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METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE ABOUT LEARNING DIFFICULTIESPROLOGUE This guide has been elaborated to offer teachers and parents with children who have Learning Difficulties a printable, clear and easy to use tool with strategies and resources to help these children learn in a more effective way.This guide is one of the products that has been developed as part of the European Proyect “Erasmus+ KA201” of innovation and exchange of good practice experiences called “Training on learning disabilities for parents and teachers. New strategies and methodologies and ICT contributions” during a period of two years, from 2015 to 2017.The coordinator country of this project is Spain, specifically the Educational and Psychopedagogical team from Molina de Segura, part of the state educational services of the Region of Murcia.The other countries involved are Turkey (Guidance Team from Ankara); Poland (Multikultura Association of Kracow); Italy (Psychopedagogical Services Cooperative of Reggio Emilia); and Lithuania (Psychopedagogical Team of Vilna). This guide is an abstract of the contents developed for the web page created in this Project, which makes it one of the most important products of the Project, along with creating a video game specifically designed to allow children with learning difficulties to develop better executive functions, since a low development of these is at the basis of every learning difficulty. The guide is structured in six parts. The first one in English since this is the language we have used to coordinate and develop our work. The second one in Spanish as Spain is the coordinator of this project. The rest in this order: Polish, Italian, Turkish and Lithuanian. The contents of the guide are organized as follows:Conceptualization of each learning difficulty. Understanding them as the group of learning difficulties not related to disability, motivational or emotional aspects, or external to the child; even though all of the mentioned factors can affect the child?s development and learning skills they do not explain the difficulty. We present the key strategies that we consider could best benefit these pupils with learning difficulties, in an inclusive and respectful approach to diversity.It is very important to highlight that the use of these methodologies of teaching and learning benefits all pupils, are more satisfactory for teachers and families and contribute to the development of more consistent and long lasting learning in pupils, therefore making it more efficient and motivating.Unfortunately there is still a long way to go for these methodologies to be fully implemented in every educational system and classroom. Many barriers need to be overcome to be able to implement them: Administration should give real support to teachers and schools committed to change, better training be made accessible to all teachers, motivational strategies to push schools and teachers to improve, etc. All of which make it necessary that we use this platform to reclaim the need for real changes and educational commitment from authorities to implement these methodologies in the educational systems.Although in the web page you can find a more detailed version of our work, in this guide you can find a summary of the main key ideas. Contents referred to each learning difficulty included in this project: Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dysorthography, Dyscalculia, Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder and Non Verbal Learning Disorder. Specifically we will find a short definition, main indicators or symptoms, compensation tools that teachers can use in the classroom and ICT resources that we considered useful to improve learning processes and development of these pupils.This part of the guide is probably the most innovative one. It aims to make it easier for teachers and families to find a collection of tools that have been scientifically proven to be useful for children with learning difficulties, with added information that facilitates an organized use of them depending on the age, type of difficulty or device that the pupil has access to (pc, mobile, tablet, etc.), specifying if you can have free access to it or not and a brief description of the tool. After these contents we focus on the concept of executive functioning, which are the front lobe functions in which children with learning difficulties show a lower development than average (for each learning difficulty there will be variations on the executive functions affected) and the ICT resources that will contribute to an improvement of the pupil?s difficulties.Finally, since we are aware that the use of ICT in the classroom is not yet fully established and even raises doubts and unanswered questions (for instance, we all know that an unsupervised use of ICT by children can be counteractive or even addictive) we have designed a Glossary of Terms that has been used in this guide, especially the ICT terms usually used in an educational context, to enable teachers and families that are unfamiliar with these new methodological approaches to overcome their fear and to start using them in a correct way. We could not finish the presentation of this guide without reinforcing the idea that the use of ICT in the classroom is beyond any doubt a positive change both because it allows teachers to help their pupils to use them correctly, reflect on their advantages and disadvantages, prevent an incorrect use of them and also to prepare pupils to become healthy and responsible adults that can make a good use of the tools that are available to them in XXI century. METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE ABOUT LEARNING DIFFICULTIES INDEXPROLOGUE1. GENERAL CONCEPT OF LD (NEUROLOGICAL BASIS, PUPILS WHO NEED HELP2. INCLUSIVE METHODOLOGIES3. DYSLEXIA, DYSORTHOGRAPHY AND DYSGRAPHIA3.1. What is Dyslexia and symptoms3.2. What is Dysorthography and symptoms3.3. What is Dysgraphia and symptoms3.4. Compensative strategies for Dyslexia, Dysorthography and Dysgraphia3.5. ICT for dyslexia, dysgraphia and dysorthography 3.5.1. General ICT 3.5.2. Apps4. DYSCALCULIA4.1. What is dyscalculia and symptoms4.2. Compensative strategies for Dyscalculia4.3. ICT for Dyscalculia 4.3.1. General ICT 4.3.2. Apps5. ADAH- attention disorder and hyperactivity5.1. What is ADAH and symptoms5.2. Compensative strategies for ADAH5.3. ICT for ADAH - apps 6. NVLD- Nonverbal learning disorder6.1. What is NVLD and symptoms6.2. Compensative strategies for NVLD6.3. ICT for NVLD 6.3.1. General ICT 6.3.2. Apps for NVLD7. EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS7.1. What is executive functions and why is important in pupils with LD7.2. Apps for training executive functions8. GLOSSARY OF TERMS – ICT terms used in education 1. GENERAL CONCEPT OF LEARNING DISABILITIESIn the context of this Methodological Guide it is appropriate to analyze the concept of Learning Difficulties from a double perspective. Firstly from the educational legislation that regulates this concept; secondly from the neuropsychological bases that define its etiology and classify the alterations that derive from them. The Educational Law 2/2006, 3rd of May, LOE, in its article 71.2 states the wide concept of “pupils in need of specific support” (ACNEAE in Spanish) within which are included the following: pupils with special educational needs (NEE in Spanish), learning difficulties (DEA in Spanish), high intellectual capacities (AACC in Spanish) and other personal conditions or personal schooling history. This guide refers to a selection of Learning Difficulties that include the majority of the cases that occur in our pupils, both at educational and socio-familiar levels, causing an important challenge to be attended appropriately. In this sense the material presented here aims to be a useful tool that helps families and teachers to understand each difficulty and also guide the educational response most suitable for each given alteration. Another key idea to understand the impact of these alterations refers to the etiology itself and the underlying neurophysiological disorder. The term “learning disability” was introduced by Kirk in 1962. Kirk intended to link the concept of “minimal brain dysfunction” with the academic functioning failure in pupils without mental impairment, in order to develop appropriate educational resources to relieve these difficulties. From this perspective, further research conceives these difficulties as brain dysfunctions that affect specific areas of cognitive performance, which results in a disproportionate and unexpected difficulty for an specific type of learning compared to the rest of the global skills of the same person.As a result of which, teachers and support professionals, guidance professionals in particular, have a very important role to play along with the families and educational authorities in order to give these pupils an appropriate response. The responsibility of this process implies suitable training for teachers, access to the necessary resources and the motivation and implication of all sectors of the educational community so that, in a coordinated way, we manage to respond to our pupils` specific characteristics. Kirk SA. Educating exceptional children. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 1978. 2. INCLUSIVE METHODOLOGIES These are general methodologies that favor all pupils learning, but it?s necessary (not only good) for children with learning difficulties.The inclusive methodologies all teachers need to develop in their classrooms are:Multiple intelligences.Learning based on projects.Learning based on problems solving.E-learningCooperative learning, among others.2.1.Multiple intelligences (from "The Distance Learning Technology Resource Guide," by Carla Lane)Howard Gardner of Harvard has identified seven distinct intelligences. This theory has emerged from recent cognitive research and "documents the extent to which students possess different kinds of minds and therefore learn, remember, perform, and understand in different ways," according to Gardner (1991). According to this theory, "we are all able to know the world through language, logical-mathematical analysis, spatial representation, musical thinking, the use of the body to solve problems or to make things, an understanding of other individuals, and an understanding of ourselves. Where individuals differ is in the strength of these intelligences - the so-called profile of intelligences -and in the ways in which such intelligences are invoked and combined to carry out different tasks, solve diverse problems, and progress in various domains." Gardner says that these differences "challenge an educational system that assumes that everyone can learn the same materials in the same way and that a uniform, universal measure suffices to test student learning. Indeed, as currently constituted, our educational system is heavily biased toward linguistic modes of instruction and assessment and, to a somewhat lesser degree, toward logical-quantitative modes as well." Gardner argues that "a contrasting set of assumptions is more likely to be educationally effective. Students learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. The broad spectrum of students - and perhaps the society as a whole - would be better served if disciplines could be presented in a numbers of ways and learning could be assessed through a variety of means." The learning styles are as follows:Visual-Spatial - think in