

Accessibility Statement

Educating All Learners is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability. We aim to adhere as closely as possible to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0, Level AA), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These guidelines explain how to make Web content more accessible for people with disabilities. Conformance with these guidelines will help make the web more user friendly to everyone.

Click on the blue circle widget in the upper right hand corner to change accessibility features such as contrast, highlight links, bigger text, text spacing, pause animations, dyslexia friendly, cursor, tooltips, line height, and text alignment.

1 in 5 children

in the U.S. have learning and attention issues such as dyslexia and ADHD (NCLD).

7.3 million

or 14 percent of all public school students, receive special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (NCES).

When supported effectively

students with disabilities grew in reading and math during the school year as much or more than never-SPED students (NWEA).

EDUCATING ALL LEARNERS IS FOR YOU.

As districts, educators, students and families continue to adjust to a variety of learning environments, the needs of students with disabilities are too often put on the back burner-instead, they must be considered from the beginning. Family communication, online instruction, teleconferencing and counseling, independent study, blended learning, needs assessment, and data tracking and analytics are each stronger and more effective when they are designed to meet the needs of all learners.

The Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA) is an uncommon coalition of organizations committed to resource sharing and community-building that supports the efforts of the education community to meet the needs of students with disabilities.

We are committed to showing the path to possible for practitioners by providing curated, searchable resources, access to experts, a tech library featuring accessibility features in edtech, and examples from the field.

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An alliance dedicated to equity for complex learners Search Resource Library Educating All Learners is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability. We aim to adhere as closely as possible to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0, Level AA), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

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Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning

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Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning

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Inclusive resources, also SPED / ELL resources

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Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) fosters excellence and innovation in teaching, learning, and research by providing faculty and students with development opportunities, teaching tools, course development opportunities, classroom and instructional support, and consultation services.

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Use identity charts to help students consider the many factors that shape their own identity and that of groups, nations, and historical and literary figures.

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Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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Use identity charts to help students consider the many factors that shape their own identity and that of groups, nations, and historical and literary figures.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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This school year, I have the privilege of working shoulder to shoulder with teachers who are rolling up their sleeves and asking hard questions about how they can better serve their under-performing students who are disproportionately English learners, poor students, and students of color. They are working to incorporate culturally responsive practices into their classrooms.

I believe culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is a powerful method for accelerating student learning. But truth be told, most educators are not really sure what it is or what it looks like. For some, it seems mysterious. A number of leaders discount it because it seems too "touchy feely" or only focused on raising students' self-esteem, when they need to raise achievement levels. But CRT is so much more than that. It's the reason why I wroteCulturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. ( Brief podcast on CRT)

Two of the biggest challenges I see teachers struggle with when first embracing CRT, is understanding the role culture actually plays in instruction and how to operationalize culturally responsive practices. They worry that they have to learn 19 different cultures -- everyone's individual customs, holidays, foods, and language. This simply isn't true. Here are four other big ideas about culturally responsive teaching to keep in mind:

1. Culturally responsive teaching isn't the same as multicultural education or social justice education. Too often we use the terms culturally responsive teaching and multicultural education interchangeably, when they're different things. They are related, but only culturally responsive teaching focuses on building students' learning power. It's important to remember that CRT isn't about diversity training, but about helping students reach deeper levels of understanding.

2. Culturally responsive teaching builds students' brain power by Improving information processing skills using cultural learning tools.This isn't an aspect of CRT we talk about a lot. Instead, educators like to focus on the affective elements. Keep in mind one way that the achievement gap manifests itself is by creating dependent learners who find it hard to do critical thinking or independent learning. When we focus on using culture as a cognitive scaffold, then we're able to leverage students' neural pathways that make learning easier.

3. Culturally responsive teaching is grounded in social and cognitive neuroscience. Neuroscience is giving us new findings every day that support why culturally responsive practices work. For example, social neuroscience reminds us that relationships are the on-ramp to learning, meaning if a student doesn't feel heard or seen, then it leads to increased stress. Stress hormones like cortisol impair the brain's executive function. So in order to create a learning environment conducive to all students learning, we need to lower stress hormones by building those relationships.

4. Culturally responsive teaching requires teachers to recognize the cultural orientation we call "collectivism."Teachers are often confused about how culture plays a role in culturally responsive teaching. They think they have to mention race, ethnicity, or cultural artifacts like ethnic food, music, or literature all the time for every different group. Instead, a key starting point to making cultural responsiveness manageable is to organize instructional activities around collectivist cultural principles -- group harmony and interdependence. Vygotsky talks about this as "socio-cultural learning" and highlights that it is necessary to move students into their zone of proximal development.

Here's another important point to make: Culturally responsive teaching isn't a program or set of strategies. First and foremost, it is a mindset. That means that it's equally important to do the ongoing "inside-out" work to build your social-emotional capacity to work across social, linguistic, racial, and/or economic difference with students and their families. Too often I hear educators say that they are "color-blind" or don't understand the socio-political issues that lead to inequities in education -- like disproportionate discipline outcomes for boys of color or low achievement data for English learners, poor students, and students of color in general.

We have to make it our personal business to build our emotional stamina to address our own blind spots and biases. One of the nation's leading implicit bias scholars, Patricia Devine of the University of Wisconsin, compares implicit bias to habits that, with intention and practice, can be broken. Her research has found that three conditions need to be in place for individuals to successfully "de-bias":

1. Intention: You have to acknowledge that you harbor unconscious biases and are motivated to change.

2. Attention: You have to pay attention to your triggers and know when stereotypical responses or assumptions are activated.

3. Time: You have to make time to practice new strategies designed to "break" your automatic associations that link a negative judgment to behavior that is culturally different from yours.

"De-biasing" requires a level of metacognition. In this case, you're not thinking about your thinking, but thinking about your unconscious reacting. Remember, it isn't about getting rid of our biases, it's about rewiring our brains to not respond unconsciously to the negative dominant narratives about the learning capacity of poor students, students of color, and English learners. We have to tame our amygdala, our brain's fight or flight defense mechanism, and take advantage of neuroplasticity - our brain's ability to change itself and respond differently to emotionally charged situations, like talking about race, culture, and inequity.

At the end of professional development sessions with teachers, I usually share this quote from Atul Gawande, author of the Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right: "Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try." Operationalizing CRT may seem overwhelming, but start with something small but high leverage, and grow your comfort and skill level. We can do this!

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Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain

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This school year, I have the privilege of working shoulder to shoulder with teachers who are rolling up their sleeves and asking hard questions about how they can better serve their under-performing students who are disproportionately English learners, poor students, and students of color.

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The growing diversity of the U.S. population continues to impact formal education in many ways. One key area has been the increased awareness of the need to adapt learning environments to enhance the achievement of students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. Culturally responsive teaching is an asset pedagogy designed to increase motivation by replacing mainstream teaching practices with those grounded in students' experiences and ways of knowing. The culturally responsive teaching (CRT) framework places students' cultural identities at the core of the learning process and utilizes the ?cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles? of diverse students [1]. When considering issues of culture and identity, many people first think of race and ethnicity. However, there are many dimensions of diversity present in most classrooms, and CRT means that educators should engage students' additional identities in recognition of the intersectionality of various facets of who their students are.

Another trend that has impacted formal education is the rapid growth of online, or elearning. Often research on CRT, and discussion of CRT, is conducted in the context of the traditional face-to-face classroom. However, the growth of elearning has meant that increasingly more often, the adult learning environment is online.

As a result of the growth of elearning, educators who were used to teaching in face-to-face classrooms now find themselves in the very different situation of teaching online. The online learning environment adds an extra layer of complexity to the development of culturally responsive teachers and classrooms, as described by Heitner and Jennings:

"...a lack of understanding about culturally responsive issues and practices to meet the needs and expectations of online students can lead to miscommunication, mistrust, poor guidance, frustration, attrition, and delayed program completion. These issues may be exacerbated in the online classroom due to the nature of faculty/student interaction, the asynchronous nature of the instruction, the broad cultural and geographic diversity of the student body, and the lack of visual cues in the interactions" [2].

What does culturally responsive teaching in online classrooms look like? How can online instructors use principles of culturally responsive teaching to develop culturally responsive online classrooms? This article will examine basic principles of culturally responsive teaching in the context of elearning. It will focus on practical ideas for instructors interested in developing their own culturally responsive online teaching skills.

Why Culturally Responsive Teaching Is Important

A primary assumption of asset pedagogies is that learners of minority backgrounds experience mismatches between their own cultural identities and the collective cultures of the school, the instructor, and the course. These mismatches can inhibit the learning process. Referred to as barriers in universal design of learning [3], there is a widespread understanding for the need to erase these mismatches or barriers in order to create optimal learning environments for all learners. Culturally responsive teaching positions the learner's cultural identities at the core of the learning process and uses the learner's cultural knowledge, experiences, and frames of reference in order to help the learner be successful in the course and at the school.

The foundation of culturally responsive teaching includes three classroom criteria: academic achievement, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness [4]. First, the culturally responsive classroom is one in which there are clear and academically challenging expectations for all students. The learning environment is one in which a variety of learning assessments are utilized. Educators must be knowledgeable in content area and highly skilled at creating effective learning environments.

Secondly, the culturally responsive classroom encourages high levels of cultural competence, as students and teachers demonstrate a deep understanding of their own and others' cultures. Finally, educators must have sociopolitical consciousness, or a well-developed understanding of their own world views, along with the knowledge that their own worldviews are shaped by their experience, and, as such, are probably not the same as those of the learners in their classes. Culturally responsive educators are those who continually examine their own cultural perspectives and biases to ensure that they are creating environments that are supportive to all learners.

Taking Theory to Practice in the Online Classroom

How can educators create culturally responsive classrooms? The "Motivational Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching" [5] was designed specifically for adult learning environments and describes norms and practices designed to encourage participation, inquiry, discourse, and respect for all learners. It includes four elements:

establishing inclusion

developing attitude

enhancing meaning

engendering competence

Each of these elements will be examined individually, in the context of the online classroom.

Establishing inclusion. Planning for the culturally responsive classroom starts with course development. Just as first impressions of a face-to-face course are based on what the student sees when he or she walks into the classroom for the first time, students' first impressions of an online classroom are based on what they see when they initially access the course. Instructors may post information on their course websites about what culturally-responsive classrooms look like; and these postings may be written, in audio formats (e.g., podcasts) or using video clips (or in some combination thereof). There may also be initial discussions; synchronous or asynchronous, on topics related to racial, gender, ethnic, and sexual identity, to name a few.

Important in this type of information is to define what culture, and culture responsibility looks like. The concept of culture may mean different things to different people, and often, we think of culture in terms of the dimensions of culture we are familiar with (forgetting the broader definition of the concept of culture). Culture can be related to dimensions of diversity such as race, ethnicity, age and gender (among others), but can also be viewed on an organizational level (the culture of the U.S. Army, for example). In order to develop a culturally responsive classroom, learners first have to understand the concept. That involves providing information to learners and then discussing the concept among all in the class.

In order to start developing a culturally responsive classroom, pre-work is required so when the student accesses the course for the first time, the stage is set. Giving voice to students, an important aspect of establishing inclusion, can start at the beginning of the course, with activities in which students introduce themselves and tell the class about who they are. Guidelines for introductions that include content about the importance of culture can help set a culturally responsive tone. Asking specific questions about students' cultural identities and backgrounds (and providing examples) can help students feel comfortable in sharing their own information. To set a culturally responsive tone, instructors may describe their own cultural backgrounds in their introductions.

Icebreaker activities can be useful in culturally responsive teaching. For example, Lehman and Conceição suggest an activity entitled "Where in the World Are You" [6]. A map of the world is posted in the online classroom and students download the map, mark their locations, and share information on themselves and their cultures and traditions (which may or may not be related to their physical location on the map). Again, a broad view of the term culture should be emphasized, as students might share information about any of the different cultural groups to which they belong. They then upload the map back to the course website for others to view.

Establishing inclusion also involves developing a foundation of respect and connectedness through established routines, mutually agreed upon norms, and equitable treatment of all learners. To ensure all students feel included in the learning community, it is important to encourage them to voice their feelings in the face of perceived discrimination or disrespect, and also in sharing the positive, respectful, and reinforcing experiences in the online classroom. Giving voice to those opinions can be challenging, especially in online learning environments, so creating those opportunities through discussions (synchronous and asynchronous) and chat sessions can be useful. Initial discussion forums in which students develop guidelines for the course, including tips for holding respectful, scholarly discussions on controversial topics, and suggestions for course etiquette can all be discussed right at the start of the course. As noted earlier, however, this means the instructor must be prepared, and the course must be set up, to hold these discussions when the course opens.

In a face-to-face classroom, introductions and the establishment of inclusion can happen in real time, but in an online classroom, students do not all participate at the same time. Students typically access online courses at different times throughout a lesson or unit of instruction. Instructors must allow time for students to participate, and to learn about their classmates and the instructor. Therefore it is important to establish inclusion in the online classroom after the course starts. During this time of establishing inclusion, instructors must be engaged in the course. They must show learners they are present. Instructors should be active participants in communicating with students, discussing their backgrounds, highlighting similarities and differences, and using inquiry to learn more about their students. They may also refer to course guidelines, policies and procedures discussed above, so students better understand the classroom environment.

Developing attitude. Helping learners feel positively about content and the learning process is facilitated by building on students' personal experiences and knowledge, in addition to incorporating learner autonomy into curricular planning [5]. Addressing the relevance of the course content to students' lives and creating opportunities for student volition in the learning environment are the foundational aspects of this element. Learners see the relevance of content when they are able to relate it to their lives and experiences. It is important to note that often, textbooks and curriculum are designed for mainstream, majority cultural groups. Therefore, it is imperative to contextualize learning activities in the learners' background experiences and knowledge base. Instructors can use what they've learned while working to establish inclusion (discussed in the previous section) to develop attitude.

One way to address the issue of developing attitude is by supplementing curriculum with materials reflective of diverse identities. For example, in adult English language classes, educators often find informative essays about national and ethnic groups on the Internet, in addition to using international newspapers' English language resources. These provide linguistically-accessible materials that are written from the cultural point of view of the students. Another strategy is to incorporate materials that present images and experiences from members of minority groups, focusing on racial and sexual identities, for example. These inclusive materials create spaces for learners from those communities to add their sometimes-marginalized voices to the class. Additionally, allowing learners to share their own experiences relative to course topics helps the learner to attach meaning to the learning activity; thereby creating cultural connections between mainstream topics and their lives. In the online classroom, instructors have to create spaces for these things to happen, they have to allow for time for these things to happen, and they have to be present in order to guide the activity. Activities such as jigsaw reading or peer teaching can easily be implemented through various technologies and can help facilitate learning in a culturally-responsive way, however in order for them to be successful, they must be set up appropriately, with clear guidelines and examples, and with time to allow students to participate and the instructor to be present and involved.

Teachers empower students when encouraging them to take charge of their own learning. This can include activities in which learners formulate their own goals and desired outcomes (at the course, lesson or assignment level) and engage in self-assessment of achievement of those goals. This can also include giving learners the option of selecting from a variety of learning activities. They might also ask students to search for books, articles, research, or activities that are relevant to the student's background and to course content, and then share them with the class (or develop book reports, literature reviews or other written or video-based assignments). By viewing the curriculum design process as a collaborative activity, teachers will establish a learning environment that is relevant to their learners' lives, as well as one in which learners feel autonomy over their learning. This also helps the instructor to develop a collection of culturally relevant materials related to his or her course.

While an important aspect of developing attitude is the idea that students take charge of their own learning, it is also important that instructors set guidelines, instructions, and parameters for assignments. These things help to ensure an appropriate level of academic rigor and a level of standardization for all students in the course, which is important when evaluating student performance. As an example, an instructor may ask his or her students to write a review of a book of their choosing related to course topics. Instructions for the assignment might include guidelines for the types of books allowed, page number requirements, style and formatting requirements, and key issues to address in the report. The student has control of their learning because they are able to choose the book, but the instructor sets standards for all students in the course to ensure an appropriate level of academic rigor.

Conversely, it is very easy for online students to become frustrated and tune out in online courses that lack appropriate structure. In the online classroom, students typically don't get immediate feedback from the instructor (or immediate answers to their questions), so developing and communicating guidelines and parameters is all the more important.

Enhancing meaning. Another element of culturally responsive teaching is making learning meaningful and engaging students in reflection and critical inquiry. Learning gains meaning when learners are able to understand the purpose and utility of their learning. The acquisition of new knowledge should be a welcoming process rather than a foreboding one marked by inaccessible vocabulary and content-specific jargon. Effective teachers will offer numerous opportunities for learners to explore and create new meanings together and encouraging them to ground their understanding in their own stories and narratives. The culturally responsive teacher lays this foundation with guidelines and mutual establishment of the norms for online communication. Central to this element is helping students develop a critical perspective, which can be accomplished by helping students connect course content to their own cultural experiences or to the cultural experiences of others. Making connections between course content and students' identities (considering the many different dimensions and levels of identity) is also critical. In the online classroom, these types of things can be done through synchronous class chat sessions, synchronous or asynchronous discussions, or video-based discussions. These types of activities can be facilitated by students, as well. Activities such as "Think, Pair, Share," are designed to help students integrate new knowledge with prior knowledge, develop questions, summarize information, and apply what they've learned in class. These types of activities can be done in virtual learning environments, and can help students to consider multiple perspectives, critically analyze their own assumptions, and develop deeper level understanding of course topics.

Problem-based learning (or problem posing) can be used to make learning meaningful to students, and to also help them in critical inquiry. Games, activities, simulations, and case studies all fall under the category of problem-based education. Problem-based learning lends itself well to online learning. Case studies can be analyzed, discussed and debated, simulations can be worked through, and games can be played in the online classroom. Students can work individually or on teams. From a culturally responsive teaching standpoint, many of these things can be customized so they are more relatable to students. Case studies, for example, can be modified so students more closely identify with the actors, situations, and settings in the case. Instructors and students can develop their own case studies, as well, using a culturally responsive perspective.