terms of physical space, as do architects and sailors. Very aware of their environments. They like to draw, do jigsaw puzzles, read maps, daydream. They can be taught through drawings, verbal and physical imagery. Tools include models, graphics, charts, photographs, drawings, 3-D modeling, video, videoconferencing, television, multimedia, texts with pictures/charts/graphs.Bodily-kinesthetic - use the body effectively, like a dancer or a surgeon. Keen sense of body awareness. They like movement, making things, touching. They communicate well through body language and be taught through physical activity, hands-on learning, acting out, role playing. Tools include equipment and real objects.Musical - show sensitivity to rhythm and sound. They love music, but they are also sensitive to sounds in their environments. They may study better with music in the background. They can be taught by turning lessons into lyrics, speaking rhythmically, tapping out time. Tools include musical instruments, music, radio, stereo, CD-ROM, multimedia.Interpersonal - understanding, interacting with others. These students learn through interaction. They have many friends, empathy for others, street smarts. They can be taught through group activities, seminars, dialogues. Tools include the telephone, audio conferencing, time and attention from the instructor, video conferencing, writing, computer conferencing, E-mail.Intrapersonal - understanding one's own interests, goals. These learners tend to shy away from others. They're in tune with their inner feelings; they have wisdom, intuition and motivation, as well as a strong will, confidence and opinions. They can be taught through independent study and introspection. Tools include books, creative materials, diaries, privacy and time. They are the most independent of the learners.Linguistic - using words effectively. These learners have highly developed auditory skills and often think in words. They like reading, playing word games, making up poetry or stories. They can be taught by encouraging them to say and see words, read books together. Tools include computers, games, multimedia, books, tape recorders, and lecture.Logical -Mathematical - reasoning, calculating. Think conceptually, abstractly and are able to see and explore patterns and relationships. They like to experiment, solve puzzles, ask cosmic questions. They can be taught through logic games, investigations, mysteries. They need to learn and form concepts before they can deal with details.At first, it may seem impossible to teach to all learning styles. However, as we move into using a mix of media or multimedia, it becomes easier. As we understand learning styles, it becomes apparent why multimedia appeals to learners and why a mix of media is more effective. It satisfies the many types of learning preferences that one person may embody or that a class embodies. A review of the literature shows that a variety of decisions must be made when choosing media that is appropriate to learning style.Visuals: Visual media help students acquire concrete concepts, such as object identification, spatial relationship, or motor skills where words alone are inefficient.Printed words: There is disagreement about audio's superiority to print for affective objectives; several models do not recommend verbal sound if it is not part of the task to be learned.Sound: A distinction is drawn between verbal sound and non-verbal sound such as music. Sound media are necessary to present a stimulus for recall or sound recognition. Audio narration is recommended for poor readers.Motion: Models force decisions among still, limited movement, and full movement visuals. Motion is used to depict human performance so that learners can copy the movement. Several models assert that motion may be unnecessary and provides decision aid questions based upon objectives. Visual media which portray motion are best to show psychomotor or cognitive domain expectations by showing the skill as a model against which students can measure their performance.Color: Decisions on color display are required if an object's color is relevant to what is being learned.Realia: Realia are tangible, real objects which are not models and are useful to teach motor and cognitive skills involving unfamiliar objects. Realia are appropriate for use with individuals or groups and may be situation based. Realia may be used to present information realistically but it may be equally important that the presentation corresponds with the way learner's represent information internally.Instructional Setting: Design should cover whether the materials are to be used in a home or instructional setting and consider the size what is to be learned. Print instruction should be delivered in an individualized mode which allows the learner to set the learning pace. The ability to provide corrective feedback for individual learners is important but any medium can provide corrective feedback by stating the correct answer to allow comparison of the two answers.Learner Characteristics: Most models consider learner characteristics as media may be differentially effective for different learners. Although research has had limited success in identifying the media most suitable for types of learners several models are based on this method.Reading ability: Pictures facilitate learning for poor readers who benefit more from speaking than from writing because they understand spoken words; self-directed good readers can control the pace; and print allows easier review.Categories of Learning Outcomes: Categories ranged from three to eleven and most include some or all of Gagne's (1977) learning categories; intellectual skills, verbal information, motor skills, attitudes, and cognitive strategies. Several models suggest a procedure which categorizes learning outcomes, plans instructional events to teach objectives, identifies the type of stimuli to present events, and media capable of presenting the stimuli.Events of Instruction: The external events which support internal learning processes are called events of instruction. The events of instruction are planned before selecting the media to present it.Performance: Many models discuss eliciting performance where the student practices the task which sets the stage for reinforcement. Several models indicate that the elicited performance should be categorized by type; overt, covert, motor, verbal, constructed, and select. Media should be selected which is best able to elicit these responses and the response frequency. One model advocates a behavioral approach so that media is chosen to elicit responses for practice. To provide feedback about the student's response, an interactive medium might be chosen, but any medium can provide feedback. Learner characteristics such as error proneness and anxiety should influence media selection.Testing which traditionally is accomplished through print, may be handled by electronic media. Media are better able to assess learners' visual skills than are print media and can be used to assess learner performance in realistic situations.How to Teach or Learn Anything 8 Different Ways (T. Amstrong)One of the most remarkable features of the theory of multiple intelligences is how it provides?eight different potential pathways?to learning. If a teacher is having difficulty reaching a student in the more traditional linguistic or logical ways of instruction, the theory of multiple intelligences suggests several other ways in which the material might be presented to facilitate effective learning. Whether you are a kindergarten teacher, a graduate school instructor, or an adult learner seeking better ways of pursuing self-study on any subject of interest, the same basic guidelines apply. Whatever you are teaching or learning, see how you might connect it withwords (linguistic intelligence)numbers or logic (logical-mathematical intelligence)pictures (spatial intelligence)music (musical intelligence)self-reflection (intrapersonal intelligence)a physical experience (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence)a social experience (interpersonal intelligence), and/oran experience in the natural world. (naturalist intelligence)For example, if you’re teaching or learning about the law of supply and demand in economics, you might read about it (linguistic), study mathematical formulas that express it (logical-mathematical), examine a graphic chart that illustrates the principle (spatial), observe the law in the natural world (naturalist) or in the human world of commerce (interpersonal); examine the law in terms of your own body [e.g. when you supply your body with lots of food, the hunger demand goes down; when there's very little supply, your stomach's demand for food goes way up and you get hungry] (bodily-kinesthetic and intrapersonal); and/or write a song (or find an existing song) that demonstrates the law (perhaps Dylan's "Too Much of Nothing?").?You don’t have to teach or learn something in all eight ways, just see what the possibilities are, and then decide which particular pathways interest you the most, or seem to be the most effective teaching or learning tools. The theory of multiple intelligences is so intriguing because it expands our horizon of available teaching/learning tools beyond the conventional linguistic and logical methods used in most schools (e.g. lecture, textbooks, writing assignments, formulas, etc.). To get started, put the topic of whatever you’re interested in teaching or learning about in the center of a blank sheet of paper, and draw eight straight lines or "spokes" radiating out from this topic. Label each line with a different intelligence. Then start brainstorming ideas for teaching or learning that topic and write down ideas next to each intelligence (this is a spatial-linguistic approach of brainstorming; you might want to do this in other ways as well, using a tape-recorder, having a group brainstorming session, etc.). ResourcesArmstrong, Thomas.?Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom 3rd ed.?Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2009.Armstrong, Thomas.?7 Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing Your Multiple Intelligences. New York: Plume, 1999.Armstrong, Thomas.?In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences, New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2000.Armstrong, Thomas.?You’re Smarter Than You Think:? A Kid’s Guide to Multiple Intelligences.? Minneapolis, MN:? Free Spirit, 2014.Armstrong, Thomas.?The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing:? Making the Words Come Alive.? Alexandria, VA:? Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003.Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Multiple Intelligences CD-ROM, and Multiple Intelligences Video Series; 1250 N. Pitt St., Alexandria, VA 22314-1453 (800-933-2723).Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic,1983Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic, 1993.Gardner, Howard. Intelligence Reframed:? Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century.? New York:? Basic, 2000.National Professional Resources, 25 South Regent St., Port Chester, NY 10573, 914-937-8879. Producer of several videos on MI including, Howard Gardner, "How Are Kids Smart?" Jo Gusman, "MI and the Second Language Learner", and Thomas Armstrong, Multiple Intelligences: Discovering the Giftedness in All".New City School, Celebrating Multiple Intelligences ( 5209 Waterman Ave., St. Louis, MO 63108).Skylight Publications, 200 E. Wood St., Suite 250, Palatine, IL 60067 (div. Simon and Schuster). Publisher of many MI materials.Zephyr Press, PO Box 66006, Tucson, AZ 85728 (602-322-5090). Publisher of many MI materials. Learning based on projects (Buck Institute for Education (BIE)What is Project Based Learning (PBL)?Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge. In Gold Standard PBL, Essential Project Design Elements include:Key Knowledge, Understanding, and Success Skills - The project is focused on student learning goals, including standards-based content and skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and self-management. Challenging Problem or Question - The project is framed by a meaningful problem to solve or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge.Sustained Inquiry - Students engage in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, finding resources, and applying information.Authenticity - The project features real-world context, tasks and tools, quality standards, or impact – or speaks to students’ personal concerns, interests, and issues in their lives.Student Voice & Choice - Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create.Reflection - Students and teachers reflect on learning, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, obstacles and how to overcome them.Critique & Revision - Students give, receive, and use feedback to improve their process and products.Public Product - Students make their project work public by explaining, displaying and/or presenting it to people beyond the classroom.Why Project Based?Learning (PBL)?Project Based Learning’s time has come.?The experience of thousands of teachers across all grade levels and subject areas,?backed by research, confirms that PBL is an effective and enjoyable way to learn - and develop?deeper learning?competencies required for success in college, career, and civic life. Why are so many educators across the United States and around the world?interested in this teaching method? The answer is a combination of timeless reasons and recent developments.PBL makes school more engaging for students.?Today’s students, more than ever, often find school to be boring and meaningless. In PBL, students are active, not passive; a project engages their hearts and minds, and provides real-world relevance for learning.PBL improves learning.?After completing a project,?students understand content more deeply, remember what they learn and retain it longer than is often the case with traditional instruction. Because of this, students who gain content knowledge with PBL are better able to apply what they know and can do to new situations.PBL builds success skills for college, career, and life.?In the 21st century workplace and in college, success requires more than basic knowledge and skills. In a project, students learn how to take initiative and responsibility, build their confidence,?solve problems, work in teams, communicate ideas, and manage themselves more effectively.PBL helps address standards. The Common Core and other present-day standards emphasize real-world application of knowledge and skills, and the development of success skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, communication in a variety of media, and speaking and presentation skills. PBL is an effective way to meet these goals.PBL provides opportunities for students to use technology.?Students are familiar with and enjoy using a variety of tech tools that are a perfect fit with PBL. With technology, teachers and students can not only find resources and information and create products, but also collaborate more effectively, and connect with experts, partners, and audiences around the world.PBL makes teaching more enjoyable and rewarding.?Projects allow teachers to work more closely with active, engaged students doing high-quality, meaningful work, and in many cases to rediscover the joy of learning alongside their students.PBL connects students and schools with communities and the real world.?Projects provide students with empowering opportunities to make a difference, by solving real problems and addressing real issues. Students learn how to interact with adults and organizations, are exposed to workplaces and adult jobs, and can develop career interests. Parents and community members can be involved in projects.What Every Good Project Needs (John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller, at the Buck Institute for Education)A project is meaningful if it fulfills two criteria. First, students must perceive the work as personally meaningful, as a task that matters and that they want to do well. Second, a meaningful project fulfills an educational purpose. Well-designed and well-implemented project-based learning is meaningful in both ways.As educators with the Buck Institute for Education, we provide professional development to help schools set up a sustained program of in-depth project-based learning throughout a district, network, or state. In our work with teachers, we have identified seven essential elements of meaningful projects. Let's look at each element by considering what the fictional Ms. McIntyre could have done to create a meaningful project instead of handing out prepared packets.1. A Need to KnowImagine that on the first day of the infectious disease unit, Ms. McIntyre showed a video depicting a beautiful beach, which ended with a shot of a sign reading, "Beach Closed: Contaminated Water." Suppose watching this video led to a lively (and sometimes disgusting) discussion in which students shared their experiences with suspicious water quality, discussed times when beaches had been closed and why, and talked about how much pollution bothered them. The teacher could then introduce the project by telling students that they would be learning more about ocean pollution and proposing actions to combat it.Teachers can powerfully activate students' need to know content by launching a project with an "entry event" that engages interest and initiates questioning. An entry event can be almost anything: a video, a lively discussion, a guest speaker, a field trip, or a piece of mock correspondence that sets up a scenario. In contrast, announcing a project by distributing a packet of papers is likely to turn students off; it looks like a prelude to busywork.Many students find schoolwork meaningless because they don't perceive a need to know what they're being taught. They are unmotivated by a teacher's suggestion that they should learn something because they'll need it later in life, for the next course, or simply because "it's going to be on the test." With a compelling student project, the reason for learning relevant material becomes clear: I need to know this to meet the challenge I've accepted.2. A Driving QuestionAfter the discussion about beach pollution, Ms. McIntyre led students in brainstorming possible solutions, such as enacting laws, designing better waste-treatment systems, and raising public awareness about the need to reduce contaminants. Students created a driving question to focus their efforts, focusing on a specific local area: How can we reduce the number of days Foster's Beach is closed because of poor water quality?A good driving question captures the heart of the project in clear, compelling language, which gives students a sense of purpose and challenge. The question should be provocative, open-ended, complex, and linked to the core of what you want students to learn. It could be abstract (When is war justified?); concrete (Is our water safe to drink?); or focused on solving a problem (How can we improve this website so that more young people will use it?).A project without a driving question is like an essay without a thesis. Without a thesis statement, a reader might be able to pick out the main point a writer is trying to make; but with a thesis statement, the main point is unmistakable. Without a driving question, students may not understand why they are undertaking a project. They know that the series of assigned activities has some connection with a time period, a place, or a concept. But if you asked, "What is the point of all these activities?" they might only be able to offer, "Because we're making a poster."3. Student Voice and ChoiceOnce her students' interest was piqued by a challenging question, Ms. McIntyre explained the requirements for the "Don't Close the Beach" project, which included an individually written paper, an oral presentation of students' work accompanied by media technology, and a product of students' choice created by teams. Students chose to develop media kits, public service announcements, web pages, brochures, and letters to government and industry officials, among other products.This element of project-based learning is key. In terms of making a project feel meaningful to students, the more voice and choice, the better. However, teachers should design projects with the extent of student choice that fits their own style and students.On the limited-choice end of the scale, learners can select what topic to study within a general driving question or choose how to design, create, and present products. As a middle ground, teachers might provide a limited menu of options for creative products to prevent students from becoming overwhelmed by choices. On the "the more, the better" end of the scale, students can decide what products they will create, what resources they will use, and how they will structure their time. Students could even choose a project's topic and driving question.4. 21st Century SkillsOnce Ms. McIntyre's students had decided on actions that would help them respond to their driving question, they got to work. Collaboration was central to the project. Students formed teams of three or four and began planning what tasks they would do and how they would work together.As they worked, each team regularly paused to review how well they were collaborating and communicating, using rubrics they had developed with the teacher's guidance. To boost collaboration skills, Ms. McIntyre used role-playing and team-building activities. She showed students how to use time and task organizers. They practiced oral presentation skills and learned to produce videos and podcasts. In writing journals, students reflected on their thinking and problem-solving processes, which they knew they would need to explain in their oral presentation.A project should give students opportunities to build such 21st century skills as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and the use of technology, which will serve them well in the workplace and life. This exposure to authentic skills meets the second criterion for meaningful work—an important purpose. A teacher in a project-based learning environment explicitly teaches and assesses these skills and provides frequent opportunities for students to assess themselves.5. Inquiry and InnovationAfter their discussion about encounters with pollution, in addition to choosing a driving question, Ms. McIntyre's students as a whole class generated a list of more detailed questions about diseases, bacteria and their effects, and sources of water contamination. Questions included, What diseases can you get from water? Do you have to drink it to get sick? and Where do bacteria come from? The teams fine-tuned their questions and discussed how to find answers from the teacher, books, articles, websites, experts, and visits to Foster's Beach.As these learners found answers, they raised and investigated new questions. Students synthesized the information they gathered and used it both to inform their individually written papers on the driving question and to help create their team's product related to that question.Students find project work more meaningful if they conduct real inquiry, which does not mean finding information in books or websites and pasting it onto a poster. In real inquiry, students follow a trail that begins with their own questions, leads to a search for resources and the discovery of answers, and often ultimately leads to generating new questions, testing ideas, and drawing their own conclusions. With real inquiry comes innovation—a new answer to a driving question, a new product, or an individually generated solution to a problem. The teacher does not ask students to simply reproduce teacher- or textbook-provided information in a pretty format.To guide students in real inquiry, refer students to the list of questions they generated after the entry event. Coach them to add to this list as they discover new insights. The classroom culture should value questioning, hypothesizing, and openness to new ideas and perspectives.6. Feedback and RevisionAs they developed their ideas and products, student teams critiqued one another's work, referring to rubrics and exemplars. Ms. McIntyre checked research notes, reviewed rough drafts and plans, and met with teams to monitor their progress.Formalizing a process for feedback and revision during a project makes learning meaningful because it emphasizes that creating high-quality products and performances is an important purpose of the endeavor. Students need to learn that most people's first attempts don't result in high quality and that revision is a frequent feature of real-world work.In addition to providing direct feedback, the teacher should coach students in using rubrics or other sets of criteria to critique one another's work. Teachers can arrange for experts or adult mentors to provide feedback, which is especially meaningful to students because of the source.7. A Publicly Presented ProductIn Ms. McIntyre's class, teams presented their analyses of water contamination issues and proposals for addressing the problem at an exhibition night. The invited audience included parents, peers, and representatives of community, business, and government organizations. Students answered questions and reflected on how they completed the project, next steps they might take, and what they gained in terms of knowledge and skills—and pride.Schoolwork is more meaningful when it's not done only for the teacher or the test. When students present their work to a real audience, they care more about its quality. Once again, it's "the more, the better" when it comes to authenticity. Students might replicate the kinds of tasks done by professionals—but even better, they might create real products that people outside school use.The Rest of the StoryThe hypothetical project described here was inspired by a real project, "Media Saves the Beach," carried out by students at High Tech High in San Diego, California. In this real-life project, students worked alongside established local groups to advocate cleaner seashores. Several government agencies eventually came through with funding for water monitoring at local beaches.In truth, one of the products students created was a poster. What made that poster different from the meaning-lite one Ms. McIntyre assigned? The High Tech High students chose to do their poster because it was an effective way to communicate their message at Exhibition Night—and the team stood nearby to explain it. To create the poster, students engaged in an extended process of inquiry, critique, and revision. They learned important things in the process. In short, even a poster can be meaning-heavy if it's part of a project embodying the seven essential elements of project-based learning.Authors' note: Individual and some place names in this article are pseudonyms.See more resources (videos, blogs, books… at )2.3. Problems solving learning (Problem-Based Learning: What and How Do Students Learn, by Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, The San Francisco State University)As an MBA, you will have to be an accomplished problem-solver of organizational design and change situations. You will also have to be a self-directed learner your entire professional life, as knowledge in the field of management will change, and you will continuously be meeting new and unexpected challenges.The consideration of these factors such as these dictates the wisdom of a problem-based, student-centered, self-directed program that will allow you, the student, in collaboration with your group and instructor, to design an experience tailor-made to your individual needs.What Is Problem-Based Learning (PBL)?Problem-based learning (PBL) is an approach that challenges students to learn through engagement in a real problem. It is a format that simultaneously develops both problem solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and skills by placing students in the active role of problem-solvers confronted with an ill-structured situation that simulates the kind of problems they are likely to face as future managers in complex organizations.Problem-based learning is student-centered. PBL makes a fundamental shift--from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. The process is aimed at using the power of authentic problem solving to engage students and enhance their learning and motivation. There are several unique aspects that define the PBL approach:Learning takes place within the contexts of authentic tasks, issues, and problems--that are aligned with real-world concerns.In a PBL course, students and the instructor become colearners, coplanners, coproducers, and coevaluators as they design, implement, and continually refine their curricula.The PBL approach is grounded in solid academic research on learning and on the best practices that promote it. This approach stimulates students to take responsibility for their own learning, since there are few lectures, no structured sequence of assigned readings, and so on.PBL is unique in that it fosters collaboration among students, stresses the development of problem solving skills within the context of professional practice, promotes effective reasoning and self-directed learning, and is aimed at increasing motivation for life-long learning.Problem-based learning begins with the introduction of an ill-structured problem on which all learning is centered. The problem is one that MBA students are likely to face as future professionals. Expertise is developed by engaging in progressive problem solving. Thus, problems drive the organization and dynamics of the course. MBA students, individually and collectively, assume major responsibility for their own learning and instruction. Most of the learning occurs in small groups rather than in lectures. As teacher, my role changes from "sage on stage" to a "guide by the side." My role is more like that of a facilitator and coach of student learning, acting at times as a resource person, rather than as knowledge-holder and disseminator. Similarly, your role, as a student, is more active, as you are engaged as a problem-solver, decision-maker, and meaning-maker, rather than being merely a passive listener and note-taker.Where Did PBL Come From and Who Else is Using It?PBL originated from a curriculum reform by medical faculty at Case Western Reserve University in the late 1950s. Innovative medical and health science programs continued to evolve the practice of PBL, particularly the specific small group learning and tutorial process that was developed by medical faculty at McMaster University in Canada. These innovative and forward-looking medical school programs considered the intensive pattern of basic science lectures followed by an equally exhausting clinical teaching program to be an ineffective and dehumanizing way to prepare future physicians. Given the explosion of medical information and new technology, as well as the rapidly changing demands of future medical practice, a new mode and strategy of learning was developed that would better prepare students for professional practice. PBL has spread to over 50 medical schools, and has diffused into many other professional fields including law, economics, architecture, mechanical and civil engineering, as well as in K-12 curricula. And the entire MBA program at Ohio University has been designed as an integrated curriculum using the PBL approach.Why PBL?Traditional education practices, starting from kindergarten through college, tend to produce students who are often disenchanted and bored with their education. They are faced with a vast amount of information to memorize, much of which seems irrelevant to the world as it exists outside of school. Students often forget much of what they learned, and that which they remember cannot often be applied to the problems and tasks they later face in the business world. Traditional classrooms also do not prepare students to work with others in collaborative team situations. The result: students tend to view MBA education as simply a "right of passage," a necessary "union card," and an imposed set of hurdles with little relevance to the real world. Education is reduced to acquiring a diploma (merely another commodity to be purchased in the marketplace), and the final grade becomes the overriding concern (rather than learning).Research in educational psychology has found that traditional educational approaches (e.g., lectures) do not lead to a high rate of knowledge retention. Despite intense efforts on the part of both students and teachers, most material learned through lectures is soon forgotten, and natural problem solving abilities may actually be impaired. In fact, studies have shown that in 90 days students forget 90% of everything they have been told (Smilovitz, 1996). Motivation in such traditional classroom environments is also usually low.Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of PBL is that students genuinely enjoy the process of learning. PBL is a challenging program which makes the study of organization design and change intriguing for students because they are motivated to learn by a need to understand and solve real managerial problems. The relevance of information learned is readily apparent; students become aware of a need for knowledge as they work to resolve the problems.How Does PBL Work?A PBL course is designed into a series of real-world, hands-on, PBL investigations. You will be working in small groups/teams with other students on problems that you are likely to encounter as a professional manager. You will begin a PBL investigation by being presented with an ill-structured organizational problem or scenario. Such a presentation may be in the form of a written statement, a video clip of a real manager at a company, or a guest speaker. Every PBL team will appoint a chairperson/leader and sometimes a recorder/secretary. Your PBL team will be guided in the use of a reiterative problem-solving process. Your team will applyy this problem solving process to find, analyze, and solve the presenting problem. Some PBL investigations may culminate in a student-created project/product, exhibitions, or other artifacts that address the driving questions. In some cases, the PBL investigation will culminate in an oral performance with managers from the business community in attendance.As you work with each problem you can:Develop your diagnostic reasoning and analytical problem-solving skills.Determine what knowledge you need to acquire to understand the problem, and others like it.Discover the best resources for acquiring that information.Carry out your own personalized study using a wide range of resources.Apply the information you have learned back to the problem.Integrate this newly acquired knowledge with your existing understanding.In short, you will be learning in a highly relevant and exciting manner to problem-solve and to develop self-directed study skills that build toward the skills and knowledge that you will need as a practicing manager.The problem-solving process can be summarized according to three broad and reiterative phases.Phase 1. First, your group will gather information and list it under a heading entitled: "What do we already know?" In this phase, you will entertain the problem in light of the knowledge that you already have from your own experience. Your group will discuss the current situation surrounding the problem as it has been presented. This analysis requires discussion and agreement on the working definitions of the problems, and sorting out which issues and aspects of the situation are worthy of further investigation. This initial analysis should yield a problem statement that serves as a starting point for the investigation, and it may be revised as assumptions are questioned and new information comes to light.Phase 2. Next, you will engage with the problem by also identifying under a second heading, "What do we need to know (to solve this problem)?" Here you will list questions or learning issues that must be answered to address missing knowledge, or to shed light on the problem. It is in this phase that your group will be analyzing the problem into components, discussing implications, entertaining possible explanations or solutions, and developing working hypotheses. This activity is like a "brainstorming" phase with evaluation suspended while explanations or solutions are written on a flipchart or chalkboard. Your group will need to formulate learning goals, outlining what further information is needed, and how this information can best be obtained.Phase 3. The above list should inform your group in what to do in order to solve the problem. In this phase your group will discuss, evaluate, and organize hypotheses and tentative hypotheses. Your group will make a "What should we do?" list that formulates keeps track of such issues as what resources to consult, people to interview, articles to read, and what specific actions team members need to perform. It is in this phase that your group will identify and allocate learning tasks, develop study plans to discover needed information. You will be gathering information from the classroom, resource readings, texts, library sources, videos, and from external experts on the subject. As new information is acquired, your group will need to meet to analyze and evaluate it for its reliability and usefulness in applying it to the problem.In short, you will be spending a great deal of time discussing the problem, generating hypotheses, identifying relevant facts, searching for information, and defining their own learning issues. Unlike traditional and standard classes, learning objectives are not stated up front. Rather, you and members of your group will be responsible for generating your own learning issues or objectives based on your group's analysis of the problem.All during this process, as a student, you will be actively defining and constructing potential solutions. As an instructor, my role is primarily to model, guide, coach--to support you and your team through the learning and assessment process.The majority of class time will be devoted to working in self-directed, PBL small group tutorials. A portion of class time will be allocated to "Resource Sessions," which may include simulations, case studies, and brief discussions to further explore concepts and issues which arise out of the PBL projects.Transitioning to a PBL Classroom EnvironmentStudents who are new to a PBL classroom environment may find it initially unsettling. This is because you are being asked to take responsibility for your own learning, to work on ill-structured problems where there isn't a pre-established "right answer," and where you are expected to structure your own approach to acquiring and using information to solve problems. In many respects, this environment mimics the "real-world." In business settings, there are no standardized objective tests, lectures, or routine and well defined assignments. Entering this new type of learning environment requires you a willingness on your part to accept risk and uncertainty, and to become a self-directed learner.Establishing an Open Climate for PBLEstablishing an open climate is essential for problem-based learning. Every student should feel free to say whatever comes to mind, any ideas or comments, no matter how unsophisticated or inappropriate they might seem, without being put down or criticized. Most students have learned in their prior educational experiences not to speak up or volunteer their thoughts unless they are absolutely sure of the answer. Any show of ignorance was held against them.Learning can never occur unless you can bring out their ideas and thoughts, and openly admit to confusion, lack of understanding, or ignorance…"I don't know" is a powerful first step to learning. The same is true for myself as the instructor. The instructor doesn't have all the answers or know everything; no one person can be an authority in everything, and no one should be expected to have all the answers. We can ALL learn in this course.It is your responsibility, as a student, TO SPEAK UP when you are doubtful, unsure, or uncomfortable with comments or ideas made by others in the group. You also must be willing to speak up when you feel that another member of your group is making statements that you feel are incorrect.Students must also develop the ability to openly and constructively express their opinions about the comments or ideas of others, or about the quality of other students' performance in the group. It is your responsibility to offer opinions in a friendly and constructive manner. Every student must learn to both?give?and?accept?constructive criticism.PBL Assessment PhilosophyTo Assess.?The Latin origin of this term,?assidere, literally means?to sit down beside.?Another way of thinking of assessment is to use careful judgment based on the kind of close observation that comes from "sitting down beside."With PBL, assessment is not separate from instruction. Rather, assessment is integral to learning. The focus and purpose of assessment is?on learning, on how it is done, and how it can be better, not on normative comparisons. Assessment is a continuous process that drives instruction. Further, assessment does not bring an end to learning; it provides information about how to continue to develop your skills, knowledge and abilities with respect to the course learning objectives. Having said this, it is important for you to think of assessment as an?active demonstration of your understanding and ability to apply this understanding.Words like "tests" and "examinations" have well established connotations of evalutating a student's?possession?of knowledge. We need a different process, and a new language, to identify how to assess a student's capability for?using?and?applying?knowledge. Education of an individual, understood in terms of developing a capbility for using and applying one's knowledge, cannot be adequately assessed by traditional testing. Grading on a curve, which sorts students into groups for administrative purposes, says nothing about how each student is using his or her talents or growing toward their potential.With PBL, the instructor is no longer the sole yardstick by which your progress will be measured. Rather, my role as instructor is to help students monitor themselves, to monitor your own progress, to establish criteria for learning and quality work, and to help you devise your own goals for improvement. This means that I will not be the only judge of student work; students will learn to evaluate the work of their peers, as well as their own. In addition, your work may also be monitored and evaluated by real-world assessors--managers and executives from companies in the Bay Area.Students will codevelop with the instructor relevant and meaningful assessments, and play an active role in developing criteria and setting standards of performance for high quality work. Assessments must have meaning for the learner. For assessments to be meaningful, they must have some connection to the real world, difficult enough to be interesting but not totally frustrating, and generative, where a real product, service, or valued information is being evaluated. This concept of assessment-as-learning focuses on what?learners achieve--not what?teachers provide.Therefore, in this course, student assessment is a multidimensional process, integral to learning, that involves observing performances of individual learners in action and judging them on the basis of collaboratively determined developmental criteria, with resulting feedback to that learner. Assessments may involve a performance or demonstration, usually for a real audience (i.e., managers from the business community) and useful purpose (e.g., as part of student exhibition or learning conference). Assessment must be seamless and ongoing; it must be part of the PBL process. Students must also learn during assessment; it is not simpy a "grade" that is tacked on at the end of a paper or transcript.In general, and at minimum, students will be assessed in three broad areas:Applied Competence.?Demonstrate the ability to use organizational design and change management concepts and frameworks to identify and anaylze variables that can influence an organization's overall effectiveness.Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving and Communicative Competence.?Identify problems and/or opportunities in organizational contexts and make specific recommendations, supported by theory, to improve the situation. Accurately and competently using theoretical frameworks from organization design and change literature to interpret and solve business problems, and effectively communicating your analyses to others in a variety of professional contexts. Implementing your problem solving activities with a commitment to quality.Collaborative and Leadership Competence.?Collaborates as a member of a project team, taking the initiative in identifying and solving problems or pursuing opportunities for learning and improvement within your group.Assessment must also be seen as fair and equitable. In the early part of the semester, a voluntary "student assessment task force" will be formed. This task force will consists of student representatives from each of the three sections of MGMT 842 and will work with the instructor in developing an overall assessment plan for all three sections. After every PBL project, group-based assessments will be conducted. These assessments are to help facilitate reflection on what you learned during the PBL project, and to receive direct feedback from your team members on your performance, contributions, and intellectual achievements.See more at or Hmelo-Silver, C.E. (2004). Problem-based learning: What and How Do Students Learn? Educational Psychology Review, 16(3).Imagen from Thayer School of Engineering of Dartmooth, in . ?E-learning (from the Queensland Gobernment, Deparment of Education, Training and the Arts, “Smart classroom Bites”- E-learning for smart classrooms. August 2008.