Engendering competence. The final element, engendering competence, is comprised of practices that show the learner evidence of his or her learning and proficiency and the use of assessments that are contextualized in the learners' experiences [5].

This requires the use of effective assessment tools that relate to the students' backgrounds and allow them to demonstrate mastery in a variety of ways. This often includes the use of performance-based or portfolio assessments, student-invented dialogues, focused reflections, and journals.

Problem-based learning activities, such as those above, can be accompanied by opportunities for students to critically reflect on what they've learned. While the same types of activities may be used at this stage, they may be used on a different level than they might have in the enhancing meaning stage. Rather than a case study that involves a unit of class, for example, a culminating case study, requiring students to synthesize what they've learned throughout the course may be used here. Instructors may post prompts or questions for critical reflection, and students can complete reflection papers, online diaries, post on blogs, or create video diaries that demonstrate their competency and proficiency, while focus on assessing broader course concepts.

Creating a culturally responsive online classroom requires planning and engagement throughout the course. The four elements of the "Motivational Framework of Culturally Responsive Teaching" serve as an effective guide for online instructors. Bearing in mind that these elements are not meant to be completed in linear progression but in a cyclical manner, instructors can examine their teaching practices using the following questions:

To establish inclusion, how do I acknowledge the cultural identities, such as racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and gender identities, of my students?

How do I learn about my students and what they feel is important about the learning experience?

How do I encourage my students to connect with their classmates?

How do I ensure that students feel free to point out class policies that they feel are discriminatory or biased?

To develop attitude, how do I help learners feel positively about content and the learning process, in addition to incorporating learner autonomy into curricular planning?

How do I encourage students to communicate with each other and with me on a deep and meaningful level?

How do I incorporate materials and resources that represent the diverse backgrounds of my students?

To enhance meaning, how do I help students connect to the material in ways that are based in critical reflection and critical inquiry?

How do I incorporate a variety of learning activities and instructional practices?

How do I integrate practical applications into learning activities

How do I require students to examine the curriculum from multiple perspectives?

To engender competence, how do I use authentic and effective assessment that allows them to demonstrate mastery in a variety of ways?

How do I encourage students to take ownership of the learning process?

How do I create space for students to assess their own learning?

Conclusion
There is a dizzying amount of literature available about the theory and rationale underpinning the culturally responsive teaching approach. However, with continued dissemination of the "Motivational Framework of Culturally Responsive Teaching," there is a growing awareness of the importance of incorporating cultural identities of adult learners into the online classroom. In this article, the basic principles of culturally responsive teaching in the context of elearning were presented, in addition to tips for implementing the relevant norms and practices in their online classrooms. As online teachers become more proficient at creating culturally responsive learning environments, they will achieve the goal of establishing equitable and inclusive classes for all their students.
References

[1] Gay, G. Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College Press, New York, 2000.

[2] Heitner, K. L. and Jennings, M. Culturally responsive teaching knowledge and practices of online faculty. Online Learning 20, 4 (2016).

[3] Rose, D.H., and Meyer, A. Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal design for learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Alexandria, VA. 2002.

[4] Ladson-Billings, G. Crossing over to Canaan: The journey of new teachers in diverse classrooms. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2001.

[5] Ginsberg, M. and Wlodkowski, R. Diversity and motivation: Culturally responsive teaching in college. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2009.

[6]Lehman, R. M. and Conceição, S. C. O. Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2010.

About the Authors

Christy M. Rhodes, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the College of Education at East Carolina University. She has been involved in adult basic education and literacy throughout her career, working with adult English language learners in the U.S. and abroad. Her research focuses on the ways adult educators create inclusive learning environments and the culturally responsive teaching framework. She is currently adapting the Culturally Responsive Teaching Survey (CRTS) for use in adult basic education classes, in addition to adult English language classes. She is currently on the Board of Directors for the National Coalition of Literacy and serves as the Co-Director of the Commission for Adult Basic Education and Literacy of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education.

Steven W. Schmidt, Ph.D. is a professor of adult education and the Adult Education Program Coordinator in the Department of Interdisciplinary Professions at East Carolina University, in Greenville, North Carolina. He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in adult education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. Prior to his faculty appointment, he worked in employee training and development at Harley-Davidson Motor Company. In his teaching, research, and consulting work, Dr. Schmidt specializes in online teaching and learning and workplace training and development. He served as president of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education in 2014 (www.aaace.org) and is the author of two books: Organization and Administration of Adult Education Programs and Case Studies and Activities in Adult Education and Human Resource Development.

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2018 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. 535-394X/18/11-3274756

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Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Online Classroom

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eLearn Magazine is a leading source of high-quality information on the uses of online learning and training strategies in a variety of contexts for K-12, higher education, and the corporate workforce.eLearn Magazine presents new technologies and approaches for creating, delivering, and supporting online instruction and workplace performance.

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Imagine a day in the life of a student in a traditional school setting. First-grade students greet their teachers with special handshakes as they enter the classroom. Principals hand out high-fives in the hallways. Middle schoolers huddle together during homeroom to discuss their favorite TV shows as they wait to hear the morning announcements over the intercom. Fifth graders sit in a circle as their teacher leads them in a mindfulness exercise to start the day present and focused.

In the wake of coronavirus school closures, educators, parents, and students across the globe are coping with a new reality. How can educators continue to foster a sense of belonging with students while schools are closed and learning has shifted online? What are ways to maintain strong teacher-student relationships and keep students engaged?

In this post, we'll explore research on belonging and connectedness, the key tenets of virtual communication for educators, and effective strategies for building virtual connectedness.

Download Toolkit: 5 Restorative Practices for Building Belonging with Students

I. Research on Sense of Belonging II. Tenets of Virtual Communication and Collaboration III. 8 Strategies for Building Connectedness Virtually IV. Additional Resources
What the Research Says About In-Person and Virtual Connectedness

Research suggests that students with a high sense of belonging are also happier, healthier, and more engaged learners.

Not only is connectedness linked to better academic outcomes, but students who feel connected to school are less likely to skip school, abuse substances, have emotional distress, or be involved in fighting or bullying behavior.

So, can educators still promote student belonging in virtual spaces? Research from the children's media field suggests that technology can, indeed, facilitate meaningful connection. Joint media engagement-a relatively new concept-refers to using technology and media as a co-engagement or co-viewing tool between adults and children. Multiple studies show that a healthier way for children to interact with technology (especially screen media) is if an adult is physically or virtually present and participating in usage with the child. The positive benefits increase when the technology delivers high-quality educational content.

This means that educators can design-or adapt-educational activities, virtual lessons, and online social-emotional learning programs to foster connectedness online. That connectedness can be between students and peers, students and their caregivers, or students and their teacher.

"Students with a high sense of belonging are happier, healthier, and more engaged learners... and less likely to skip school, abuse substances, have emotional distress, or be involved in fighting or bullying behavior."

Tenets of Virtual Communication and Connection

Communication (with students and their caregivers) is a key component to helping students build a strong sense of belonging online. Here are some guiding principles for communicating and connecting with students virtually:

Clear and Consistent. Be clear in your written and oral communication with students and their families. In addition, consistency of timing and cadence can help families anticipate your communications and schedule their days appropriately.

Proactive and Reciprocal. Proactive communication can help you anticipate the needs of students and your community. It can also encourage students and families to proactively communicate with you and other school staff members, and can ensure that they know the best methods to do so.

Authentic and Familiar. Maintain the teaching style you use in the classroom to recreate a sense of comfortability for students. This could mean using similar language and phrases that you would use in the classroom.

Flexible. To meet the needs of all learners, consider multiple options for communication and student participation. Can you call a family to deliver a morning announcement if they do not have access to high-speed internet? Can you provide a pen-and-paper option for a virtual activity? Consider these tips on strategies in special education as children learn from home and resources for English-language and diverse learners.

Creative and Innovative. With so many different virtual tools at your disposal, make sure to take advantage of them. Virtual adaptations are great opportunities to innovate and try something new. See this time as a way to think creatively about ways to reach each student and consider trying tools such as Padlet or Flipgrid.

"To meet the needs of all learners, consider multiple options for communication and student participation. Can you call a family to deliver a morning announcement if they don't have access to high-speed internet? Can you provide a pen-and-paper option for a virtual activity?"

8 Strategies for Building Connectedness Virtually

1. Host a virtual morning meeting.

In typical classroom life, routines are an important way to build connection. Create ways for students to still experience these routines at home! Virtual morning (or afternoon) meetings via a web conferencing service, like Zoom or Google Hangouts, are one way to bring students together routinely -- whether that means hosting a check-in circle, connecting with social-emotional learning activities, or participating in group mindfulness practice. If a student is unable to attend, you might invite them to write a message to their classmates in advance that you can share during the meeting.

Download this toolkit to access templates for virtual morning announcements.

2. Record and share videos or audio clips.

To simulate daily or weekly announcements that students hear over the intercom, consider recording short video or audio clips and sending them out via email or text. These announcements can include student birthday shout-outs, important resource information, or updates on school policies. For students without access to high-speed internet, try calling by phone instead. Many educators recommend rotating through groups of students each day to make the phone calls manageable.

3. Take your class on a virtual field trip.

Many museums, zoos and cultural centers are offering digital tours for free. You and your students can go together (or asynchronously) to museums in Sao Paulo and Paris, watch live footage of animals at a zoo, or walk through Yellowstone National Park. To supplement this activity, consider creating a scavenger hunt for students as they explore individually, and then come together to share-out findings and wonderings in a chat room or video conference.

4. Send daily or weekly newsletters to families and/or students.

Get creative with these communications! Consider recording and uploading a video to include in the email. Many teachers have recorded themselves reading a children's book, conducting a science experiment in the kitchen, or even delivering a short lesson. You can also include academic lessons or SEL strategies to try at home. If you are already using a tool for family engagement (such as ClassDojo or Remind), you can use the messaging capabilities in those apps to send the newsletters.

5. Build a virtual classroom hub, website, or blog.

Using Google Classroom, Google Sites, WordPress, or other free services, you can create a class website or blog for your students to access. Once built, you can add various activities-from virtual journaling to resources for additional learning and movement.

6. Moderate a classroom chat or discussion board.

Host small or large online chats with students using platforms such as Zoom, Canvas, or Google Hangouts. Provide prompts to students ahead of time, especially if you'll be discussing academic content. You can also position the online chats as quick check-ins or informal time for students to connect . Students can also submit ideas about what they'd like to chat with their peers about.

7. Host informal office hours.

Dedicate one to two hours per week to holding office hours in a video conference or chat room. This can allow for students, caregivers, or fellow teachers to connect with you to ask questions, share how they are feeling, or just say hello.

8. Collect and share virtual notes of gratitude and appreciation.

Over the course of a week, ask students to submit notes of appreciation about their peers. Compile these notes in a slide deck or on your classroom website to share with students, caregivers, and staff.
Download this toolkit to access templates on Google Forms and Google Slides for "notes of gratitude."

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8 Strategies for Building Belonging With Students and Families Virtually

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Imagine a day in the life of a student in a traditional school setting. First-grade students greet their teachers with special handshakes as they enter the classroom. Principals hand out high-fives in the hallways. Middle schoolers huddle together during homeroom to discuss their favorite TV shows as they wait to hear the morning announcements over the intercom.

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Apps for Kids with Special Needs and Learning Disabilities | Common Sense Media

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Find apps, games, and other tools to help kids with special needs and learning disabilities acquire and improve skills from communication and reading to math.

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Three weeks ago the world of education was turned upside down. As they prepared to return from spring break, teachers and students found an unexpected message in their inboxes: you will be returning to the classroom. There was no mention of how long this uncertainty would last, nor what "online learning" would look like (no one knew the answer to either of those questions ... yet). Many school districts rose to the occasion like champions and did the unthinkable: developed a whole new system of eLearning in about 48 hours. But a certain group of students was left in the lurch.

Imagine coming to a new country, then being asked to sign on to new technological platforms with a keyboard that uses completely foreign symbols. The directions to sign on to those platforms read like a technical manual to fix the washer and dryer. This is the experience of many English learners. Perhaps for this reason, newcomers seemed to struggle more with eLearning than other groups as teachers reported students' engagement online. In spite of these challenges, Frisco ISD (near Dallas, Texas) has found four solutions to foster newcomer engagement with eLearning, and they are simpler than one would think.

Explicitly Teach the Technology with Comprehensible Input.

We already know that English learners need visuals along with spoken and written English. A lot of online learning has removed the visuals and spoken English from instruction. The solution for this is to model how to complete the assignment and allow students to see your screen as you do so. There are many free applications available for this: Loom, Screencastify, and Screencast-o-matic are a few. After creating the "how-to videos," I uploaded them to YouTube and made a channel specifically for my students. No matter what country they are from, every child and adolescent seems to be familiar with YouTube! Newcomer students have expressed relief and appreciation for these videos, even though they were created in an amateur manner.

Keep Lessons Simple

Frisco ISD encourages all of its teachers to use the same, simple online lesson template, which can be found on the schools' websites. We focus on power standards and building on skills the students already have available to them. Additionally, parents who may struggle with English themselves need a simple, one-stop place to understand teachers' expectations for their children. Here is an example from my ESL ILA class at Fowler Middle School.

Monday
1. Watch " Intro to the Week" video by Mrs. Diaz
2. Login to our new Google Classroom: ESL ILA. You have received an email inviting you to ESL ILA on Google Classroom.

, but Mrs. Diaz will check that every student has accepted the invitation..

Tuesday
Google Classroom Assignment: " What are Biometrics?" Watch the video: "Science of Innovation" on Youtube ( with captions).

Submit the Google document: "Science of Innovation." on Google Classroom.

Incorporate Rich, Authentic Experiences of Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing Every Week.

The temptation exists with online learning to have students read an article, then write about it. However, all four domains of language must still be incorporated into online learning for optimum language growth. Fortunately, there are a plethora of applications that students may use to listen, speak, and record themselves. Students and teachers enjoy SeeSaw, Bulb, Flipgrid, Adobe Spark, and Nearpod to make videos and record themselves speaking.

When I've asked students to make these videos, sometimes they've turned in more than one video on the same topic. When I asked them why, students responded that after watching their video, they didn't like "their voice" or how it appeared, and they wanted to try again and make it better. Recording themselves allows students to think reflectively about their communication skills, which is so important for all future-ready learners, not just ELs.

Create Meaningful Connection

As the shelter-in-place mandate (or stay-at-home orders) went into effect, all students suffered from the loss of their social connections. Yet new English learners' loss may even be greater. Many have not been in the country long enough to develop strong social networks, and their families may live a sea away. Students are desperate to connect with others in a meaningful way. One former Fowler student did this by teaching the elderly technology. See: " Teens Help Seniors Stay Engaged by Offering Tech Tutoring," (NBC-DFW News). Numerous studies cite how altruism reduces feelings of isolation. But if this is unattainable, a simple video conference in which a teacher tells his or her students that they are doing well in spite of all of these challenges makes such a difference for young people feeling isolated.

Incorporating these four simple strategies into online instruction will certainly increase student engagement. And if eLearning can be done well, we may find ourselves with unprecedented opportunities. As a newcomer sits in front of a computer screen, her affective filter is way down - in fact, non-existent. She feels free to pause her teacher's discourse, to "rewind" it and listen again if she didn't understand the first time. When she sat in the classroom and a teacher stood before her, she felt much too shy to ask her to repeat what she just said. Now the English learner is finally taking ownership of her own learning and asking reflective questions: do I understand what is being said? And, what do I need to do to understand better?

As the English learner begins to take greater ownership and self-advocate in eLearning, the teacher is also presented with an opportunity. The teacher finds her time and energy freed to teach higher-level thinking skills: to think, and the nuances of language and culture. Perhaps this adventure in eLearning will fundamentally change the way we educators approach learning in general, and both we and our students will be better for it. (M.A., Intercultural Studies) is an ESL teacher and language coach at Fowler Middle School in Frisco ISD. She has been privileged to serve various languages, cultures and socio-economic groups in Texas, California, and Honduras. Connect with Elise on Twitter
Elise White Diaz@elisewhitediaz.

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What Does Sheltered Instruction Look Like for eLearning?

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by Elise White Diaz Three weeks ago the world of education was turned upside down. As they prepared to return from spring break, teachers and students found an unexpected message in their inboxes: you will not be returning to the classroom. There was no mention of how long this uncertainty would last, nor what "online...

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Teaching online is like traveling to a new country. You're not really sure where anything is, you are afraid to try new things because you might be embarrassed, and you miss the ease of your old daily life and the ability to connect seamlessly with others.

On the other hand, it can be very exciting to see student learning in new and different ways, you can take pride in the growth you experience while learning new instructional strategies, and you will make connections that sometimes can be even more meaningful because you have the opportunity for one-on-one interactions.

This article will give you some ideas on how to navigate this journey as you plan instruction for your English language learners (ELLs) through distance learning.

Needs Assessment

It's important to start your planning by looking more closely at the factors that will impact the success of your students' experiences with distance learning. You can use this downloadable needs assessment for planning ELLs' distance learning, which includes considerations for both offline and online learning.

The tools covers multiple topics; you may wish to read through them all to see which are most relevant to your work or complete the tool as part of a team. The questions can be used by individuals or teams. I also recommend ELL teachers work with grade level and/or content area teams to review these questions so all educators are on the same page when considering how to deliver instruction and what supports should be in place for students and families.

Once the team has reviewed tool, they can determine their priorities and where to put their energy for planning instruction.

District planning examples

Here are some ELL district planning documents that we have used in Roseville, MN:

Distance Learning Strategies

Survey: Distance Learning & ELLs

What does distance learning look like for ELLs in your district? Tell us in this brief survey.

Note: This section refers to some specific platforms by name, although your district may use other approved platforms. It's critical to understand online security risks for children and take measures to protect students' privacy as part of your planning.

1. Get to know your tools.

Take a look at our needs assessment and the section on tools for instruction. Depending on what Learning Management System (LMS) your district uses, there may be tutorials to help you learn how to use these instructional tools.