“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher will always be the most important.” (Bill Gates)What is eLearning? The Department’s eLearning strategy is positioned at the forefront of transforming classroom practice and student learning opportunities. This approach promotes a blended model of learning featuring a balance between virtual and face to face delivery. The proportion of each delivery mode will vary significantly and is critically linked to the role of the teacher in facilitating learning. eLearning is not confined to independent study or remote learning models, it is an important consideration for all schools and teachers. The Smart Classrooms’ strategy for eLearning is comprised of three interrelated and co-dependent components:1. Digital Pedagogy 2. Digital Content (including eCurriculum) 3. eLearning Spaces These components co-exist to create the conditions for a new generation of digital learners. If one component is missing the approach is unbalanced and less effective. The eLearning strategy is built on the foundation-of the Department’s enabling infrastructure with a clear future focus of creating a ubiquitous environment for learning that connects students’ personal, family, school and real world domains. At this intersection of a student’s world, the goal of individualising outcomes can be achieved.Why do we need e-learning in primary school classrooms? There are many people who believe that new technologies have no place in the primary classroom – or at the very least that young learners suffer in some way from early exposure to digital technologies. Newspaper headlines such as - “Ban computers from schools until children reach age 9, says expert”1 or “The culture of clicking online for instant answers risks “infantilising” learning”2 appear weekly. This is a point of view that you may share – in which case this book is probably not for you. Contrast this with other headlines such as “Facebook and Twitter should be used in schools as learning tools, says new report”3 or “Video games are good for children - EU report”4 and you can see that in terms of research at least, the jury is still out. As you will have guessed, we think there are lots of reasons why primary teachers might like to get involved and explore elearning opportunities with this age range - and in many ways this book is as a result of our own enthusiasm. ? As primary teachers, our job is to equip children with the skills they need to survive in the world they live in – an increasingly digital world. We might be digital users, children and young people are digital residents – they live in an on line world which is as real as the one we were brought up in. ? A recent survey showed that children in the UK aged 5 to 16, collectively, spend 13 million hours on websites every day! We can either fight this and try and reverse the trend (really?) or use the opportunities it provides for learning and teaching. ? There are pressures from curriculum bodies, school inspectors and government departments to integrate technology across the primary curriculum in a meaningful way, not simply as a bolt on or separate subject area. ? It is a way of bridging the home-school divide and bringing together formal and informal learning ? Because it actually makes your teaching better, your lessons more engaging and can kick-start those creative juices that you thought had dried up. You may feel some resistance to change, but think of it like ripping off a plaster – the sooner you do it, the less painful it will be!On the other hand, the Organisation for Economic Change and Development (OECD 2005) has identified critical factors that determine a nation’s economic growth, development and success within a globally competitive market. Outlined was the critical role ICT played in entrepreneurship, innovation and the development of social capital. The capacity of students and teachers to use (digital literacy) and apply ICT (pedagogy) will be key for economic growth and stability in the future. Similarly, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) strongly emphasises the relationship between ICT use, education reform, and economic growth. This is based on assumptions that systemic economic growth is the key to poverty reduction and increased prosperity and that ICT are engines for growth and tools for empowerment with profound implications (UNESCO, 2008). While businesses, consumers, students and organisations globally are convinced of the potential and importance of ICT, some educators are still arguing and struggling to accept and adopt learning through, and with, ICT.Students with proficient digital literacy have broad and complex knowledge and skills. They work digitally to: ? deepen knowledge and create knowledge through inquiry processes, interacting with communities of people, experts and information ? build ideas, learning solutions, products and plans through creative processes as well as for expression and reflection ? communicate, share and work? collaboratively in local and global environments ? learn and work legally, ethically and safely as responsible users and creators ? develop new thinking, learning and problem solving skills to support their ongoing development.See next table, with the courtesy of the Department of Education, Training and Arts, Queensland Gobernment. Characteristics of an effective eLearning teacher These characteristics should be considered in the context of the National Framework for Professional Standards for Teaching, the Queensland Professional Standards for Teachers, the Professional Standards for Queensland Teachers (Queensland College of Teachers), and the Smart Classrooms Professional Development Framework.Effective eLearning teachers: ? demonstrate an ongoing commitment to professional knowledge, professional practice, professional relationships and professional values. ? have an understanding of the transformative role of ICT for 21st Century curriculum design/interpretation, pedagogy and student learning ? make conscious decisions about student learning based on an understanding of digital learners ? are lifelong learners who are willing to take risks, fail and explore areas outside his or her expertise ? employ a variety of methodologies, current learning theories and practices ? constantly collaborate with colleagues and practicing professionals in order to consolidate understanding and to share and reflect on their learning, wonderings and discoveries.Characteristics of an effective eLearning school These characteristics should be considered in the context of the MCEETYA Learning in an Online World strategy documents and the UNESCO ICT Competency Standards for TeachersEffective eLearning schools feature: Leadership and vision, including supportive policy ? shared vision for learning and systematic whole school plans for how to get there ? enabling policies and adequate resourcing ? classrooms fostering peer and tutor support that equip students as active citizens of a global village. Workforce capability, including digital pedagogy, digital literacy, culture of learning and innovation ? commitment to ongoing learning with staff develop digital literacy and digital pedagogy ? supportive culture for innovation is developed. Learning spaces, including physical spaces, virtual spaces and enabling infrastructure ? learning not restricted by barriers of time or place ? seamless access for students across school, personal, family and real world domains ? classrooms where technologies are used to empower and engage learners to participate in student-centred, project-based learning ? enabling eLearning environments that provide safe and secure access and flexibility ? communities of practice (including local community supportive of students use of technology for learning) ? enterprise architecture – supported and maintained including technical support. eLearning curriculum, including digital content ? connectedness to global issues and authentic contexts ? curriculum, instruction and assessment are clearly aligned and exist to improve student learning opportunities ? assessment, reporting and evaluation are key components of curriculum design and delivery and are understood by all ? accessible digital content developed/created by teachers and students for learning and sharing ? eCurriculum that is built upon enacted curriculum and a clear and supported model of instruction ? learning integrated as multidisciplinary and accessible for all learners.E-Learning Tools and their Use in Language TeachingA diverse range of technological tools that can be used by capable teachers to enhance learning and teaching situations. These tools make learning more interesting, interactive, meaningful and stimulating for the students. These tools are powerful as they are capable of bringing a change and reform traditional forms of learning.Internet, YouTube, Skype, Twitter, Smart-boards, Blogs and Podcasting are some of the successful tools that have changed the way language is taught.?eLearning activities and Interactions(by?Brother Andrew?| Jun 3, 2010 |?eLearning,?Featured,?Instructional Design Resources) Everyone is always looking for ways to make their eLearning more interactive. There are many ways to do this. Here are just a few:1. InteractionsThere are many times when you have various concepts or “chunks” of information on a page. You could break it into multiple pages or divide it into sections. For example use tabs and dividers so that the user only sees small parts at a time. Here are some?tabs?and?bars.You could also use some type of simple?flash memory cards?or?drag and drop.2. ScenariosIf you have a lot of information to share you could package it into a scenario. This is a good way to make it “real”. It also helps the user understand how it relates to them and why they should pay attention. Scenarios don’t need to be complex. They nay just be a simple setup page and a question or two.Here are some scenario examples:The company has recently opened 3 new offices and a launched a new website. What products might help this company process customers payments??