Keep in mind that:

the focus should be on how the tools can best support teaching and learning goals rather than on the tools themselves

it's best not to introduce too many new tools - otherwise students will spend their time learning the tools rather than learning the content

your district may have a list of approved and vetted platforms for distance learning.

See more in 4 Buckets Manage ALL Our Virtual School Tech by Tan Huynh.

2. Establish a structured learning environment.

This is a lot like arranging your classroom at the beginning of the year - without the inspiring posters! Decide what tools you want students to use regularly (only pick a few) and set up the dashboard or learning activity page. For example, you may want to have a calendar with assignments, announcements, discussion board, and a chat room. Students will know what to do every week because the lesson structure repeats with different content.

For example:

open with a video greeting that you have recorded

do two readings

comment on the discussion board

connect with a partner

write or record (audio or video) a short discussion of your take-aways from the learning, etc.

See more ideas in Five Structures for Virtual School from Tan Huynh's Empowering ELLs blog.

3. Emphasize language production.

Remember to keep the focus on academic learning and to avoid providing only skills-based activities, even if your primary activity is content review. If students are isolated in their homes, they are not likely to have much English language exposure. While this is a valuable time for students to deepen their native language skills with family members, it is critical that teachers build in activities that require students to share their thinking in English.

Look for ways to build interaction, even if you aren't using video. For example, students can post messages via writing, audio, and video and respond to each other. Recordings should be short - three to five minutes in general. If you want to try out sharing your own tips on distance learning for ELs, post to this Flipgrid!

Another strategy is to create videos that students can watch at their convenience and review multiple times for practice. (Some teachers have noted that their ELLs are struggling to keep up with "live" instruction and would benefit from videos they can review multiple times.) You may wish to share greetings, lessons, and important information this way.

See additional ideas in these posts:

4. Scaffold supports.

Differentiate instruction and activities to accommodate different English language proficiency levels. This may mean that you have different sections and tasks for identified students. If you have mainstream students performing closer to grade level, they may interact with the content tasks with minimal support.

For beginning level English learners, however, you will need to analyze the instruction, readings, and activities to provide accommodations such as:

native language or simple English explanations through video

more visuals

native language or leveled English text

an activity completed in a small group rather than independently.

Pairs and groups can be assigned in online learning platforms and it can be helpful for students to collaborate on learning just like in the classroom. Online learning doesn't mean everything has to be done in isolation - many young people are used to connecting with each other through electronic platforms and this is no different.

5. Get those creative juices flowing. (We all have them!)

Many teachers are not going to love online teaching and may grieve the lack of daily interaction with students. It is important to keep a sense of fun and personalization in the online environment. This is an opportunity to reconnect with the creative juices that might be dormant!

Students like it when teachers share little personal stories or pictures. They will also enjoy doing more creative projects and sharing them online. This could be a VoiceThread or Adobe Spark presentation, which allows students to create a slideshow and explain each slide verbally. Their classmates can respond on each slide with a text or verbal response. It's also a good opportunity for a project presentation video or graphic design/artwork assignment.

Give students choices of how to demonstrate their learning - they may surprise you with the creative work they share. My son had a talent for creating music playlists and he created a themed playlist for an assignment explaining how each song related to his insights in a novel. He also dressed up as Arthur Dent for a creative book review and I could not figure out for four months where my ratty green bathrobe had gone...until we cleaned his locker at the end of the year!

6. Look for ways to support social-emotional learning.

Many teachers have shared that their ELLs are valuing the chance to connect with them and their peers as well as continue their education through distance learning. Look for ways to help provide positive encouragement, continue building relationships, and offer support during a time of anxiety and stress. This is especially important for students who may have experienced trauma and a lot of upheaval, like refugees or students with interrupted education - particularly given the abrupt nature of many of the national school shutdowns.

For some great ideas, take a look at:

You can also look for ways to connect content to students' experiences and cultures through culturally relevant instruction.

Online Activities for ELLs

Here are some examples of activities for ELLs, with a focus on oral language development and content development.

1. Students can upload videos of themselves reading their favorite books.

2. Students can write and draw responses to a prompt (for example, "What is one way you can be helpful to your family at home?") and then students can leave questions or comments for each other.

3. Students can film themselves solving a math problem or record themselves explaining how they solved the problem, and the teacher can provide feedback.

4. Students can interview someone in their family that is important to them and create a presentation to share. They can present in both English and native language and include photos or short videos with quotes from their important person. Other students can leave written or verbal comments on slides in English or the students native language.

5. Teacher can create a presentation with slides and voice narration on a platform like VoiceThread. Students can respond orally or in writing to questions posed in the VoiceThread.

6. Teacher can provide a slideshow with visuals on a content topic and resource links for students to learn about the topic. Different students are assigned a few slides to narrate for their classmates to learn about the topic. A variation of this is for students to each get a different topic related to the unit (after learning about it from the teacher) and have them create a group presentation on that topic to share with the class.

Activity: Pass the Paper

Post a short text or image as a prompt to start the discussion.

Round 1: Everyone posts a word, phrase, or short comment about the prompt (depending on age/proficiency levels) via written response, audio, or video.

Round 2: Everyone adds a question related to a classmate's round 1 post.

Round 3: Everyone adds an answer to a classmate's question from round 2.

Round 4: Students review all questions and answers on the grid and use the information to help them write (or record) a reflection that they send to the teacher.

Planning Instruction

Once you have a sense of your goals and what tools you will use for distance learning, you can focus on developing a unit of lessons. A weekly plan as part of a learning unit can help you maintain the same structure and learning activities each week. If students get used to the structure of the online learning course or the materials they receive weekly, they can use their mental energy on language and content learning.

An example of a weekly online instructional schedule might look like this for secondary English learners:

Lesson Launch:

Introduce topic w/ video and essential question

Students interact on a discussion board and share one take-away and one question regarding each reading.

Assign group project to students related to the learning objective. (Students work in Google docs or Padlet) to create a visual to upload and share with the class.

1/2 page written reflection is submitted.

Written reflections are evaluated and feedback comments are shared in writing.

Assign two readings.

Assign 1/2 page written reflection on the essential question using evidence from text to support claims. Due Thursday.

Teacher shares link to recorded video mini-lecture on the topic.

Teacher meets with the students to have a class / small group discussion on the essential question. Teacher can share sentence stems.

Teacher shares snippets of quality written responses to the essential question through messages or class discussions and discusses what makes the response a quality example.

An example online instruction schedule might look like this for elementary English learners:

Lesson Launch:

Introduce topic w/ video and essential question

Students read aloud from books that have been sent home or available online via Epic (free to school closure) or RAZ Kids (fee based).

Assign two independent student learning activities related to the learning objective.

1/2 page written reflection is submitted by returning a packet or taking a photo of response and submitting it.

Written reflections are evaluated and feedback comments are shared in writing.

Assign two student learning activities such as a game or learning app.

Teacher introduces by video the academic language structures needed to share their thinking about essential video.

Students write 1/2 page response to the essential question using sentence frames. For beginning ELs, provide scaffolded support such as a graphic organizer with pictures and key vocabulary.

Teacher meets with the students to have a class / small group discussion on the essential question. Teacher can share sentence stems.

Teacher shares snippets of quality written responses to the essential question through messages or class discussions and discusses what makes the response a quality example.

Sample lesson: An online lesson for ELLs

An online lesson plan takes into account the asynchronous (not in real time) learning environment and need for active learning in different ways. It is unlikely that a teacher and students will be able to meet live every day at the same time, so the lesson will be prepared and shared online for students and families to work with according to their own schedule and access to a device or Wi-Fi. The lesson, which is part of a larger unit, will include certain elements such as student engagement, language production, demonstrating content learning, critical thinking tasks, scaffolded supports and an assessment.

Here is a sample lesson plan for a 3rd grade EL level 2 student group. The lesson will be delivered with SeeSaw. Here is the EL Distance Learning Lesson Plan fillable template.

Standard: 4-ESS2-1

Make observations and/or measurements to provide evidence of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation.

Content Objective:

I can observe the impact of erosion.

I can give evidence to support my explanation of my observation.

Language Objective:

I can explain the impact of erosion using observation evidence in a sentence frame, "I observed that when ________ then ___________."

Introduction:

"Today we will learn about erosion. Erosion is when earth or rocks are worn away by water or wind. You will do a home experiment to learn about erosion and explain your observation on SeeSaw."

Modeling:

Show students how to set up the experiment using the materials listed in the lesson. Introduce the sentence frame and any key vocabulary by stating an example sentence for the students. "I observed that erosion happened when I poured a lot of water on the dirt."

Activity/assignment:

For your experiment you will put dirt in a small tub and put the tub at an angle or slope. Make some holes in an empty pop bottle then fill it with water and hold it over the dirt. What happens if you try different things?
1. If the dirt tub is at a higher slope?
2. If the dirt tub is flat?
3. If you have a little water come out?
4. If you have a lot of water come out?

Reflection: After students have seen each other's video explanations of the experiment, they will write an exit ticket on Padlet to state one thing they know about erosion and one thing they liked from the activity.

Teacher reflection: From the exit tickets, I can see that the students understand that more erosion happens when the slope is higher and there is more water. Next time I will think of alternatives to certain materials since not all students had dirt for the experiment.

Scaffolded support for different language proficiencies: (click all that apply in the lesson)

Adapted from Generation Genius: Weathering and Erosion - grades 3 - 5 lesson plan

Online learning tools

Here are three platforms that your district may be using. This is not an endorsement of any one product, but rather a quick guide to some resources teachers have used successfully with ELLs.

You can learn more about the privacy ratings of these and other platforms from the Common Sense Privacy Evaluation program. Please ask for guidance on the most secure ways to use any platform, including those listed below, with a particular eye on protecting personally identifiable information (PII) for ELLs and immigrant students.

Note: Some districts do not permit the use of video or images of students for security reasons. To learn more about protecting student privacy for ELLs and immigrant students, see our related resource section. Keep in mind that some free platforms may sell data to third-party vendors. In addition, Zoom is facing increased scrutiny for security problems.

Seesaw article: Remote Learning for Teachers

Privacy evaluation: Seesaw (Common Sense Media)

Strengths:

1. Focus on oral language production
2. Family connection
3. Ease of use
4. Visual platform
5. Free

Tool: Flipgrid

Flipgrid article: Remote Learning with Flipgrid

Privacy evaluation: Flipgrid (Common Sense Media)

Strengths:
1. Focus on oral language production
2. Student-to-Student connection
3. Ease of use - multiple classes
4. Visual platform
5. Free

Tool: VoiceThread

Website resources: Digital Database of Successful VoiceThread Projects

Privacy evaluation: VoiceThread (Common Sense Media)

1. Content presentation with oral and written language production
2. Student-to-Student connection
3. Ease of use - project based and collaborative
4. Visual platform
5. Free

Assessment and Feedback

Using rubrics

Students need feedback in order to learn. Whatever platform you use, you will need to determine how you will give feedback on their learning. If it is online, students can use rubrics for assignments and receive comments verbally or in writing. Comments can be encouraging and individualized to help them learn how to apply the feedback. In a non-digital system, teachers will need to try other approaches, such as phone calls, to students to review their work and questions.

A clear rubric for content and language production is helpful to guide the students' work. Allow students to revise work because it is about learning, not perfection. It's also highly likely that students will not fully understand what is expected in a task due to the new learning format. Use "second attempts" as an opportunity for them to apply your feedback and demonstrate learning.

The importance of regular feedback

The best feedback will happen frequently in multiple areas of the digital space. It could be on the discussion board, individual assignments or larger projects. Since students can't see you, they need to know you are there through your interaction and encouraging feedback. You may be nervous in this new platform and they are equally (if not more) nervous because they want to do well and they need to hear from you daily so they know they are on the right track.

Remember they do not have the advantage of asking questions in a classroom and getting your feedback as they work, so give them additional opportunities in the digital platform. We are asking learners who rely on a lot of classroom scaffolded supports to be successful to become independent learners overnight. The chart below shows the intersection between language skills and learning - how a student's language abilities impact their independent learning level.
Continuum of Language and Learning

DEPENDENT

INDEPENDENT

READING/ WRITING

Marisa

Tomas

LISTENING/

Tomas

SPEAKING

Marisa

Grading

Keep a grade book online so students know what is due, what grades they received (if grades are being used) and the feedback for assignments. If beginning-level students are attempting assignments in an online platform, teachers may want to advocate for a Pass/No Pass grading system because they will be working very hard in a language they don't fully understand to demonstrate their learning. (Some districts are using Pass/No Pass more broadly.)

Tips for Collaboration

Just as planning instruction for distance learning will take intentional thought and planning, so will collaboration. The good news is that there may be new kinds of opportunities for collaborating as it becomes an even more critical piece of the puzzle during this time of school closures, especially for ELLs. There also may be new kinds of instruction happening, such as project-based learning or more content-specific lessons, that will lend themselves well to collaboration among content-area teachers and EL educators.

Other teachers are also great resources for instructional problem-solving; collaboration between general education and ELL teachers will make lessons engaging and accessible for ELLs.

Here are some ideas on how to collaborate on behalf of ELs at a distance, which can be used among individuals or larger groups. These strategies can also be used for colleagues who have an established partnership, as well as those who are new to collaborating. And remember that it may be much easier to start small - choose just one strategy that fits your schedule and workload, and think about how to use it strategically!

Check in with a colleague to see whether they are in touch with ELLs and their families and if they need suggestions on how to make contact.

Check in with a colleague on whether they need some ideas on how to support EL instruction.

Invite a colleague to co-plan and/or co-teach a lesson.

Ask a colleague to share a question or challenge they would like to address.

Share examples of how you are collaborating more broadly with colleagues (and ask the people who are already partnering with you to do the same).

Send a note to colleagues whom you haven't worked with before introducing yourself, briefly explaining your role, and sharing ideas on how you might work together.

Share examples of student work, successful student activities, or strategies for distance learning/family engagement that seem to working well for ELs in your school or district.

Partner with a team on behalf of a specific student, group of students, or family.

Consider sending out a strategy or resource idea on a regular basis to colleagues.

Final Thoughts

It's okay to feel a range of emotions as you begin this new distance learning adventure. Remember you are making history! Also remember that you are not alone and it's important to develop your own professional learning community around this work. Since the whole world is going through an online teaching revolution due to school closings, there are a myriad (almost too many) of resources available to help with online learning.

To keep from being overwhelmed:

Don't get lost in the weeds of all the choices.

Keep your focus clearly on what you want students to learn.

Think of a creative project.

Use one or two "go to" apps that work for you and your students to adjust to this new learning environment.

Think of e-learning as Emergency Learning - and you are a learner.

Don't forget to take care of yourself.

When the Apollo 13 crew was in danger, great minds got together and solved the seemingly impossible problem of placing a square vent in a round hole. This is our opportunity to bring our great minds together and do what seems impossible - teach all students through distance learning. With creativity, a good team and some extra pots of coffee, you will succeed!

Recommended Resources

For additional resources, see:

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Distance Learning for ELLs: Planning Instruction

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Teaching online is like traveling to a new country. You're not really sure where anything is, you are afraid to try new things because you might be embarrassed, and you miss the ease of your old daily life and the ability to connect seamlessly with others.

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6. What are the components of sheltered English instruction?

While teachers of ELLs have used sheltered English instruction for many years, a consistent understanding of the components of sheltered instruction has emerged only within the past five years. In 1999 the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) was developed following intensive observation of sheltered English teaching across the United States (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004). The SIOP identifies 30 important elements of sheltered instruction under eight broad categories:

Critical to effective sheltered instruction is the preparation of learning objectives for every lesson. These include content objectives, aligned with state and local content-area standards, and language objectives, aligned with state language proficiency benchmarks or language arts standards, or the national TESOL standards. Teachers communicate content and language objectives to students, design activities to achieve objectives throughout the lesson, and assess progress toward objectives by the end of the lesson. In this way learning, teaching and assessment are integrated into an ongoing process that provides feedback to students and informs future instruction.

Within each sheltered lesson the teacher seeks to ensure that students have sufficient background knowledge to tackle new curriculum material. Teachers modify their speech and, when necessary and feasible, content text so that English language learners can grasp important content concepts, facts, and questions. Teachers explicitly teach learning strategies - from teacher-centered to peer-supported to student centered - so that students develop a toolkit for accomplishing difficult learning tasks. Teachers also provide ample opportunities for students to interact in the target language around purposeful tasks that are meaningful to them.

Ever mindful of the lesson's framing objectives, sheltering teachers are careful to integrate listening, speaking, reading and writing skills into each lesson. They provide opportunities for students to apply their new knowledge through tasks that involve concepts and skills students have learned. Sheltering teachers work to engage all students at least 95% of the time in instructional activity, at the same time paying attention to pacing, so that no student is left behind.

Reference:

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D.J. (2004). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson.

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What are the components of sheltered English instruction?

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6. What are the components of sheltered English instruction? While teachers of ELLs have used sheltered English instruction for many years, a consistent understanding of the components of sheltered instruction has emerged only within the past five years.

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[callout]This post is written by Claudio Zavala Jr., an Instructional Technology Coordinator with Duncanville ISD in Duncanville, Texas. This is the second in a series on creating in the classroom with Adobe Spark. You can find Claudio on Twitter @ClaudioZavalaJr or on his blog: iamclaudius.com [/callout]

The ability to create professional looking graphics is a valuable skill to teach. But many of us don't know where to start. Did you know you and your students can easily design stunning visual images in minutes without any graphic design experience?
Want to know how?
With Adobe Spark Post you and your students can create amazing images in minutes. Posts can be created using the web app on Macs, Windows, and Chromebooks. Or build awesome visuals on the go with Adobe Spark Post on iOS and Android devices.

Start by creating an account on spark.adobe.com or download the Adobe Spark Post app to your mobile devices. Both web and mobile apps work the same, with some minor differences in features between the two.