“You see a customer at the counter complaining about their cold food. The customer is visibly angry. As a manager what should you do?”Here is a simple?eLearning scenario template.3. Case StudiesThere are times when your scenario needs to be more in-depth. I like to use case studies when a scenario is too simple. A case study would be more intense and could include background information, bios on persons involved, current setup/date/time, multiple phases/steps, twists along the way, and decision points. Case studies take some time to create but can be very engaging.4. QuizzesKnowledge checks can keep a learner’s attention. You could even do quizzes before the course content is presented. This might be a good way to help the learner start thinking about the content and to give them a preview of what’s to come. Theses quizzes could be combined to create the final test. Here are some fun?quiz templates?and?eLearning games.5.Hands-On DemosMany people learn by actually trying out the system (hands-on approach). Online training is a great way to give learners a way to try out a system without being live. You can recreate a series of steps in a software transaction and package it as a simulation. Learners could have three options:Sit back and watch a demonstration of how the software works.Be prompted where to click and how to navigate the software.Be tested to see if they can use the software without any help.It is basically the Tell them, Show Them, Let Them Do It? approach. Simulations are a great way to let learners practice in a safe environment.6. Learning GamesIs there a way to make your course fun and still educational? There are many types of game ideas from word puzzles,?Jeopardy, and?Millionaire?to more complex,?immersive games.E-Learning Activities for Kids1. Khan AcademyFocused on subjects like math, science, computer programming, history, art history, and economics, the?Khan Academy?is a top e-learning resource full of practice exercises, educational games and instructional videos. We love how the Khan Academy develops lessons in partnership with institutions such as NASA, The Museum of Modern Art and The California Academy of Sciences. We also like that it features a parent dashboard so you can see at a glance which subjects your kid is excelling in and discover where they may need extra guidance.Digital Citizenship: Khan Academy is a 501(3)(c) non-profit that provides all learning opportunities at no cost in an online learning website. Children under the age of 13 must have parental consent to create an account.?Sign up as a parent on Khan Academy: HYPERLINK "" the Khan Academy’s Terms of Service: Policy:?. E-learning for KidsAnother non-profit organization dedicated to helping kids learn,?E-learning for Kids?offers short, fun classes for kids in Kindergarten through Grade six. They offer more than 200 science lessons ranging from the forces behind volcanoes to weather patterns and cover subjects from math, science, language arts, and computers to English as a second language, health and life skills. We really like how their 300 lesson?math program?is based on the standards of the International Baccalaureate.Digital Citizenship: e-learning for kids is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit that offers free online courses in math, science, reading and keyboarding, as well as an online community for parents and educators. Courses are available online or offline by a download link where users can make a CD-ROM for installing courseware. No sign-up is required.?Read e-learning for kids’ Privacy Policy:?. Everyday MathematicsAnother great online program is?Everyday Mathematics, which was developed by the University of Chicago’s School Mathematics Project for Pre-K up to Grade Six. Based on the Common Core State Standards, Everyday Mathematics uses real-world examples to help kids practice abstract math concepts.Digital Citizenship: Everyday Mathematics is a division of McGraw-Hill Education. Everyday Mathematics courses can be purchased individually or as complete classroom sets at? MHEducation’s Terms of Use? Privacy/Cookie Policy. Duolingo for SchoolsLanguage learning is another way for kids to get a lot out of their screen time. At Whitby, students begin learning Spanish before they enter Kindergarten. E-learning through language apps such as? HYPERLINK "" Duolingo for Schools, however, can compliment their language immersion. Recognized as a top language app by both Apple and Google, Duolingo uses games to encourage kids to practice speaking and reading foreign languages. It’s a perfect way for students to practice their Spanish, or even tackle a new language.Digital Citizenship: Duolingo is a free online program and downloadable app that helps children learn new languages. While the main Duolingo site has no parental controls, Duolingo for Schools allows parents to disable social interactions on the website and ban certain vocabulary words.?Parents can sign up at?. Read about Parental Controls on Duolingo: HYPERLINK "" Privacy Policy: . Scratch & Scratch JrWhy should your child learn to code? For one, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the demand for software developers is expected to?increase?by 17 percent in the next 10 years, much faster than most professions. That’s not the only reason, though: researchers at Tufts University?found?that children as young as 4.5 years old can learn to program a robot, and that learning to code helped them perform better at cognitive tasks.At Whitby, we introduce students to the basics of programming as early as kindergarten through toys such as KIBO Robotics. Some of our first and second graders begin using? HYPERLINK "" ScratchJr?during our cocurricular programming and graduate to?Scratch?in 3rd grade.If you’d like to give your child a chance to try programming at home, Scratch and ScratchJr are downloadable apps that teach kids programming concepts. Both apps were designed by MIT to engage children in coding by challenging them to create stories, games and animations.Digital Citizenship: Scratch and Scratch Jr. is a free program that is available to children and adults of all ages. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. Parents can sign up for Scratch at? Scratch’s Terms of Service:? Policy?. Code AcademyOnce your child develops some coding skills, they can learn more at?Code Academy, a top free e-learning resource to learn software development. Code Academy is a favorite resource of professional web developers and has projects ranging in difficulty from basic to advanced. Your child can practice coding by opening up a free account, watching training videos and completing a real project.Digital Citizenship: Codecademy is an education company that offers online learning.?Children under the age of 13 must have parental consent to create an account and register. Parents can?create a free account for Codecademy:?. Read Codecademy.Terms of Service:? Policy:? more at: Smart classroom website: education..au/smartclassrooms taccle2.eu Hanover Research Council 2.5. Cooperative learning (by David W Johnson and Roger T Johnson, at )Without the cooperation of its members society cannot survive, and the society of man has survived because the cooperativeness of its members made survival possible….? It was not an advantageous individual here and there who did so, but the group.? In human societies the individuals who are most likely to survive are those who are best enabled to do so by their group. (Ashley Montagu, 1965)How students interact with each another is a neglected aspect of instruction.? Much training time is devoted to helping teachers arrange appropriate interactions between students and materials (i.e., textbooks, curriculum programs) and some time is spent on how teachers should interact with students, but how students should interact with one another is relatively ignored.? It should not be.? How teachers structure student-student interaction patterns has a lot to say about how well students learn, how they feel about school and the teacher, how they feel about each other, and how much self-esteem they have.In the mid-1960s, cooperative learning was relatively unknown and largely ignored by educators.? Elementary, secondary, and university teaching was dominated by competitive and individualistic learning.? Cultural resistance to cooperative learning was based on social Darwinism, with its premise that students must be taught to survive in a “dog-eat-dog” world, and the myth of “rugged individualism” underlying the use of individualistic learning.? While competition dominated educational thought, it was being challenged by individualistic learning largely based on B. F. Skinner’s work on programmed learning and behavioral modification.? Educational practices and thought, however, have changed.? Cooperative learning is now an accepted and often the preferred instructional procedure at all levels of education.? Cooperative learning is presently used in schools and universities in every part of the world, in every subject area, and with every age student.? It is difficult to find a text on instructional methods, a teacher’s journal, or instructional materials that do not discuss cooperative learning.? Materials on cooperative learning have been translated into dozens of languages.? Cooperative learning is now an accepted and highly recommended instructional procedure.Definition of Cooperative LearningStudents’ learning goals may be structured to promote cooperative, competitive, or individualistic efforts.? In every classroom, instructional activities are aimed at accomplishing goals and are conducted under a goal structure.? A learning goal is a desired future state of demonstrating competence or mastery in the subject area being studied.? The goal structure specifies the ways in which students will interact with each other and the teacher during the instructional session.? Each goal structure has its place (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1999).? In the ideal classroom, all students would learn how to work cooperatively with others, compete for fun and enjoyment, and work autonomously on their own.? The teacher decides which goal structure to implement within each lesson.? The most important goal structure, and the one that should be used the majority of the time in learning situations, is cooperation.Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals.? Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and beneficial to all other group members.?Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.? It may be contrasted with competitive (students work against each other to achieve an academic goal such as a grade of “A” that only one or a few students can attain) andindividualistic (students work by themselves to accomplish learning goals unrelated to those of the other students) learning.? In cooperative and individualistic learning, you evaluate student efforts on a criteria-referenced basis while in competitive learning you grade students on a norm-referenced basis.? While there are limitations on when and where you may use competitive and individualistic learning appropriately, you may structure any learning task in any subject area with any curriculum cooperatively.Theorizing on social interdependence began in the early 1900s, when one of the founders of the Gestalt School of Psychology, Kurt Koffka, proposed that groups were dynamic wholes in which the interdependence among members could vary.? One of his colleagues, Kurt Lewin refined Koffka’s notions in the 1920s and 1930s while stating that (a) the essence of a group is the interdependence among members (created by common goals) which results in the group being a “dynamic whole” so that a change in the state of any member or subgroup changes the state of any other member or subgroup, and (b) an intrinsic state of tension within group members motivates movement toward the accomplishment of the desired common goals.? For interdependence to exist, there must be more than one person or entity involved, and the persons or entities must have impact on each other in that a change in the state of one causes a change in the state of the others.? From the work of Lewin’s students and colleagues, such as Ovisankian, Lissner, Mahler, and Lewis, it may be concluded that it is the drive for goal accomplishment that motivates cooperative and competitive behavior.In the late 1940s, one of Lewin’s graduate students, Morton Deutsch, extended Lewin’s reasoning about social interdependence and formulated a theory of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1949, 1962).? Deutsch conceptualized three types of social interdependence–positive, negative, and none.? Deutsch’s basic premise was that the type of interdependence structured in a situation determines how individuals interact with each other which, in turn, largely determines outcomes.? Positive interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative interdependence tends to result in oppositional