One major difference between the web and the mobile version is the ability to create a template. In mobile version (currently only iOS) you can share an editable template by clicking on Create remixable copy when sharing a Post. It's a great way to promote a theme or just have some fun! Try it out by clicking here: Remix this Design.

Want a walk through using Adobe Spark Post? Check out this tutorial (and remember - Adobe Spark Post works well on a mobile device AND a laptop or Chromebook!):

Ready to get started creating beautiful looking graphics with your students?

Here are 5 ways you can use Adobe Spark Post in your classroom tomorrow!

Memes

If you spend any time on social media, you've probably come across a meme or two. Memes are images or videos captioned with text to express an idea or humorous or inspirational thought. Adobe Spark Post is a perfect tool for creating memes. Students can create memes for classroom rules or procedures, literary works, icebreakers or learning new vocabulary.
Shakespeare Meme Einstein Meme
Character Quotes

Use Adobe Spark Post to create graphics to share an idea or concept based on characters or authors quotes from a text or novel. It's a great way for students to share their understanding of character traits or to analyze characters.
To Kill a Mockingbird Oh! The Places You'll Go
Book Covers

This next activity is applicable to all grade levels. Give them an opportunity to redesign covers of novels or create new ones for short stories.
Book Cover - To Kill A Mockingbird Book Cover - The Pearl Book Cover - Captain Underpants
Story or Comic Strips

One cool feature found in Adobe Spark Post is being able to add multiple images into one graphic. Basically creating a multi-cell or as I like to call it a comic book layout.
Have students create their own sequential stories using their own artwork or photographs. It's a neat way for students to creatively tell a story.
Story Strip Batman and Catwoman Comic Strip
Posters

With Adobe Spark Post, students can create posters for things like school art shows, safety rules, student ASB council and many more. Whether you use the mobile app or desktop version, chose the Print option when selecting a size. This will ensure you get the best print resolution.
Science Safety Poster Vote 4 Julia
Things to Know
Adobe Spark Post projects are synced between all devices. When you work on a project on your mobile device it will sync in the cloud for you to edit later on another device.

Adobe Spark Post is available to all teachers and students. Even better, schools get Premium features that usually cost $9.99/month per user absolutely FREE! Read more about that here.
For notifications of new Ditch That Textbook content and helpful links: Interested in having Matt present at your event or school? Contact him by e-mail! Matt is scheduled to present at the following upcoming events:
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5 ways to use Adobe Spark Post with your class tomorrow - Ditch That Textbook

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callout]This post is written by Claudio Zavala Jr., an Instructional Technology Coordinator with Duncanville ISD in Duncanville, Texas. This is the second in a series on creating in the classroom with Adobe Spark. You can find Claudio on Twitter @ClaudioZavalaJr or on his blog: iamclaudius.com [/callout] The ability to create professional looking graphics is a valuable skill ...

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Modifications / Accommodations in Online Format

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Modifications / Accommodations in Online Format

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Introduction

The field of online and blended learning has a rich history of pursuing personalized and competency-based education. As evidence, consider that at the time of writing this, iNACOL, a major advocacy organization in K-12 online and blended learning had over 50 resources tagged under personalized learning (iNACOL, 2018). This approach to education - an approach that recognizes that each child comes with unique strengths and weaknesses - represents an opportunity to break away from commonly-held mindsets that view students with disabilities from a deficit perspective that often fails to recognize the exceptional strengths these students also possess. All students, not just students with disabilities, benefit from specialized supports and services to differentiate instruction within online programs. Thus, while this report focuses more specifically on supporting students with disabilities in online and blended environments, much of the information here may help all students.

As an aside, it is expected that many readers of this report will be familiar with the background on special education law. Appendix A is provided for those less fluent in this area. Appendix A provides a primer on both Michigan and federal law pertaining to students with disabilities and may be important background context for the rest of the report.

IEP Teams and Online Provider Considerations

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Individual Educational Program (IEP) teams, and those helping to design or deliver the online or blended learning experience, to keep in the forefront of their decision making the difference between the promise of the potential of the technology and the individual needs of the student in question. However, that is not to say that an online or blended learning program will be appropriate for every student and meet every learning need. According to Rice, Deschaine, and Mellard (2018), it is important "... to take a more cautious route because we take seriously the responsibility to make online learning available to everyone, everywhere. To ensure that these goals of increased access are met, educators and scholars need to ask important questions about who is participating in K-12 online learning and whether all students are benefiting (p. 118).

Providing proper supports to students with disabilities in online and blended learning environments requires the attention of all involved in the planning and execution of the student's educational program and plan as well as the aforementioned comprehensive approach to the child. Attention to sound instructional strategies that differentiate learning opportunities, expected learning outcomes, student-specific supports, and student voice can help maximize student success. Because IEP teams play such an integral role in the educational experience of students with disabilities, each individual role on the IEP team can play an important part in shaping the best experience.

Students

Students have always played a central role in their own learning; but with the advent of online and blended learning opportunities, this role is even more pronounced. Students who are affected by disabilities have an important perspective related to their own learning needs and abilities, and their voice needs to be heard. They need to have the opportunity to express the ways that their learning abilities and challenges can influence the development of a quality support program developed for the online and blended learning platforms.

According to the Michigan Administrative Rules for Special Education (MARSE) with Related IDEA Federal Regulations (Michigan Department of Education, 2018), to the greatest extent possible, students should be members of the planning team that is putting together the education plans, programs, goals, objectives, and evaluations for their special education program; this would extend to online and blended learning environments. To be active participants in this process, students must be self-aware of both their abilities and areas in which they struggle, be able to self-advocate and state their needs to the adults responsible for creating and providing the programs and services, and be able to provide feedback throughout their education so revisions can be made to the programs and supports as necessary. Such awareness will likely be difficult for students with no prior familiarity with online learning. Consideration should be given to preparing students through information about or orientations to online learning prior to completing plans so that students can gain a more informed perspective from which to speak and make decisions.

Instructional Staff (General Education Teachers, Special Education Teachers, Paraprofessionals, and Ancillary Support Staff)

Educators continue to have a central role in any educational program developed for students eligible for special education programs and services. Issues related to curriculum, instruction, assessment, materials, methodology, and technology all need to be attended to in order to ensure that the required supports are in place to assist and allow the students with disabilities to be educated in the least restrictive environment in online and blended learning settings.

Educators need to be open minded about instructional potential and advocate for the presentation of all perspectives during the planning process. The needs of the student, parents, programs, and the teachers themselves should be discussed prior to the implementation of a plan. Consequently, educators need to have a great deal of training, information, ideas, and resources to aid them in supporting the needs of students in online and blended learning environments.

Mentors

Students who have disabilities often need additional peer or instructor supports to help them navigate the instructional opportunities and requirements that they experience in school. When appropriate, individuals who act as supports in educational environments should be active members in the development of educational interventions and the implementation of the programs and services, as well as in the evaluation of the program and service effectiveness. In Michigan, online learners are required to have a school employee - or in some cases, the parent - assigned as a mentor. Peers can also be a source of support to students, modeling appropriate behavior in class and in social situtations, for example. Although it may not be realistic, ideally, mentors and peers would have the technological, social, and academic skills necessary to help guide their students. In addition, their insights can be of considerable benefit as a source of informal formative assessment to assist the other team members as they attempt to appropriately plan for and support the student. For more information about these types of supports please see the Grand Valley State University's Statewide Autism Resources.

Parents

Parents are the first teachers of their children and play an important role in their longitudinal educational, social, behavioral, and affective development. As such, parents should be ready to discuss the aspirations and fears they have related to their child's programs. Additionally, parents have a great deal to offer in discussions related to the desired outcomes of yearly plans and the influence online and blended learning have in meeting those desired outcomes. The importance of parents being active members in discussions and plans that are designed and developed to meet the needs of their children receiving special services in online and blended settings cannot be overstated because they will not have the ease that comes from experience interacting with students and other members of the support team in a traditional setting; instead, they will be navigating the technology and design of a unfamiliar modality of teaching and learning.

Parents are provided a great deal of support, deference, and responsibilities for the appropriate programming for their children who are eligible for special education services in Michigan. A top priority of parental involvement in all IEP programs is related to identifying the student's strengths and weaknesses and the most appropriate ways to meet their needs. For our discussion, this input of student capabilities extends to the online and blended learning environment and the areas where supports would be necessary. Since their information and input is critical to success in online learning, all parental input and participation should be officially documented by the IEP team.

Many parents who have not experienced online or blended learning may be inadequately prepared for optimal participation in IEP meetings without being provided the information about what to expect with online learning. One resource that may help educate parents is Michigan Virtual's Parent Guide to Online Learning (2017). Parents wanting more information about their roles and responsibilities related to the educational opportunities for their children are encouraged to contact the administrator of the program responsible for the provision of special education programs and services for their child.

Administrators

Administrators are ultimately responsible for the provision of quality education programs and services for students under their care within their programs. The issues related to providing thoughtful and quality online and blended services and programs for students with disabilities might at first be viewed as a challenging task by most educators. It is the administrator's responsibility to help allay the fears and trepidations of the students, parents, staff, and faculty through the advocacy for good assessment, quality technological supports, integrity of content delivery, powerful and poignant professional development for all involved, and a commitment towards implementation with fidelity across all aspects of the program.

Administrators often are legally the only ones who can obligate the school to provide services and who have the responsibility to allocate school resources to create learning opportunities outside of the traditional educational community where the student receives instruction. A willingness to explore options and to identify resources is necessary to meet the individual learning needs of the students with disabilities.

Online Providers

Though not typically on an IEP team, providers of online and blended programs are the subject and content experts related to the courses not being offered by the school or district. As such, they should be able to discuss the ways that they have met the individualized educational needs of students in the past and recommend appropriate, student-centered programs and services necessary to meet the specifically-designed instructional supports developed for the student under consideration. Online providers need to reflect upon all feedback provided from other IEP team members as they attempt to improve the courses within the Universal Design in Learning (UDL) framework, thus leading to greater accessibility and success for the students with disabilities.

Representatives from the organization who can speak for the program and allocate supports and resources should be ready to discuss ways that they will be able to address the needs of students who have disabilities from an instructional, academic, social, emotional, or intellectual programming perspective.

Course Designers

Course designers are experts in providing quality instructional experiences so that the goals and objectives of the curriculum can be mastered. These professionals are in a unique position to support the differentiated and individual educational needs of students with disabilities.

Course designers can discuss the scope and sequence of the instruction, the pace with which the instruction can be delivered, and the ways that activities and expectations for performance have been designed to support the needs of students in the general education setting. This information is invaluable to a team that has been assembled to develop individualized supports for students who have disabilities. Course designers must understand how individual educational needs affect the general education expectation and progression of content, as well as potential ways that the course can accommodate individual student's programmatic needs.

Categorical or Eligibility Criteria and Characteristics

As IEP teams meet to construct their plans, they should ensure the plans are informed by the specifics of the student's disability. As explained earlier, MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018), provides guidance for programming requirements for students with disabilities. According to MARSE, a student with a disability is defined as:

a person who has been evaluated according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and these rules, and is determined by an individualized education program team, an individualized family service plan team, or an administrative law judge to have one or more of the impairments specified in this part that necessitates special education or related services, or both, who is not more than 25 years of age as of September 1 of the school year of enrollment, and who has not graduated from high school. A student who reaches the age of 26 years after September 1 is a "student with a disability" and entitled to continue a special education program or service until the end of that school year. (p. 26-27)

The following sections provide content for each of the recognized eligibility categories that exist in the MARSE rules. It is important to recognize that for students to receive special educational services under Michigan law, the school district needs to conduct an eligibility determination. Once eligibility is ascertained, it then becomes the responsibility of the district to make a good faith effort in providing an appropriate IEP with programs and services specifically tailored to meet the needs of the child. Readers wishing a more extensive discourse on the issues of eligibility and programmatic access should contact the Supervisor or Director of Special Education in the district where the student is receiving their academic instruction.

The following eligibility categories exist in Michigan for the provision of special education programs and services: autism, cognitive impairments, other health impairments, emotional impairments, deaf or hard of hearing, visual impairments, physical impairments, specific learning disability, speech and language impairment, and traumatic brain injury. Each subsection below will provide direction about where to go for definitional and determination information and will offer a few pedagogical considerations that might be of use when educators and instructional personnel are providing support programs and services in online and blended learning environments.

Autism

Definition and Determination

For more information on how Autism is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 44-46 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

Since autism is a spectrum disorder, educators will find themselves dealing with a wide range of situations that have an impact on appropriate educational functioning and abilities in an online or blended learning environment. When developing programs and services to meet the needs of students who have autism, the following pedagogical considerations should be discussed:

For further educational implications of how autism might affect the online or blended learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Autism or Disabilities. The team might also want to consider the following resources as they plan for supporting students with autism in online and blended learning environments:

Cognitive Impairments

Definition and Determination

For more information on how cognitive impairment is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 28 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

Those wanting to provide appropriate educational programs and supports for students eligible for services under the cognitive impairment program requirements might want to consider the following pedagogical suggestions:

Attempt to provide repetition of content using multiple modalities when providing instruction. Most educational materials are written; capitalize on the wide variety of multimedia capabilities afforded by the online or blended environments to help demonstrate content concepts.

Take the steps necessary to assess student understanding of content in appropriate ways. Written reports may not allow students to provide the breadth or depth of their understanding in a way that a verbal presentation might. Additionally, online or blended environments provide students with cognitive impairments the opportunity to use differentiated output through technological tools.

New or novel situations may cause confusion and have an impact on educational performance. Realize that students may have issues with adaptive behavior. Take the time to explain changes in instructional routines and use this as an opportunity to pre-teach content. Providing instructional videos or screen shots of the specific behaviors that are expected in the online or blended learning environment will assist in the development of new skills. Communicate the changes to the mentor and parent so they can provide support and answer questions the student may have.

Be explicit in letting the students know what is expected of them for educational performance. Provide examples from past student work projects so the students with cognitive impairments has a better understanding of the features they must attend to.

When appropriate, let students work with peers or mentors so they have another perspective on the academic content. Using the chat, discussion board, or video conferencing features that are part of the online or blended environment will allow students the opportunity to socially interact with peers or mentors as they collaboratively work through the assignment.

Online and blended learning opportunities often are the saving grace for students with cognitive impairments. Many prefer the low stress and impact of reduced face-to-face interactions while being able to focus more intentionally on the content. This loss of physical proximity can also contribute to confusion about performance for all concerned. It is strongly suggested that online and blended program personnel provide direct one-on-one "office hours" or tutorials, at least initially, until all involved have a better feel for the areas of strength and need that might exist from the learner's perspective, the instructor's perspective, the mentor's perspective, or from a technology integration perspective.

For further educational implications of how cognitive impairments might affect the learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Cognitive Impairments or Disabilities. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Other Health Impairments

(h4)Definition and Determination

For more information on how other health impairment is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 33-34 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

The complexity and multiplicity of issues that students eligible for services under the other health impairments programming rules requires professionals to consider a wide variety of pedagogical interventions. Some of these might include:

Understand the impact that the student's condition has on their stamina, patience, and ability to interact with others in the environment. Students that are emotionally or physically stressed may not have the ability to process content at the moment, and the use of recorded content either for instruction or student assignments might allow them to participate more fully in the program. Although online and blended learning environments might be a less stressful situation, with more relaxed social interactions, at times, these settings can cause a great deal of stress on the student experiencing the impact of their health impairments.

Educational programs, even those delivered in online or blended learning formats, often require students to attend to long periods of content or activity. For students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) it might be important for them to have instructional content or activities broken into smaller segments, thus allowing them to focus on the objectives in a way that does not cause undue stress or anxiety.

Often, students with other health impairments are unable to meet deadlines for tests and assignments due to medical issues related to their impairments. When this happens, the use of the technological features of the LMS might assist with the need to extend time to complete assignments. Medical conditions and the progression of disease or injury affect students differently. Recognize these situations when putting together units of instruction and personalizing instruction for these students.

It is important for the IEP Team members and instructional staff to understand the ways that the progression of the disease might affect the educational functioning of students in online and blended learning environments. Different seasons, or stages of the disease might deleteriously impact the student's functioning more than other times.

Due to the variety of health-related issues that might be covered under this category of service, recognize that the incorporation of specialized equipment or assistive technology might be necessary for online or blended learning instruction. It is important for all members of the team to be familiar with the extra supports that the assistive technological capabilities provide, the limitations of the systems, and the impact the assistive technology has on both learner and teacher behavior.

Working closely with the Assistive Technology consultant to ensure that all systems are compliant with the technical standards necessary to meet federal and state guidelines though the resources provided by the Alt+Shift program through the IDEA Grant Funded Initiative through the Michigan Department of Education, Office of Special Education (Michigan Office of Special Education, n.d.). Taking this step increases legal compliance to technical issues and situations, and more importantly, helps to provide appropriate supports for the student.

IEP Teams should provide an appropriate level of adult or peer supports necessary to help assist the student with medical issues to better understand initial content, to practice or rehearse instructional strategies, or to appropriately assess educational functioning.

Online and blended learning opportunities often are the saving grace for students with health impairments. Many prefer and may require the low stress and impact of reduced face-to-face interactions while being able to focus more intentionally on the content. This loss of physical proximity could contribute to confusion about performance for all concerned. It is strongly suggested that online and blended program personnel provide direct one-on-one "office hours" or tutorials, at least initially, until all involved have a better feel for the areas of strength and need that might exist from the learner's perspective, the instructor's perspective, the mentor's perspective, or from a technology integration perspective.

For further educational implications of how other health impairments might affect the learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Other Health Impairments or Disabilities, Assistive Technology Consultants, Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, or School Nurses. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Emotional Impairments

Definition and Determination

For more information on how emotional impairment is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 29-30 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

Most teachers have the ability to meet the cognitive and affective needs of their students in the general education environment. Students that have issues with affective, social, or emotional interactions with teachers and peers often require more nuanced attention to the way in which social interactions occur within the learning environment, since these have the distinct potential of having a dramatic impact on student academic achievement. To this end, teachers providing service in online and blended environments might want to consider the following:

Recognize that all students eligible for services are different. Some students might exhibit extremely outgoing behaviors, while others might exhibit behaviors that are very withdrawn and isolated. This might be difficult to identify in your interactions with the students in online or blended learning settings. Working closely with the team - especially the mentor - to identify how the student presents themselves in face-to-face settings might provide ideas for ways to effectively support behaviors in the virtual environment.

Make expectations clear and be very consistent in application of consequences in order to provide a structured environment. This can best be done by having rules, procedures, routines, policies, or expectations specifically addressed in educational and behavioral materials. Online and blended learning environments have a great deal of structure built into the program. For example, the length of instructional videos can be curtailed to meet the instructional needs of students. The IEP Team should use this structure as a support when making behavioral requirements known to the student.

Provide the students with self-monitoring resources, such as check lists, rubrics, or planning guides. This helps them visually scaffold expectations and provides cognitive supports when affective challenges present themselves. Using multimedia examples that focus on the expected work and behaviors is a good way to assist students' understanding, and practice good online and blended learning academic and social behaviors.

Be proactive in your schedule and pacing of content to ensure that unstructured time and activities have clear parameters and expectations for personal, as well as interpersonal behavior. Proactively providing clear examples of acceptable behavior is a good way to support expectations for social interactions. Digital citizenship and acceptable use policies provide supports when dealing with expected student behaviors in online and blended learning environments.

Realize that students might need to be gradually introduced to some instructional formats or delivery systems due to specific aspects of their disability. For example, group work might need to wait until the student is able to demonstrate the ability to work productively with others on tasks. Using the full range of resources available in the LMS might allow you to differentiate or personalize student responses or assignments when the assigned format might be a challenge to the student.

Encourage students to engage in the identification and labeling of their own internal emotional states, and to share those in an appropriate way with the instructional staff. Allowing the students to address issues before they become problems is particularly important to establish and maintain accepting and supportive learning environments. Having student supports built into the online or blended learning structure can be useful when students need extra support or assistance during synchronous and asynchronous sessions.

Offer one-on-one "office hours" or tutorials, at least initially, until all involved have a better feel for the areas of strength and need that might exist from the learner's perspective, the instructor's perspective, the mentor's perspective, or from a technology integration perspective. Online and blended learning opportunities can be a welcome option for students with emotional impairments. Many prefer and may require the low stress and impact of reduced face-to-face interactions while being able to focus more intentionally on the content; however, the loss of physical proximity could contribute to confusion about performance for all concerned.

The strategies and suggestions contained within the student's IEP will go a long way in helping to support and structure learning expectations in an online or blended environment.

For further educational implications of how emotional impairments might impact the learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Emotional Impairments or Disabilities, School Social Worker, School Counselors, and School Nurse. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Definition and Determination

For more information on how deaf or hard of hearing is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 30-31 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

The ability of teachers and educational staff to effectively support students in online or blended learning environments who are deaf or hard of hearing might be outside of the experiential base of most educators. Since much of the online or blended environment requires the use of multimedia materials, it is important that teams consult with professionals trained in the educational programming for students with hearing issues, as well as professionals who are trained in the use of assistive technology, both on the learner's systems, the teacher's systems, and with the LMS and platform. Other considerations include:

Working closely with the Assistive Technology consultant to ensure that all systems are compliant with the technical standards necessary to meet federal and state guidelines though the resources provided by the Alt+Shift program through the IDEA Grant Funded Initiative through the Michigan Department of Education, Office of Special Education (Michigan Office of Special Education, n.d.). Taking this step increases legal compliance to technical issues and situations and, more importantly, helps to provide appropriate supports for the student. In online and blended learning environments this might include, but is not limited to, sign language interpreters, interveners, closed captioning, or assistive technology devices.

Taking the time to provide students with the training necessary for them to feel comfortable with assistive technology systems so they are competent users of those supports within the online or blended learning environments. Having staff, faculty, parents, as well as students receive training on these supports provide a basis of understanding for program assessment and evaluation.

Augmenting instruction through written materials. Instructional staff should also ensure that there are written supports for the social interactions that occur within the LMS. In online and blended environments, this means these supports should be embedded within every aspect of the LMS.

Being proactive in ensuring that the auditory aspects of the instructional environment are compatible with any student hearing aids or cochlear implants. Create time for instructional faculty, support faculty, and the students to "test drive" any systems before the student is expected to use them in the online or blended learning classroom.

Ensuring that the acoustics of both the student's learning environments, as well as that of the teacher, have been checked for their instructional effectiveness. Attend especially to the background noise that might result when other students participate auditorially. Providing all students technological dos and don'ts related to the need to minimize background noise when speaking benefits all students but is especially important for students with hearing impairments.

Remembering that students who are deaf or hard of hearing often use visual cues and are tuned in to the lips and face of the speaker for cues. Ensure that all participants in the online or blended learning environment face the video camera and speak in a way that supports the visual needs of the students.

Using appropriate lighting to support the student's ability to gain visual information, thus making better sense of the educational and social expectations within the online and blended environments.

Being aware that providing visually busy content to students with hearing impairments may cause confusion and create misunderstandings of content that could be difficult to remediate.

Ensuring that the visuals used to support instruction in online or blended learning settings focus on the key instructional goals, objectives, and elements.

Offering one-on-one "office hours" or tutorials, at least initially, until all involved have a better feel for the areas of strength and need that might exist from the learner's perspective, the instructor's perspective, the mentor's perspective, or from a technology integration perspective. Some students prefer the low stress and impact of reduced face-to-face interactions in online and blended learning environments while being able to focus more intentionally on the content; however, the loss of physical proximity could contribute to confusion about performance for all concerned.

For further educational implications of how deaf or hard of hearing impairments might impact the learning environment, please onsult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Hearing Impairments or Disabilities, Audiologists, Sign Language Interpreters, or Program Interveners. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Visual Impairments

Definition and Determination

For more information on how visual impairment is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 31-32 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

As with supporting students eligible for services under deaf or hard of hearing criteria, students eligible for services under the visual impairment criteria will probably need the support of specially trained professionals to assist the educational team in identifying ways to support students in online and blended learning environments. These additional areas should also be considered for supporting students in an online or blended learning environment:

For further educational implications of how visual impairments might affect the learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Visual Impairments or Disabilities and Orientation and Mobility Specialists. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Physical Impairments

Definition and Determination

For more information on how physical impairment is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 32-33 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

Students affected by physical impairments will probably require a great deal of physical environmental modifications to support their mobility and learning needs. Programs that support students who have physical disabilities through the use of online or blended learning need to have a solid understanding of the ways that the student's educational functioning might be affected by physical conditions and be able to adapt learning environments creatively to meet their specific educational needs.

In general, educators might want to consider the following when providing supports to students affected by physical disabilities in their online and blended learning environments:

For further educational implications of how physical impairments might affect the learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Physical Impairments or Disabilities, the Occupational Therapists, the Physical Therapists, and the School Nurse. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Specific Learning Disability

Definition and Determination

For more information on how specific learning disability is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 36-38 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

Students affected by specific learning disabilities often have difficulty in areas of academic performance, and meeting the demands placed upon them in the learning environment. Quite often, students exhibit inconsistent patterns of school performance, having strengths and abilities in some areas of school performance, but not in others. Educators interested in providing appropriate instructional and program supports in online and blended learning environments are encouraged to look at the student's functioning in the areas of written expression, reading ability, and mathematics. More specific suggestions include attending to the following:

For further educational implications of how specific learning disabilities might impact the learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Teacher Consultant for Students with Specific Leaning Impairments or Disabilities. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Speech and Language Impairment

Definition and Determination

For more information on how speech and language impairment is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 34-35 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

Speech and language issues can influence the way that students receive and understand content, as well as the way in which they are able to demonstrate competency, provide feedback, and interact with others verbally and socially. It is important for professionals supporting students with speech and language impairments in online and blended learning environments to be aware of the specific ways in which the student's learning needs are affected by their disability. Some common considerations are listed below.

For students with receptive speech and language impairments:

Reduce auditory and visual distractions within the online or blended learning environment. Extra stimuli in the learning environment can confuse and interfere with the student's ability to attend to instruction, listen to comments, follow directions, and respond appropriately to interactions.

Provide cues to students so they can distinguish when instruction has begun, so they can better focus on the interactions during that segment of the course.

Provide visuals and concrete examples during instruction. These provide supports for when the verbal components of the instruction have been completed.

Make sure that your speech can be heard and understood by the student. Speak slowly and clearly, at a reasonable pace, and provide opportunities for questioning.

For students with expressive speech and language impairments:

Provide students opportunities to demonstrate competency of the content by using alternative methods for assignments. Have multiple ways to assess course content and provide students options for task and assignment completion.

Provide students extra time to respond when they ask or answer questions.

Realize that students might have difficulty participating in discussions or group work due to their difficulties with articulation, fluency, or voice.

Consider using written discussion boards within the online or blended learning LMS as an alternative to group work.

Work closely with the assistive technology support team to minimize the exacerbation of the student's speech production problems by the auditory hardware that is used by all the students. It may be necessary to work the issue out through technological intervention.

For any student with speech and language impairments, offer one-on-one "office hours" or tutorials, at least initially, until all involved have a better feel for the areas of strength and need that might exist from the learner's perspective, the instructor's perspective, the mentor's perspective, or from a technology integration perspective. Online and blended learning present different opportunities for students with speech and language issues. Many prefer and may require the low stress and impact of reduced face-to-face interactions while being able to focus more intentionally on the content; however, the loss of physical proximity could contribute to confusion about performance for all concerned, and office hours are one way of monitoring progress.

For further educational implications of how speech and language impairments might impact the learning environment, please consult with your team members, especially the Speech and Language Consultant. The team might also want to consider the following as they plan for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Traumatic Brain Injury

Definition and Determination

For more information on how traumatic brain injury is defined and determined in Michigan, please refer to page 46-47 of the MARSE (Michigan Department of Education, 2018).

Pedagogical Considerations

The reasons for eligibility under traumatic brain injury vary widely. Each student presents a differing educational scope of need. Make sure that you consult with appropriate medical personnel to understand how the student's injury might affect functioning within online or blended educational learning environments. We know more than ever before about brain anatomy and the impact that insult or injury to specific regions have on the processing of information. Although we have come a long way, the science of learning and understanding localized to sections of the brain are not exact. Some broad considerations that teams should attend to include:

It is important to realize that the student has acquired this injury because of a traumatic event. Emotional issues in dealing with the acceptance of his or her condition might get in the way of cognitive ability. Make sure that appropriate team members are available to assist with any affective or behavioral manifestations that might occur due to acceptance of their injury. In online and blended learning environments, this might present itself in anger, depression, or withdrawal from the academic work, or the people within the setting.

The area of brain that has experienced the trauma will have a dramatic impact on the needs and the abilities of the student in the online and blended learning environment. To support this, provide content that allows students to experience their content in the modalities they are most capable of using, and minimize the use of content in the modalities they have the most difficulty with.

When you design the instruction, make sure that you capitalize on the capabilities that exist within the LMS of the online and blended learning course to provide multiple ways to consider content using visuals, auditory files, texts, and multimedia content.

During instruction, focus instructional materials in the student's least affected modality, while still providing instruction in the modalities that are affected by the injury. This multisensory approach to instruction helps the student receive content and information in multiple channels.

Provide the students with the opportunity to restate back to you what it is covered in class and for the requirements for activities.

Offer one-on-one "office hours" or tutorials, at least initially, until all involved have a better feel for the areas of strength and need that might exist from the learner's perspective, the instructor's perspective, the mentor's perspective, or a technology integration perspective. Online and blended learning opportunities present a comfortable alternative for students with traumatic brain injuries. Many prefer and may require the low stress and impact of reduced face-to-face interactions while being able to focus more intentionally on the content; however, the loss of physical proximity could contribute to confusion about performance for all concerned, and office hours are one way of monitoring progress.

For further educational implications of how traumatic brain injury might affect the learning environment, please consult with your team members. The team might also want to consider the following as they for supporting students in online and blended learning environments:

Additional Considerations

Along with the above consideration, there are a few additional areas that should be considered when developing supports for students with disabilities in online and blended environments.

District Policies and Procedures

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the student's local district or management company to develop and provide special education supports for students with recognized needs under federal and state mandates. Programs need to have appropriate and effective policies in place to ensure that those responsible for the development and provision of online or blended learning programs have the support and direction necessary to ensure that the programs meet the regulatory, fiscal, compliance, and managerial requirements that the organization adheres to for other programmatic offerings. In addition, issues specific to the provision of online or blended learning programs need to be considered when the policies and procedures are promulgated and revised.

Acceptable use policies ensure that programmatic resources are used in a way consistent with appropriate educational programs and services. Having systems developed and maintained in a way to meet the regulatory and legal issues associated with the laws listed above should be ensconced within the policy and procedures for the program. Finally, issues related to acquisition, lending, upgrade, and support need to be stipulated so all participants understand their limits and responsibilities when appropriating the hardware, software, and resources within the online and blended learning program.

Professional Development

Professionals that support students in online or blended learning environments often have a great deal to learn about the most effective way to support student learning with technology. Increasing curricular demands, as well as increases in technological capabilities, often stretch the professional development needs and capabilities of professionals. This is further exacerbated when students' specific needs, codified in individualized programming requirements, add increased demands for professional development supports for faculty and staff working in online and blended learning projects.

One of the greatest challenges for effective professional development supports revolves around the infancy of the research base related to effective programming for students impacted with disabilities within online and blended learning environments. The best things that educators can do is to apply what we currently know about effective online education, effective special education programs and services, quality instruction and methodology, and combine those into a plan that is tailored to meet the individual learning and educational needs of the student impacted by disabilities.

Financial Considerations

Providing appropriate programs and supports often requires school programs to make an investment in instructional materials, transportation, training, equipment, personnel, and facilities. All these areas will need to be addressed when providing programs to support students impacted by disabilities within online and blended learning environments.

Many potential local, state, federal, and grant resources are available. Districts and programs wrestling with the provision of effective online and blended learning options for students should have discussions with their school business officials, child accounting personnel, and directors of special education to ascertain the financial supports and resources that are available, as well as any financial compliance considerations that need to be adhered to before embarking upon planning for the online or blended learning educational program.

Other Supports and Resources

It would be incredibly difficult to discuss all the potential challenges that might exist when districts or programs plan for effective instruction for students impacted by disabilities. Therefore, Appendix B although not intended to be exhaustive, might provide an opportunity to discuss areas that need to be resolved for effective programs and services in online or blended learning environments to occur.

Summary

Supporting students impacted by disabilities in online and blended programs, at first blush, might appear to be a daunting task. There are many technical, legal, logistical, instructional, and educational considerations that need to be made for effective programs and supports to occur. However, for many students impacted by disabilities, the online and blended learning environment might be an opportunity for them to attend to the academics and supports required for educational achievement through targeted educational opportunities, projects, and supports that online or blended learning might offer them.

There are considerable issues that need to be addressed before programs launch into the provision of services that are specifically designed to meet the individualized education needs of students eligible for special education programs and services. This document provides a broad level of support to encourage appropriate development of programs and services for student eligible for special education services. However, this is not an exhaustive coverage of all issues. Discussions with appropriate staff within the district need to be held to identify existing and future supports for effective online and blended learning options built around the student's individual learning needs.

References

Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs (n.d.). ATAP: Summary of the AT act. Retrieved from https://www.ataporg.org/.

Burgstahler, S. (2001). Real connections: Making distance learning accessible to everyone. Retrieved from ERIC database https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED475789.pdf (ED 475789).

Center for Educational Networking. (2018). Center for Educational Networking. Retrieved from https://www.cenmi.org/.

Deschaine, M. E. (2018). When policies that impact students with significant disabilities in Michigan backfire. In Conchas, G. Q., Gottfried, M., Hinga, B., & Oseguera, L. (Eds.). Policy goes to school: Case studies on the limitations and possibilities of educational innovation (pp. 25-38). New York, NY: Routledge.

Grainger, R. S., Alpin, C., & Ponnappa-Brenner, G. (2008). Supporting learners with cognitive impairments in online environments. TechTrends, 52(1), 63-69. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11528-008-0114-4.pdf

Hoffman, B., Hartley, K., & Boone, R. (2005). Reaching accessibility: Guidelines for creating and refining digital learning materials. Intervention in School and Clinic, 40(3), 171-176. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/10534512050400030601

iNACOL. (2018, September 7, 2018). Resource Search. Alexandria, VA: Author. Retrieved from https://www.inacol.org/resources/resource-search/?search=&resource_topics=18&resource_types=0&years=&authors=0&organizations=0&sort=date

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004). Retrieved from https://sites.ed.gov/idea/

Kinash, S., Crichton, S., & Kim-Rupnow, W. S. (2004). A review of 2000-2003 literature at the intersection of online learning and disability. American Journal of Distance Education, 18(1), 5-19.

Michigan Department of Education. (n.d.). Flexible learning options. Lansing, MI: Author. Retrieved from https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/MARSE_Supplemented_with_IDEA_Regs_379598_7.pdf.

Michigan Department of Education. (2018). Michigan administrative rules for special education (MARSE) with related IDEA federal regulations. Lansing, MI: Author. Retrieved from https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/MARSE_Supplemented_with_IDEA_Regs_379598_7.pdf.

Michigan Legislature. (n.d.). Michigan Revised School Code (Act 451 of 1976). Retrieved from https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/mcl/pdf/mcl-act-451-of-1976.pdf.

Michigan Legislature. (2018). Michigan legislature - Section 388.1621f. Retrieved from http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(fxaovw5od4hfxa0ggkufdsfz))/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=mcl-388-1621f

Michigan Office of Special Education. (n.d.). Alt+Shift. Rethink the possible. Realize potential. Retrieved from https://www.altshift.education/resources

Michigan Virtual. (2017). Parent guide to online learning. Lansing, MI: Michigan Virtual University. Available from https://mvlri.org/resources/guides/parent-guide/

REMC Association of Michigan. (2018). About - REMC home. Retrieved from http://www.remc.org/about/

Rice, M., Deschaine, M. E., & Mellard, D. (2018). Describing online learning programs and practices that serve diverse learners. Journal of Online Learning Research, 4(2), 117-121.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C § 794 (d) (1998). Retrieved from https://section508.gov/

Simmons, T., Bauder, D., Abell, M., & Penrod, W. (2008). Delivering the general curriculum: Pre-service teacher perspectives regarding a technological approach for students with moderate and severe disabilities. Information Technology and Disabilities Journal, 12(1). Retrieved from http://itd.athenpro.org/volume12/number1/simmons.html

United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. (n.d.). Part 36 nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in public accommodations and commercial facilities. Retrieved from https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/titleIII_2010/titleIII_2010_regulations.htm

United States Department of Labor. (n.d.). OASAM - Office of the assistant secretary for administration and management (OASAM) - United States department of labor. Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). (n.d.). Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) overview Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). (n.d.). Web content accessibility guideline (WCAG) 2.0. Retrieved from http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

Appendix A

Legal Basis for Services

Providing educational programs and services to students who have disabilities began with legal initiatives in the mid-1970s. Michigan's legal requirements to provide services to these students predates the federal legal requirements for similar services. Michigan has a long history of advocating for students affected by disabilities in ways that exceed federal requirements in breadth, depth, and scope. This continues to be true as the state remains focused on the educational and programmatic needs of students, regardless of need, in face-to-face, online, and blended educational environments.

This section will focus on some salient legal requirements from both the state of Michigan, as well as a federal government perspective. The legal history of both jurisdictions is long and has the potential to be nuanced based on the specifics of each individual situation. The content here is not intended to be exhaustive coverage of the legal requirements for programs and services; it neither constitutes legal advice, nor should it substitute for legal guidance by counsel. The coverage here is intended to provide support for future investigations by organizations and individuals wishing to gain basic information related to the broad requirements that guide effective educational programs and supports for students who have disabilities.

State of Michigan Legal Considerations

The following legal documents should be considered when proposing and implementing an individualized educational plan (IEP) of service for students affected by disabilities within online and blended learning environments.

Michigan State School Code

The Revised School Code (Act 451 of 1976) (Michigan Legislature, n. d.) is an act that:

provides a system of public instruction in elementary and secondary schools; to revise, consolidate, and clarify the laws relating to elementary and secondary education; to provide for the organization, regulation, and maintenance of schools, school districts, public school academies, intermediate school districts, and other public school entities; to prescribe rights, powers, duties, and privileges of schools, school districts, public school academies, intermediate school districts, and other public school entities; to provide for the regulation of school teachers and certain other school employees. (p. 1)

Requirements for the education provision of all students, in all settings, is established within the Michigan School Code. Understanding the legislative scope that the state of Michigan expects from educational entities in a holistic fashion provides support when attempting to operationalize individualized educational plans and supports to students who have disabilities.

Michigan Administrative Rules for Special Education (MARSE)

Parts of the MARSE with Related IDEA Federal Regulations (Michigan Department of Education, 2018) deal with programs and services for students affected by disabilities are included in the larger Michigan Administrative Rules. Pages 24 and 25 of MARSE provides a definition of special education. It is important for educators, families, and professionals to understand that the definition and rules provided by the state are a result of both legislation, litigation, and rulemaking. As such, these rules provide the supports necessary to guide the development of appropriate educational programs and services to meet the multiplicity of needs that students who have disabilities bring to educational settings, both face-to-face, as well as in online or blended environments.

Special education services are provided to students with eligible conditions to assist them in meeting graduation requirements for general education curriculum established by their local school district that is in alignment with the Michigan School Code. The intent of special education supports and services is to provide students who have disabilities the individualized, appropriate educational supports necessary to assist them in being successful with general education content, within the general education environment, to the greatest extent possible.

It is important for all individuals who are working to provide quality educational support services in online and blended environments to understand the students, how their eligibility for services affects their ability to perform educationally within the general education environment, how the they are able to progress within the general education curriculum, and the ways that appropriate individualized programs and supports might be used effectively within online and blended learning environments.

Section 21f

Section 21f of the State School Aid Act (Michigan Legislature, 2018) is specific to conditions for students wishing to take courses in online or blended learning environments within Michigan. Section 21f allows K-12 students enrolled in a public school or district (full- or part-time) to enroll in up to two online courses per academic term. Districts may deny such enrollment requests as defined in a limited number of circumstances. A student may be enrolled in more than two online courses if the district, the parents, and the student agree that it is in the student's best interest. In such an instance, the district must have an education development plan stating such in their records.

For some students affected by disabilities, the provisions of Section 21f provide a great deal of flexibility in meeting their individual educational needs in a supportive environment that allows the students to focus more upon content in a less socially and behaviorally demanding or distractive learning environment. Section 21f is one proactive educational provision that should be considered when determining if an online or blended learning opportunity is appropriate for students who have a disability.

Michigan Career and College Ready Provisions

Contained within the Michigan School Code (Michigan Legislature, n.d.) are provisions that allow students to be given an opportunity to design flexible learning options that lead to a high school diploma, while still meeting the basic requirements established by the local school board. These provisions for a different set of learning opportunities and curricular expectations are available to all students. The appropriateness of each of these should be considered when attempting to provide support programs and services to students eligible for special education services.

Some of the flexible learning options include:

Virtual Learning Options (described above)

Offline and Project-Based Seat Time Waivers (STWs)

Options for Hours and Days Waivers

Work-Based Learning Experiences

College Course Enrollment and Early/Middle Colleges

Career and Technical Education (CTE) Options

Testing Out

Personal Curriculum

An articulation of each of these programs is beyond the scope of this document. However, it is important to remember that none of these options exist in isolation, and a combination of these opportunities might be appropriate within online or blended learning environments to meet the individualized learning needs of students who have disabilities. For more information, please consult the Michigan Department of Education's Flexible Learning Options (n.d.) document.

Federal Legal Considerations

In addition to state provisions to support students affected by disabilities, there are also corresponding federal legal statutes and requirements that require adherence. A brief discussion will provide a cursory understanding of the requirements with further resources to consider when participating in a planning meeting to address the individual learning needs of students who have disabilities within online or blended learning environments.

Special education programs and services through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

The provisions for special education services for students eligible for individualized programs and services are included within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) The federal statutes are the minimal level of service required by the federal government for states receiving federal funds. However, as in the case of Michigan, states can choose to offer services beyond those required of the federal government. In the MARSE document (Michigan Department of Education, 2018), there is a side-by-side comparison of the Michigan requirements and definitions for special education programs and services with those provided through IDEA (United States Department of Education, n.d.). For those unfamiliar with special education and the federal requirements, it is strongly suggested that you consider reviewing the resources provided through the United States Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services.

Civil rights reasonable accommodations to access through the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Although rules and regulations for special education services are found in the MARSE requirements, some students with disabilities may not be eligible for special education programs and services because their level of academic functioning is greater than the levels specified in special education law; these students might be entitled to academic accommodations based on federal civil rights laws through Section 504 accommodations. This distinction, although apparently nuanced, is incredibly important to understand, since requirements for programmatic supports and the provision of services can be dramatically different, as are the legal requirements for eligibility, program development, evaluation, and due process. For those unfamiliar with these distinctions, it is recommended that you consult the Special Education Supervisor or Director in your district for more direction.

Unlike special education laws that provide opportunities for individualized programs and services to meet educational goals and objectives, the federal provisions listed below provide students with recognized and documented disabilities federal support to effectively access educational programs and services.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) usually is associated with covering employment issues, there are times when the ADA covers access to educational programs for people affected by federally recognized disabilities. Title III of the ADA

prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the activities of places of public accommodations (businesses that are generally open to the public and that fall into one of 12 categories listed in the ADA, such as restaurants, movie theaters, schools, day care facilities, recreation facilities, and doctors' offices) and requires newly constructed or altered places of public accommodation-as well as commercial facilities (privately owned, nonresidential facilities such as factories, warehouses, or office buildings)-to comply with the ADA Standards. (United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, n.d.).

Eligible students are not allowed to be discriminated against due to a legally recognized disability in educational settings. This law has tremendous impact on the ways that identified computer facilities are designed to maximize access to all students, especially for students who have physical or visual disabilities.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitations Act of 1973 (Section 504)

Section 504 of the Rehabilitations Act of 1973 (Section 504), the precursor to the ADA, states that schools need to provide supports to meet the needs of students with disabilities in a manner consistent with the way that they provide supports to meet the needs of students who are not affected by disabilities. The intent of this law is to give students eligible under a federally-recognized category the services and supports necessary for them to access the general education curriculum and environment. Generally, students with Section 504 accommodations receive services that are not as extensive as those that students who are eligible for special education services receive, since they do not qualify for special education services.

Areas where this particular law might be appropriate are in the design and access of computer labs, ergonomics of equipment, and the availability of training for staff to ensure compliance with the act's requirements. Other areas of the program might also be affected. Consult with a legal professional for more program specific requirements and recommendations.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitations Act of 1973 (Section 508)

Section 508 of the Rehabilitations Act of 1973 (Section 508) is of primary importance and concern for educational programs providing online and blended learning opportunities for students with disabilities. The intent of this act is for organizations receiving federal funds to provide access to online content in a way that is accessible to all users, regardless of the level or type of disability the end user might experience. Programs need to ensure that their online and multimedia content are accessible for all users.

To support Section 508, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) ⁹ provide a checklist for programs to help ensure compliance with the issues related to accessibility of multimedia content in online and blended programs. This information is a good first step for consideration. It is recommended that the instructional team faithfully consider all portions of the technical compliance aspects to provide a quality instructional and educational experience for all students.

Assistive Technology Act of 1998

The Assistive Technology Act supports state efforts to improve the provision of assistive technology to individuals of all ages with disabilities through comprehensive statewide programs of technology-related assistance...

To provide States with financial assistance that supports programs designed to maximize the ability of individuals with disabilities and their family members, guardians, advocates, and authorized representatives to obtain assistive technology devices and assistive technology service s (Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs, n.d., para. 2).

The federal government has made access for all students to quality educational programs and services a priority. The increase in technological capabilities for instructional technology has provided tremendous supports for students who have disabilities and require assistive technology. This support aids not just the student, but also the programs and family members that help them understand the ways that assistive technology can be incorporated into their learning to increase educational flexibility and academic achievement.

Cautions

It is vitally important that providers of online and blended educational services for students with disabilities realize their legal obligation to meet both the spirit of the laws and regulations, but also the letter of the programs established in individually developed student educational plans. Litigation of these cases within each of these areas have caused courts to rule in favor of the spirit of the law when deciding for many plaintiffs. It is important to remember that these laws were promulgated to assist individuals who have disabilities in gaining access to buildings, programs, and services. Therefore, for programs to ignore these important federal legislative initiatives sends the wrong signal to the constituent users of the programs and services being provided in online and blended learning programs.

It is important to recognize that these laws require a solid understanding of the rules and requirements, and it is important for all involved to be cognizant of their requirements. Programs providing services to students affected by disabilities in online and blended environments should have qualified, trained professionals available to help the team interpret how state and federal laws affect the learning environment.

Additionally, it is important for school administrators to work with the Special Education administrators within their Intermediate School District (ISD), Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA), or Regional Educational Service District (RESD) when discussing issues related to school finance or compliance for the special education programs and services being offered to the student in the online or blended learning environment. The reliance upon special education millages for program costs varies across the state (Deschaine, 2018), and the responsibilities for the expenditures of special education services also varies based upon the ISD's, RESA's, or RESD's Special Education Plan. Working closely with the administrators in these larger regional districts will provide support and insight that will be important when determining the best way to support students with disabilities in online or blended learning environments.

Appendix B

Pedagogy and Technology

It would be quite difficult to discuss all the potential challenges that might exist when districts or programs plan for effective instruction for students affected by disabilities. Therefore, Appendix B, although not intended to be exhaustive, may provide an opportunity to discuss areas that need to be resolved for the establishment of effective programs and services in online or blended learning environments. Fortunately, there are many valuable supports and resources available to assist in effective program planning, instruction, and supports when providing online or blended education to students living with a variety of disabilities. The following resources can offer additional support.

Michigan Virtual

Michigan Virtual has been in existence for 20 years to support quality online and blended learning environments for all students. Michigan Virtual is a result of Michigan legislation codified in the school code, and the programs, services and supports that they provide are completed under the direction of a group of professionals with a variety of experiences.

Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL)

The Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) helps educators identify sound educational practices related to technology as well as understand the implications of rapid changes in technology. Recognizing the challenges in preparing students, we strive to encompass the entire educational community from preschool through college level.

MACUL's Special Interest Group for Inclusive Learning (SIG INC)

The organization's website states the purpose of SIG INC is to share knowledge concerning specialized technology and effective practices for enhancing opportunities for students with disabilities. SIG INC promotes professional learning for educators as they strive to meet students' diverse learning needs.

MACUL's Special Interest Group for Online and Blended Learning (SIG OBL)

According to their website, the mission of SIG OBL is to support educators and students in their work with online and blended learning. SIG OBL provides a forum for online learning, blended learning, mobile learning devices, and instructional tools and strategies for teaching and learning online.

Regional Educational Media Center (REMC) Association of Michigan

There are many ways that educators of students affected by disabilities need supports in online and blended learning environments. The local REMC Association of Michigan may be of added support and assistance to teams as they design and develop appropriate interventions. Their mission and scope, as described on their website is to "provide proactive leadership to the Michigan educational community by participating with other organizations in building a vision that supports quality teaching and learning and provides equity to Michigan's pre-K-12 students.

"The REMC Association of Michigan will accomplish this within the framework of the following principles:

Improve learning for all students.

Support constituents and improve teaching and learning statewide through future-focused collaboration, leadership, and service.

Empower teachers to create high quality, engaging instructional environments when they have access to the necessary skills, tools, and rich sources of information.

Provide effective cost savings through statewide cooperative purchasing, which allows local resources to be reallocated to enhance teaching and learning.

Advance statewide connectivity through delivery systems and infrastructure."

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

According to their website, ISTE "inspires the creation of solutions and connections that improve opportunities for all learners by delivering: practical guidance, evidence-based professional learning, virtual networks, thought-provoking events and the ISTE Standards." Standards have been developed that describe the technology skills and competencies that students, teachers, and administrators should possess in technology rich environments. These resources would be an excellent resource for teams that are trying to ascertain the feasibility of online or blended learning environments as an option for students living with disabilities.

Legal/Legislative Supports

Michigan has several formal programs that provide direct services and indirect consultation to school districts and programs needing support in providing adequate educational services to students who have by disabilities, regardless of format or delivery system.

Center for Educational Networking of Michigan (CEN)

CEN of Michigan is an IDEA Grant Funded Initiative through the Michigan Department of Education, Office of Special Education. In addition to direct services, CEN provides a repository of documents related to the legal requirements for special education programs and services and also provides assistive technology supports for programs assisting students eligible for special education services.

Intermediate School Districts (ISDs)

The state of Michigan has 56 ISDs. The programs and services offered by ISDs provide and coordinate direct essential services to constituent local education agencies and school districts within their boundaries to facilitate programming, teaching, and learning for all students. Many ISDs provide direct programs or consultative services for students who have disabilities.

Programs experiencing challenges in meeting the educational needs of students living with a disability in online and blended settings should consider contacting the Director of Special Education in their ISD that is responsible for special education supports. To find the ISD responsible for supporting local programs, the following maps might be of assistance. The first is provided by the State of Michigan. The second is provided by the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators.

General Supports

The intent of this document is to assist in the creation and implementation of appropriate educational programs and services for those living with disabilities as they engage in online or blended programs. A brief description of the ways that disabilities has been included, but there are other information options available. There are many professional and advocacy organizations or associate resources for content that can be helpful for those wishing to find out more about the ways specific components of an eligibility category might possibly affect functioning in online or blended learning environments.

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Supporting Students with Disabilities in K-12 Online and Blended Learning | Michigan Virtual

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The field of online and blended learning has a rich history of pursuing personalized and competency-based education. As evidence, consider that at the time of writing this, iNACOL, a major advocacy organization in K-12 online and blended learning had over 50 resources tagged under personalized learning (iNACOL, 2018).

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Modifications / Accommodations in Online Format - Interactive Doc

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Modifications / Accommodations in Online Format - Interactive Doc

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Across the nation, equity and accessibility are two of the thorniest issues districts face as they rapidly move toward remote learning. Some states are delaying online learning for all students because they feel they are unsure how to provide it for some.

This may be a false choice, says Torrey Trust, Ph.D., an associate professor of learning technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As students whose families have resources continue to learn at home on their own, those without will suffer even greater learning loss, exacerbating the learning gap.

"The point of public education is to try to provide equal footing," says Trust. "It doesn't have to be perfect in this emergency situation, but I want to see educators be creative in these times. Instead of shutting down, use technology as a resource."

"I'm hoping we can shift to UDL, whether high tech or low tech, because it will be so beneficial for making more inclusive learning environments at home as well as when students get back to the classroom," says Trust.

Trust developed a slide deck, rooted in Universal Design for Learning, with seven things to consider as educators move quickly to set up emergency remote learning.

1. Multiple means of representation.

Give students the option of reading text, watching videos, listening to audio or examining images. Microsoft Immersive Reader makes text more accessible. For higher-tech options, virtual tours (check out the many offered by museums and national parks), augmented reality or digital 3D are exciting possibilities. For older students, Trust suggests sending students out to find their own ways to consume information.

2. Multiple means of engagement.

Looking at a screen all day may be hard for some kids, while others may need a more hands-on or project-based activity. Flexibility is especially important in the weeks ahead. Try developing a HyperDoc or create digital documents such as Google Doc with links to all the resources a student may need to explore on their own time and become fully engaged.

Activities can be as simple as allowing students to use a parent's cell phone to take pictures of shapes around the house and email them to the teacher.

"We shouldn't shy away from that option if it will reduce the digital divide," she says.

3. Multiple means of action and expression.

Design open-ended activities where students choose how to demonstrate their knowledge. Students can write, create a podcast or video or use no technology at all. One example is students can build a 3D model in Tinkercad or just pull items out of the recycling and make a model using those.

4. Use open educational resource (OER).

Also known as openly licensed materials, OER are resources that are available in the public domain or introduced with a public license. Look for the Creative Commons License to see if something is an OER. They are free and can be remixed to your specific needs. The Mason OER Metafinder, OER Commons or OASIS database will help you find one to fit your needs.

Although many technology companies are making their products available for free to educators during extended school closures, not all these products have been vetted by educators for privacy and data usage requirements or for accessibility the way OERs have been, Trust says.

5. Design for accessibility.

Check that the videos you assign have closed captions or create your own and add captions in YouTube. If the audio files you assign don't have transcripts, ask for a student volunteer to make one for extra credit. Most apps, such as Google Docs, have instructions for making your materials more accessible.

6. Stay connected with your students.

Just because you're using digital means to communicate with your students doesn't mean there is no longer a human aspect to teaching. Kids are stressed now, too, and any time you can find to connect with them through a video morning or a personalized text or email, that connection will mean a lot.

Trust has two chihuahuas that she dresses up and photographs for her students. As her classes moved to online over the second week of March, she dressed them up for St. Patrick's Day and sent pictures to her students. Several responded that it was exactly the laugh they needed. Fun TikToks or memes will give everyone a mental break.

7. Connect with other educators.

Trust recommends ISTE Commons as a great place to learn what fellow educators are doing. To get answers to specific questions or advice about online learning, ISTE has created a COVID-19 Educator Help Desk.

"Educators need to get connected in these spaces," she says. "It's like a window into other educators' practices and serves as a mirror to reflect on our own practices. The ideas, resources and tools that are shared is what will inspired your creative thinking and push your teaching to the next level."

When this is all over and students return to the classroom, says Trust, this effort will pay dividends. A lot of educators are now using tech in ways they were not comfortable with before.

"Educators have been given a difficult challenge and they are going into these communities online and figuring it out," she says. "When they come back to the classroom, I hope that willingness to try technology will come back with them."

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Across the nation, equity and accessibility are two of the thorniest issues districts face as they rapidly move toward remote learning. Some states are delaying online learning for all students because they feel they are unsure how to provide it for some.

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The Exchange Feature Guide provides information to get started and learn how to use UDL Exchange most effectively. Use the links below to go directly to selected sections. Browse this area to get an overview and tips on how to use the many features in UDL Exchange. Still have questions?

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online games with google forms

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Digital Escape Rooms and More!

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40+ FREE digital escape rooms (plus a step by step guide for creating your own)

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Digital escape rooms bring the excitement of hunting for clues and the joy of solving puzzles right to your student’s devices. Here are over 40 digital

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How to Build a Digital Escape Room Using Google Forms — Bespoke ELA: Essay Writing Tips + Lesson Plans

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Digital escape rooms are super popular in classrooms right now because they are highly engaging for students across content areas and skill levels. Escape rooms can be done physically with lockboxes, but sometimes, it’s much easier to make them digital through Google Forms. Digital escape rooms ca

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ResilientLV has been focused on building a trauma-informed Lehigh Valley. We have been working with community partners to build awareness of our responses to everyday stressors. This is especially important now during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trauma is something that we are always mindful of, and is particularly important during this time.

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Volunteer, Participate, or Donate

Want to learn more about mindfulness and how to practice it on your own? Check out our content library below filled with free video and audio lessons created by us! Plus, our staff compiled some of their most trusted resources to get you started. Select your area of interest below and start exploring.

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Volunteer, Participate, or Donate Want to learn more about mindfulness and how to practice it on your own? Check out our content library below filled with free video and audio lessons created by us! Plus, our staff compiled some of their most trusted resources to get you started.

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We offer authentic, relevant, and engaging world language instruction to schools and individual learners. Our goal is to ensure foreign language education is accessible to everyone.

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GeoInquiries™ are short, standards-based inquiry activities for teaching map-based content found in commonly used textbooks. Each activity is designed using a common inquiry model and can be presented quickly from a single computer and projector or modified for students' hands-on engagement. Collections of 15-20 activities per topic enhance your curriculum throughout the year. For more GeoInquiry resources, see the Guide " Getting to Know GeoInquiries".

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GeoInquiries | Standards-Based Inquiry Activities for Teaching Map-Based Content

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GeoInquiries™ are short, standards-based inquiry activities for teaching map-based content found in commonly used textbooks. Each activity is designed using a common inquiry model and can be presented quickly from a single computer and projector or modified for students' hands-on engagement. Collections of 15-20 activities per topic enhance your curriculum throughout the year.

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Practice your French reading skills with our ever-growing collection of interactive reading content grouped by CEFR level and accompanied by detailed explanations and links further resources. These articles are presented to you using our Bilingual Reader: while reading the text you can click any phrase to see the English translation and related French grammar lessons. To further aid your reading comprehension, lessons can be bookmarked from the Reader and saved for practice later. Most of these features also include a video or audio file so that you can practice your listening comprension at the same time.

A1: Beginner French reading exercises

A Christmas Carol
Read and listen to this bilingual version of Charles Dickens's classic "A Christmas Carol," adapted and translated for beginning French students.

Cher journal
Learn to talk about daily routines while practicing your French listening and reading comprehension.

Entretien avec un vampire
Check out this interview inspired by Anne Rice's novel to practice your French listening and reading comprehension.

Marie in France - A1 Reading and Listening
Work on your A1-level French reading and listening comprehension with this bilingual article - click any phrase to see the English translation as well as links to related French grammar lessons.

Petit Pangolin Malin - Comptine d'Afrique
African nursery rhyme about a very cute (and topical) animal!

A2: Lower Intermediate French reading exercises

Belgium's Declaration of Independence
Practice listening and reading while learning about how Belgium proclaimed its independence.

Bonne fête des Mères !
One Sunday in May or June is designated Mother's Day in France, but why? Where does this annual maternal celebration come from?

Bonne fête des Pères !
The third Sunday in June is unofficially Father's Day in France. Find out where it came from in our bilingual article.

Breton accent
Get an (exaggerated) idea about French as it's spoken in Bretagne in this humorous sketch by Les Inconnus (a famous French trio of humorists from the 90's).

Carte postale
Practice your French listening and reading comprehension with this postcard about Magalie's stay with her grandparents.

Dans les coulisses du Moulin Rouge
The Moulin Rouge is a world-famous revue in Paris. Take a look behind the scenes and sequins with this video report.

Hajj
One of the largest religious gatherings in the world is the annual Muslim pilgrimage, called Hajj, to Mecca. In addition to devotion, technology is beginning to play its part as well, as explained in this video.

Il y a un monstre sous mon lit !
Oh no, there's a monster under this little boy's bed! Listen to his conversation with his father, then scroll down for the bilingual reader.

Kwiziq French Film Fest
With the Cannes festival just around the corner, May is movie month at Kwiziq! For our first French film fest, we've written mini reviews of our favorite movies which you can read and/or listen to.

La chasse aux œufs
Join the hunt for Easter eggs with this French audio article.

La semaine des Martin
Article about a busy week of activities for the Martin family.

Le Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville
The seaside resort of Deauville, in Normandy, is home to an annual American movie festival.

Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez - French Film Fest
Grzegab's review for the Kwiziq French Film Fest.

Le Salon du chocolat
Chocolate lovers and Francophiles rejoice: Paris's annual chocolate festival is just around the corner. Practice listening and reading with this sweet article.

Le TCF sur ordinateur
Learn how to take the official French test known as TCF in this video. You can find more French test tips below the transcript / translation.

Les vacances à la mer de Lola
Work on your A2-level French reading and listening comprehension with this bilingual article - click any phrase to see the English translation as well as links to related French grammar lessons.

Mon répondeur
Ever wondered what a French answering machine and its messages might sound like? It's a great source of vocab and colloquial French!

Ouragan Irma
In early September 2017, an enormous hurricane caused untold damage in the Caribbean, devastating several islands. I live on the French-Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which seemed to be right in the path but was in the end spared the worst of the storm - here's my story.

Petit Ours Brun fait des crêpes
Watch this cute video about making crêpes - just in time for le jour des crêpes (2 février)

Pourquoi les Français sont-ils si fiers de leur cuisine ?
Why are the French so proud of their cuisine? Find out in this cute animated video.

Présentation Equipe de France Paralympique 2018
Get to know Cécile Hernandez, a French Paralympic Games skiboarder in this video.

Présentation de l'Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
Today is the International Day of Francophonie, and here's an introduction to the organization behind it.

Public holidays in France
Everyone loves a good public holiday, n'est-ce pas? France has 11 of them, but they're not always paid days off from work.

Pézenas : Destination estivale
Pézenas is a beautiful town in southern France loaded with history, culture, and artistic significance. Learn about this "green pearl" in our French audio article with transcript and translation.

Reste à la maison
Yann Lambiel's parody of the song "Y a le printemps qui chante" by Claude François.

Saturday in Paris
Take a stroll around Paris while working on your French listening and reading comprehension.

Tour de France jerseys
There are four official Tour de France jerseys - do you know what the colors mean?

Un mauvais numéro
Wrong number! Listen to this friendly exchange between a caller and the person she called by mistake.

Une journée chargée
Audio article about a busy day of shopping and socializing.

Une journée dans ma vie d'au pair
Spend a day as an au pair with this video.

Very Low Cost Airlines
Think the last flight you took was bad? It probably doesn't compare to this one!

What is Ramadan?
Ramadan is a holy month on the Islamic calendar. When is it and what's it about?

Édith Piaf - portrait français
Édith Piaf was a French cabaret singer and international star. Read and listen to our bilingual article, then listen to a few of her classic songs.

B1: Intermediate French reading exercises

20 March: International Day of Francophonie
French is spoken in dozens of countries, a phenomenon known as "Francophonie" which is celebrated every year on 20 March. Celebrate by learning about a few French-speaking countries that you might not be familiar with.

6 juin 1944 : voyage à travers le temps
The Allied landing in Normandy is commemorated every year with parades and speeches - and even re-enactments of that fateful day.

8 mai 1945 : la capitulation de l'Allemagne à Reims
On the 8th of May 1945, Germany surrendered to Allied forces. Find out more in this video with archive footage. Below, you'll find the transcript and translation - click any phrase to read the English and find links to related French grammar lessons.

Alpine French School
If you love to ski or snowboard, like me, then you might be interested to know that there's a school in the Alps where you can ski and learn French at the same time.

Ascension
Learn about the mobile jour férié and Christian holiday of Ascension, celebrated 40 days after Easter Sunday.

Au Restaurant de la Plage
Enjoy lunch at a beachside restaurant with this bilingual article.

Bûche de Noël : recette
Find out how to make the most classic of French Christmas desserts: la bûche de Noël.

C'est qui Coluche ?
Do you know who Coluche is? Find out in this cute animated video.

C.R.A.Z.Y. - French Film Fest
The third Kwiziq French Film Fest review is by our very own Aurélie. Watch the trailer: C.R.A.Z.Y.

Claude Monet's "Water Lilies"
French painter Claude Monet is famous for his Water Lilies. For the story behind the unique way these impressionist paintings are displayed, watch this video.

Comment est née la langue française ?
Where did the French language come from? Get the short answer in this cute animated video for children.

Conseils pratiques pour profiter des marchés de Noël
December is a wonderful time to be in France thanks to the famous Christmas markets. Here's some practical advice to help you maximize your enjoyment and minimize hassles.

Célébrations de Thanksgiving
It's Thanksgiving! Though this is an American celebration, the Kwiziq team is international, so I thought it would be fun to take a look at similar holidays from our respective countries.

D'où vient la tradition du marché de Noël ?
Learn a bit of the history behind France's traditional Christmas markets in this cute video.

D'où vient le nom des Schtroumpfs ?
If you were a kid (or parent) in the 80s, you undoubtedly knew the little blue creatures known as Smurfs. As odd as that name might be, the original French is even odder: les Schtroumpfs.

DIY Pâques - Œuf avec message surprise à l'intérieur
Put your DIY skills to use making un Œuforique, a decorated egg with a surprise message inside.

Des initiatives pour aider parents et enfants
Video about some initiatives in Belgium to teach and entertain children while giving parents a bit of a break during confinement.

Devant un match de foot
It's World Cup time, so here's a fun dialogue between two football (soccer) fans watching a match.

Divali : la Fête des Lumières à Vancouver
Learn about the colorful, joyful festival of Diwali, celebrated by Indians all over the world.

Dix pour cent : la bonne recette
Dix pour cent is a humorous French TV series about the trials and tribulations of movie star agents.

Dix pour cent : la bonne recette (suite)
Part 2 of the video about Dix pour cent, a humorous French TV series about the trials and tribulations of movie star agents.

Et tout le monde s'en fout : L'eau
Funny video (with some vulgar language) about a serious subject: water.

Euro 2016
Euro 2016, the 15th edition of the European football / soccer championship, will take place in France from 10 June to 10 July. Learn a bit about this year's competition in our bilingual article.

Festival de Cannes
One of the most famous and prestigious film festivals in the world is held annually in Cannes. Learn a bit of its history and traditions in this French video with transcript and translation.

Festival des cerfs-volants
Berck-sur-Mer is home to an annual kite-flying festival - and it's going on right now! Learn about this colorful event with this video while working on your French listening comprehension.

France Gall, la groupie du pianiste
France Gall passed away in January 2018. Learn about this French singer with a unique voice in our bilingual article.

French Elections
The next French president will be elected this Sunday - learn about French elections in this bilingual article.

Game of Thrones (no spoilers)
For all you GoT fans out there (and anyone who'd just like to know what all the fuss is about), here's a video talking about all the records this fantasy TV show broke in its eight-year run.

Haiti's story of independence
Haiti was the first French colony to gain independence, thanks in large part thanks to one man.

Il est né le divin enfant
Il est né le divin enfant is one of the most popular French Christmas carols. Enjoy this animated video followed by lyrics in our bilingual reader.

Immigrer au Canada
If you dream of immigrating [UK: emigrating] to Canada, this official video has the vital information you need.

Inventions françaises
Hundreds if not thousands of products you use every day started out as nothing more than an idea - and many of those ideas were originally French.

Jardin d'hiver, de Keren Ann
Practice your French listening and reading comprehension with this wintery song.

Johnny Hallyday : 1943-2017
Watch this hommage to Johnny Hallyday, a French rock and roll legend who died in December 2017.

Joyeux Hanoucca !
The festival of Hanukkah begins on 25 Kislev on the Jewish calendar, which means the date on the Gregorian calendar changes every year.

L'Appel du 18 Juin 1940
The Appeal of 18 June is considered the origin of the French Resistance during World War II. Learn how it came about in this French video with transcript and translation.

L'Arnacœur - French Film Fest
The first Kwiziq French Film Fest review comes from none other than our CEO, Gareth "Gruff" Davies.

L'anniversaire de Cyril
Practice listening and reading with this story about a surprise party.

L'histoire de la fête Nationale
Learn about the history of France's national holiday, le 14 juillet, in this informative video.

L'oral de français en Première
At the end of "Première," the penultimate year of French high school, French students have to take a literary oral exam. Many of the tips offered in this video can be applied to other oral exams.

La Toussaint
Toussaint, or All Saints' Day, is an important Catholic holiday, particularly in France.

La fête de la Saint-Patrick
Saint Patrick's Day is the most important day of the year for Irish people all over the world. Learn about this 17 March celebration with this video.

La rentrée des classes de Mathilde
This back to school article features lots of practice with the future tense.

La tradition de la Galette des Rois
Have you ever eaten a Galette des Rois? This famous French cake, eaten only in January, contains a surprise!

La valeur inestimable de Notre-Dame de Paris
Notre-Dame de Paris, a jewel of French Gothic architecture, was partly destroyed by fire on 15 April 2019. Learn about some of the damage that was done in this video.

Le Bataclan, un théâtre hors du commun
On the 2nd anniversary of the monstrous attack which cost 90 people their lives on November 13th, 2015, and as the Bataclan theater opens its doors again, we wanted to pay tribute to this mythical place of Paris nightlife.

Le Club des Poètes
If you like Paris and poetry, you'll love le Club des Poètes. Find out about this thrice-weekly opportunity to recite poetry in our bilingual audio article.

Le Dîner de cons - French Film Fest
Laura's review for the Kwiziq French Film Fest.

Le Radeau de la Méduse, de Géricault
On 2 July, 1816, the ship "La Méduse" wrecked on the shores of Mauritania, and inspired one of the most famous paintings in the world. Learn more in this video.

Le Salon International de l'Agriculture
The annual Salon International de l'Agriculture is the largest French agricultural event of the year.

Le français moderne
Learn about Modern French in part five of our series of bilingual articles on the development of French over the centuries.

Leap Day - La journée bissextile
This extra day comes but once every four years - learn the reason for Leap Day and Leap Year and how to talk about them in French.

Les Fêtes Johanniques de Reims
One of the most important historical events in France takes place in Reims and commemorates Charles VII's coronation in its cathedral. Learn about it in this French audio article with transcript and translation.

Les Médiévales d'Ouffet
Every two years, the Belgian town of Ouffet hosts Les Médiévales, a weekend medieval festival.

Les bonnes résolutions de fin d'année
New year, new opportunity to make exercise a habit. Here's what a French gym and some of its newest members have to say about it.

Les bouchons, plaie de la route des vacances
When you're driving, the worst part of vacation is getting there and back, and France sees more than its fair share of summer traffic jams.

Les cours d'anglais - Gad Elmaleh
Enjoy Gad Elmaleh's stand-up comedy about learning English in this video.

Les mamans calmes
To celebrate Mother's Day in France, here's a sketch by the famous French stand-up comedian Florence Foresti, in which she explores the difficulties of motherhood, especially the irritating case of "perfect moms." Language warning: some mild vulgarity.

Les nouvelles régions
The map of France underwent some big changes this year - learn about the new regions and their names in this bilingual article.

Léo et Popi : la Galette des Rois
Fun video about la Galette des Rois, featuring Léo et Popi from the classic French children's book by Helen Oxenbury.

Marie Curie
Ready for two minutes of women's history? Listen to French kids talking about renowned scientist Marie Curie in this cute video.

Menton's Lemon Festival
The lovely French town of Menton is famous for its annual lemon festival. Take a behind-the-scenes look with this video.

Monsieur Grognon
Put your French negation skills to work with this bilingual article - click any phrase to see the English translation as well as links to related French grammar lessons.

Naissance de la langue française
Modern French dates from about the year 1300, but where did it come from? Learn about the birth of French in this French audio and transcript - just click any phrase for the English translation and related grammar lessons.

Noël en France - Christmas in France
How is Christmas celebrated in France? How are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day different in France than in the US or UK?

Nutella : Bousculades, pagaille, la promo monstre vire à l'émeute !
In January, a huge discount on Nutella, a chocolate-hazelnut paste beloved by the French (especially on crêpes), led to fights and riots in several stores.

Omar Sy - Interview Cinéma
French actor Omar Sy is known for a number of international hits, including Les Intouchables and X-Men: Days of Future Past. In this interview, he talks (quickly!) about some of his favorite movies.

On va camper ce weekend !
This audio article about camping was specially written to help you prepare for the listening and reading portions of the AP French exam.

Parle-t-on français ailleurs dans le monde ?
Is French spoken anywhere outside of France? Find out in this cute animated video for children.

Plus de faits intéressants sur le français
By popular demand, more interesting facts about French.

Pollution à Paris
Air pollution is a problem all over the world, and the capital of France is no exception. Fortunately, the mayor of Paris is taking steps to reduce it.

Premier Mai, poème de Victor Hugo
Listen to Victor Hugo's lovely poem for spring: Premier Mai.

Prénoms français
French parents are not completely free to choose their child's first name - learn about some surprising restrictions in this bilingual audio article.

Préparatifs de Noël
Get ready for Christmas with this short bilingual article.

Prévisions Météo-France
Check out this French weather report for some useful vocabulary and expressions.

Qu'est-ce que l'Avent ? What is Advent?
Learn about Advent and Advent calendars in this French-English article.

Quand je serai grand
Watch this cute video of kids singing about what they'll do when they grow up, then see the lyrics in our bilingual reader

Quelques faits intéressants sur le français
Take a break from learning French to learn some interesting facts about French.

Recette - Le Gratin Bœuf, Potiron et Parmesan
Learn how to make a delicious beef, pumpkin, and parmesan gratin in this video and bilingual article.

Rentrée scolaire - limiter les dépenses
The start of a new school year typically involves shopping for new supplies. This video shares some tips to keep these expenses as low as possible.

Roland-Garros
Whether you call it Roland-Garros or the French Open, if you're a tennis lover, you won't want to miss this French audio article about the only Grand Slam tournament played on clay courts.

Rosh Hashana
Learn some traditions related to Rosh Hashana, a two-day celebration for the Jewish New Year.

Septembre chez mes grands-parents
Reminisce about visiting grandparents in the fall in this audio article.

Soirée d'Hallowe'en
A small town in Alsace scares people from all over the region with an elaborate haunted house garage.

Songkran - Thai New Year
Did you know that Thailand celebrates New Year's in mid-April? Learn about the unique festival of Songkran in this bilingual article.

Tour de France
The Tour de France is a bike race and incredible test of endurance. Learn a bit about the history of this annual event in our bilingual article.

Un cœur en hiver - French Film Fest
Rowen's Kwiziq French Film Fest review.

Vendredi 13 : jour de chance ?
Do you think Friday the 13th is unlucky, lucky, or just another date on the calendar? Find out the story behind this supersitious day in this video.

Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo was a renowned author and poet, in the Romantic movement - one of the greatest and best-known French writers.

À quoi ça sert de recycler ses déchets ?
What's the point of recycling? Professor Gamberge explains all to a skeptical Charlotte in this animated video.

Éclipse en Guadeloupe
While the Great American Total Eclipse was just a partial eclipse in Guadeloupe, it was still a sight to behold and required the same special glasses.

B2: Upper Intermediate French reading exercises

Allô les urgences vétérinaires ?
Cat stuck in a tree? Call the emergency vet service.

Assomption
August 15 is the Catholic holiday of Assomption (Assumption Day) and is férié (a public holiday) in France.

Au secours ! Je n'ai plus internet !
Need help dealing with customer support when your internet goes out? Check out this audio article for some useful phrases.

Autumn at the Landerneau market
French markets are full of beautifully coloured food, and never more so than in autumn. Visit the Landernau market with this French video, including transcript and translation.

Bastille Day
Happy Bastille Day! Learn about the French national holiday in our bilingual audio article.

Beaujolais nouveau : ne l'appelez plus piquette !
It's that time of year again, when wine lovers gather to taste the young wine known as Beaujolais Nouveau. But is it really as good - or bad? - as they say?

Becoming French
Ever wonder how to obtain French citizenship? This video offers a nice summary of the different ways and what you have to do for each one - plus, it's great listening practice!

Charles Aznavour s'éteint à 94 ans
Famed French-Armenian singer passed away in October 2018. Watch this video highlighting aspects of his talented career, then scroll down for the transcript in our bilingual reader.

Comment préparer son bagage en cabine
Get some useful packing tips with this video by Catherine Schwaab.

Coupe du Monde 1998
Twenty years ago, France beat Brazil to become world champions of European football (aka soccer). In this video, trainer Aimé Jacquet shares his first thoughts.

Demande d'emploi
This audio article about a job letter was specially written to help you prepare for the listening and reading portions of the AP French exam.

Des vacances mémorables
Laurence and Arnaud go on a dream vacation to celebrate 5 years together in this audio article.

Dialectes et langues régionales
For centuries, France was divided into two main dialectal regions. Learn about the development of French in this bilingual article.

Décès de l'ancien président Jacques Chirac, l'animal politique
Former French president and mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac passed away on 26 September 2019. Learn about the legacy of this political animal in this video from France24.

Fête de la musique
La fête de la musique is an annual celebration in France and around the world. Learn a bit of its history in our bilingual audio article, then listen to a few French variety classics.

Fête de la musique : interview de Jack Lang
In 1981, Ministre de la Culture Jack Lang came up with a new celebration where citizens from every background could celebrate a common love of music: la Fête de la Musique. Here's how it happened.

Fête des Lumières à Lyon
Lyon's Festival of Light is a must-see event where the walls of buildings become movie screens. Here's a taste of what's in store in 2017, including the newest security measures.

Hallowe'en in France
At a nursery school in Biarritz, kids get ready for Halloween with stuffed pumpkins and favorite costumes.

Histoire d'animaux
Learn or practice some French expressions with animals in this cute bilingual story.

Histoires d'argent
A bilingual text about different relationships to money, rich in French idioms.

Hommage à Louis de Funès
Louis de Funès was a giant of French comedy known for his high-energy acting, diverse facial expressions, and foul temper.

Héritage de Johnny Hallyday
Despite being French, Johnny Hallyday wrote his will in the United States, which allowed him to disinherit his children. Find out how they're challenging the will and whether they have a case in this video.

L'histoire de la Saint-Sylvestre
In France, New Year's Eve is known as la (fête de) Saint-Sylvestre - but why?

La Bretagne se révèle en Côtes d'Armor
The northwestern corner of France is a beautiful region called Bretagne, or Brittany. Discover a few of its secrets and myths in this fast-paced video.

La Chandeleur
The 2nd of February is known as Chandeleur, la fête des chandelles, or le jour des crêpes - learn all about it in this video.

La main dans le sac
Learn or practice some idiomatic French expressions in this bilingual caper.

Le DELF-DALF en témoignages
The DELF and DALF are official French proficiency tests. In this video, French teachers in various countries talk about what DELF and DALF mean to them.

Le Louvre : 800 ans d'Histoire
Did you know that the Louvre, one of the most famous museums in the world, was originally a fortress? Learn about the history of this Parisian monument in this fascinating video.

Le XVIIIe siècle, le siècle des Lumières
Learn about some of France's rich history in this video.

Le français classique
Learn about Classical French in this 5-part series of bilingual articles about the development of French over the centuries.

Le grand nettoyage de printemps
Take part in the big spring cleaning with this audio article.

Le moyen français
Learn about Middle French in this 5-part series of bilingual articles about the development of French over the centuries.

Le premier mai
In much of the world, the 1st of May is a public holiday called Labour Day. Learn the history in this French video with transcript and translation.

Le ski - Têtes à Claques
Difficult but funny Québécois claymation video about a downhill skier calling emergency services - for himself.

Le suffrage universel masculin - 5 mars 1848
France was the first country to institute universal men's suffrage. Find out how that came about in this audio article and bilingual reader.

Les Français vus par les étrangers
Listen to some opinions about the French by people all over the world while working on your French listening comprehension.

Les animaux en vacances
Pets are important to the French, so much so that they're often included in family vacations. This can be something of a challenge, as you'll learn in this video report.

Les sites touristiques incontournables de la Guadeloupe
Visit the beautiful archipelago of Guadeloupe in this informative video.

Lettre au Père Noël
Read Lise's letter to Santa to practice your French Christmas vocabulary as well as listening and reading comprehension.

Lynda Lemay - Les Maudits Français
To celebrate Quebec's National Day, la Saint-Jean-Baptiste (June 24th) and la Fête de la Musique (June 21st), here is a song by Québécois singer-songwriter Lynda Lemay.

Mardi gras ~ Pancake Day
Learn about the various names and celebrations for the day before Ash Wednesday.

Milo - Les œufs en chocolat
Milo - Les oeufs en chocolat

Mon année à l'étranger
Quelle chance ! Spend a year in France with this audio article and bilingual reader.

Noël à Kaysersberg
No trip to France during the Christmas season would be complete without a visit to one of the famous Christmas marchés, and the one in Kaysersberg is perhaps the most authentic.

Poisson d'avril !
April's fish... what? Learn about the silly celebration that takes place in France on the 1st of April.

Pokémon Go - La chasse est ouverte
Pokémon Go has taken the world by storm, and while we can't offer any tips on finding Charmanders or Jigglypuffs, we can help you understand their French names in our bilingual article.

Portraits français - Jeanne d'Arc
Jeanne d'Arc is one of the most famous women throughout French history. Listen and then read our bilingual article, the third in our series of Portraits français.

Que la Force soit avec vous !
We couldn't miss the chance to share our best memories of Star Wars and create a themed French reading exercise for you at the same time!

Quel est le sens spirituel du Carnaval et du Mardi Gras ?
Carnaval and Mardi Gras are huge, weeks-long celebrations in Nice, Venice, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, and many other cities around the world. Find out about their religious origins in this video.

RIP Minsky, the father of artificial intelligence
Marvin Minsky, the father of artificial intelligence - and our beloved KwizBot's spiritual grandfather - has died. May he rest in peace.

Rentrée de professeur
The start of a new school year is a big deal for students as well as teachers, as heard in this audio article.

Romance au marché
Here's a cute story about love at first sight, packed with delicious French idioms.

Réalisatrices françaises
In honour of International Women's Day on 8th March, we're celebrating and highlighting the top 5 female film directors in the world of Francophone cinema.

Taxi !
Listen to this dialog between a taxi driver and a customer for some useful French expressions.

Trois minutes pour comprendre Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving Americans! And to everyone else who might be scratching your heads wondering what the big deal is, check out this video that offers a quick overview of one of the most important American - and Canadian - holidays.

Trottinettes électriques - À quand la fin de l'anarchie à Paris ?
Electric scooters can be found all over Paris - at least until the police come along and have them impounded.

Visite de Marseille
See the sights and taste the bouillabaisse while visiting the French city of Marseille with SNCF.

Visite de Strasbourg en Alsace
Visit the beautiful Alsatian town of Strasbourg and taste some local beer in this video.

Visite de la Côte Fleurie (Normandie)
Visit some lovely towns along the coast of Normandy, including Honfleur, Trouville-sur-Mer, and Deauville.

Visite du Périgord
View castles from a riverboat, visit prehistoric caves, and taste truffles in the beautiful French region of Périgord.

What makes a perfect Valentine's Day? (Bilingual article)
This bilingual article with audio describes two very different holidays - and what a difference!

C1: Advanced French reading exercises

Alsatian accent
Get an (exaggerated) idea about French as it's spoken in Alsace in this humorous sketch by Les Inconnus (a famous French trio of humorists from the 90's).

Histoire et origine du français canadien
The French spoken in Québec is different than what you might be used to - but why? Check out this animated video for an explanation of the Québécois accent ...

Kwiziq dans le "Crystal Maze"
In May 2018, the Kwiziq Team met in London for a week of work - and just a bit of fun, including a visit to The Crystal Maze Experience.

La Saint-Valentin
Celebrate Valentine's Day with this funny video about interpreting gestures on a first date.

Quand Mai 68 changea la France
May 1968 was a turning point in French history. On this 50th anniversary, learn how students and workers revolutionalized France.

Savoyard accent
Get an (exaggerated) idea about French as it's spoken in Savoie in this humorous sketch by Les Inconnus (a famous French trio of humorists from the 90s).

Une Saint-Valentin entre filles
No Valentine? No problem!

V pour Vendetta
In honour of Guy Fawkes Night (November 5th), let's take a look at V for Vendetta, a 2006 political thriller film set in a dystopian United Kingdom under the rule of a neo-fascist regime, where V, the mysterious anarchist freedom fighter tries to start a revolution through elaborate terrorist acts. Highly recommended!

Vendée Globe 2016 / 2017
Vendée Globe is a grueling, non-stop solo round the world race without assistance.

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Free French reading practice | French reading exercises

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Practice your French reading skills with our ever-growing collection of interactive reading content grouped by CEFR level and accompanied by detailed explanations and links further resources. These articles are presented to you using our Bilingual Reader: while reading the text you can click any phrase to see the English translation and related French grammar lessons.

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Open Culture
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One year after Creative Commons (CC) hosted an exploratory Open Culture Roundtable, in Lisbon, Portugal, which initiated the Towards a Recommendation on Open Culture (TAROC) global initiative, nearly 50 stakeholders from all continents gathered again for a strategic workshop, in Lisbon in May 2024. In this blog post, we share a snapshot of key highlights.

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This Spanish Reading Comprehension page printable resources and web-bases reading comprehension resources that you can use to teach, practice and/or assess reading comprehension in the Spanish language.

Teachers please feel free to use these Spanish teaching resources, but we ask that you respect the copyright and footer information of all of them.

Reading Comprehension in Spanish Exercises, Texts and Activities:

Spanish Reading Comprehension I nformación Personal Spanish 4 Teachers.org ( e lementary ) . S hort text w ith basic vocab on personal information such as name, age, birthday and others .

B eginners Reading Comp rehension in Spanish Spanish 4 Teachers.org ( middle school ). S hort paragraph of someone mentioning basic information about herself.

Spanish 4 Teachers.org (High School) Reading comprehension based on an interview done to the singer Juanes. Includes answers. Intermediate level. C o mprensión de lectura A2/B1.

Las Rebajas Spanish Reading ( m iddle/high school ) . S hort text on sales with questions and other activities.

Hablemos del Pasado Spanish Reading Comprehension and Lesson (high school) . Complete lesson plan packet around the theme "Indigenas de Chile". Read and answer the questions. Analyze the use of past tense. Brain storm, etc.

(middle/high school) . Several short texts (one paragraph long) with questions to practice reading comprehension.

Adios Peseta, Bienvenido Euro Spanish Reading Comprehension (high school). Reading comprehension on the change of the Spanish currency from Peseta to Euro.

Comprension de Lectura ( Spanish Reading Comprehension Exercises) (middle/high school) several reading comprehension exercises.

Una Mascota Especial Comprension de Lectura (Reading Comprehension in Spanish) (middle/high school) . A reading about a pet tarantula. Contains reading comp. questions.

( primary / middle schoo l) a collection of many very short reading comprehension texts with questions.

this page has two sections of texts. One of short and simple reading comprehension texts in Spanish with questions. The second (Fichas) is a section of reading comprehension worksheets based on authentic Spanish material and resources, such as labels, ads, etc. All are printable.

(primary/middle school) text on simple facts of a "bruja", perfect for Halloween. Mentions where she lives, what she likes, favorite food, etc.

(middle/high school) a series of short texts about initial units of study such as family, home, routine, etc. The texts are organized by A1, A2 and B1 level. The questions can be answered interactively online (as self check assessment) or texts and questions can be printed in PDF form.Spanish short texts by level

Printable reading comprehension documents a collection of Spanish reading comprehension texts and activities (Doc.)

Short and basic comprehension texts in Spanish many printable comprehension PDF documents for students in beginning levels.

Spanish short stories a compilation of printable short stories written in Spanish and categorized by value (valores) responsibility, honesty, etc.

Other Reading Comprehension Resources in Spanish:

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Reading comprehension in Spanish | Spanish4Teachers.org

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This Spanish Reading Comprehension page printable resources and web-bases reading comprehension resources that you can use to teach, practice and/or assess reading comprehension in the Spanish language. Teachers please feel free to use these Spanish teaching resources, but we ask that you respect the copyright and footer information of all of them.

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Yo Go verbs are verbs in Spanish that have an extra spelling change in the Yo form.

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Spanish II Class Resources - Señor Russell's Spanish II Page

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ar. -er, -ir verbs in the present tense.ppt

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Travel videos in Spanish

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"ruben y el mundo" "guías de viaje" viajar turismo gastronomía destinos europa asia américa áfrica oceanía "travel vlogger" "youtuber de viajes" "vlogger de ...

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🌏 ¡Hola! Soy Ruben Alonso realizador de documentales de viajes. En este canal cada semana pongo nuevos reportajes de viajes filmados en países de todo el mun...