or contrient interaction, and no interdependence results in an absence of interaction.? Depending on whether individuals promote or obstruct each other’s goal accomplishments, there is substitutability, cathexis, and inducibility.? The relationships between the type of social interdependence and the interaction pattern it elicits is assumed to be bidirectional.? Each may cause the other.? Deutsch’s theory has served as a major conceptual structure for this area of inquiry since 1949.Types Of Cooperative Learninga-Formal Cooperative LearningFormal cooperative learning consists of students working together, for one class period to several weeks, to achieve shared learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).? In formal cooperative learning groups the teachers’ role includes (see Figure 4):1.??Making preinstructional decisions.? Teachers (a) formulate both academic and social skills objectives, (b) decide on the size of groups, (c) choose a method for assigning students to groups, (d) decide which roles to assign group members, (e) arrange the room, and (f) arrange the materials students need to complete the assignment.? In these preinstructional decisions, the social skills objectives specify the interpersonal and small group skills students are to learn.? By assigning students roles, role interdependence is established.? The way in which materials are distributed can create resource interdependence.? The arrangement of the room can create environmental interdependence and provide the teacher with easy access to observe each group, which increases individual accountability and provides data for group processing.2.??Explaining the instructional task and cooperative structure.Teachers (a) explain the academic assignment to students, (b) explain the criteria for success, (c) structure positive interdependence, (d) structure individual accountability, (e) explain the behaviors (i.e., social skills) students are expected to use, and (f) emphasize intergroup cooperation (this eliminates the possibility of competition among students and extends positive goal interdependence to the class as a whole).? Teachers may also teach the concepts and strategies required to complete the assignment.? By explaining the social skills emphasized in the lesson, teachers operationalize (a) the social skill objectives of the lesson and (b) the interaction patterns (such as oral rehearsal and jointly building conceptual frameworks) teachers wish to create.3.??Monitoring students’ learning and intervening to provide assistance in (a) completing the task successfully or (b) using the targeted interpersonal and group skills effectively.While conducting the lesson, teachers monitor each learning group and intervene when needed to improve taskwork and teamwork.? Monitoring the learning groups creates individual accountability; whenever a teacher observes a group, members tend to feel accountable to be constructive members.? In addition, teachers collect specific data on promotive interaction, the use of targeted social skills, and the engagement in the desired interaction patterns.? This data is used to intervene in groups and to guide group processing.4.??Assessing students’ learning and helping students process how well their groups functioned.? Teachers (a) bring closure to the lesson, (b) assess and evaluate the quality and quantity of student achievement, (c) ensure students carefully discuss how effectively they worked together (i.e., process the effectiveness of their learning groups), (d) have students make a plan for improvement, and (e) have students celebrate the hard work of group members.? The assessment of student achievement highlights individual and group accountability (i.e., how well each student performed) and indicates whether the group achieved its goals (i.e., focusing on positive goal interdependence).? The group celebration is a form of reward interdependence.? The feedback received during group processing is aimed at improving the use of social skills and is a form of individual accountability.? Discussing the processes the group used to function, furthermore, emphasizes the continuous improvement of promotive interaction and the patterns of interaction need to maximize student learning and retention.b-Informal Cooperative LearningInformal cooperative learning consists of having students work together to achieve a joint learning goal in temporary, ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).? During a lecture, demonstration, or film, informal cooperative learning can be used to focus student attention on the material to be learned, set a mood conducive to learning, help set expectations as to what will be covered in a class session, ensure that students cognitively process and rehearse the material being taught, summarize what was learned and precue the next session, and provide closure to an instructional session.? The teacher’s role for using informal cooperative learning to keep students more actively engaged intellectually entails having focused discussions before and after the lesson (i.e., bookends) and interspersing pair discussions throughout the lesson.? Two important aspects of using informal cooperative learning groups are to (a) make the task and the instructions explicit and precise and (b) require the groups to produce a specific product (such as a written answer).? The procedure is as follows.1.??Introductory Focused Discussion:? Teachers assign students to pairs or triads and explain (a) the task of answering the questions in a four to five minute time period and (b) the positive goal interdependence of reaching consensus.? The discussion task is aimed at promoting advance organizing of what the students know about the topic to be presented and establishing expectations about what the lecture will cover.? Individual accountability is ensured by the small size of the group.? A basic interaction pattern of eliciting oral rehearsal, higher-level reasoning, and consensus building is required.2.??Intermittent Focused Discussions:? Teachers divide the lecture into 10 to 15 minute segments.? This is about the length of time a motivated adult can concentrate on information being presented.? After each segment, students are asked to turn to the person next to them and work cooperatively in answering a question (specific enough so that students can answer it in about three minutes) that requires students to cognitively process the material just presented.? The procedure is:Each student formulates his or her answer.Students share their answer with their partner.Students listen carefully to their partner’s answer.The pairs create a new answer that is superior to each member’s initial formulation by integrating the two answers, building on each other’s thoughts, and synthesizing.The question may require students to:Summarize the material just presented.Give a reaction to the theory, concepts, or information presented.Predict what is going to be presented next; hypothesize.Solve a problem.Relate material to past learning and integrate it into conceptual frameworks.Resolve conceptual conflict created by presentation.Teachers should ensure that students are seeking to reach an agreement on the answers to the questions (i.e., ensure positive goal interdependence is established), not just share their ideas with each other.? Randomly choose two or three students to give 30 second summaries of their discussions.? Such individual accountability ensures that the pairs take the tasks seriously and check each other to ensure that both are prepared to answer.? Periodically, the teacher should structure a discussion of how effectively the pairs are working together (i.e., group processing).? Group celebrations add reward interdependence to the pairs.3.??Closure Focused Discussion:? Teachers give students an ending discussion task lasting four to five minutes.? The task requires students to summarize what they have learned from the lecture and integrate it into existing conceptual frameworks.? The task may also point students toward what the homework will cover or what will be presented in the next class session.? This provides closure to the rmal cooperative learning ensures students are actively involved in understanding what is being presented.? It also provides time for teachers to move around the class listening to what students are saying.? Listening to student discussions can give instructors direction and insight into how well students understand the concepts and material being as well as increase the individual accountability of participating in the discussions.Cooperative Base GroupsCooperative base groups are long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable membership (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).? Members’ primary responsibilities are to (a) ensure all members are making good academic progress (i.e., positive goal interdependence) (b) hold each other accountable for striving to learn (i.e., individual accountability), and (c) provide each other with support, encouragement, and assistance in completing assignments (i.e., promotive interaction).? In order to ensure the base groups function effectively, periodically teachers should teach needed social skills and have the groups process how effectively they are functioning.? Typically, cooperative base groups are heterogeneous in membership (especially in terms of achievement motivation and task orientation), meet regularly (for example, daily or biweekly), and last for the duration of the class (a semester or year) or preferably for several years.? The agenda of the base group can include academic support tasks (such as ensuring all members have completed their homework and understand it or editing each other’s essays), personal support tasks (such as getting to know each other and helping each other solve nonacademic problems), routine tasks (such as taking attendance), and assessment tasks (such as checking each other’s understanding of the answers to test questions when the test is first taken individually and then retaken in the base group).The teacher’s role in using cooperative base groups is to (a) form heterogeneous groups of four (or three), (b) schedule a time when they will regularly meet (such as beginning and end of each class session or the beginning and end of each week), (c) create specific agendas with concrete tasks that provide a routine for base groups to follow when they meet, (d) ensure the five basic elements of effective cooperative groups are implemented, and (e) have students periodically process the effectiveness of their base groups.The longer a cooperative group exists, the more caring their relationships will tend to be, the greater the social support they will provide for each other, the more committed they will be to each other’s success, and the more influence members will have over each other.? Permanent cooperative base groups provide the arena in which caring and committed relationships can be created that provide the social support needed to improve attendance, personalize the educational experience, increase achievement, and improve the quality of school life.Integrated Use Of All Three Types Of Cooperative LearningThese three types of cooperative learning may be used together (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).? A typical class session may begin with a base group meeting, which is followed by a short lecture in which informal cooperative learning is used.? The lecture is followed by a formal cooperative learning lesson.? Near the end of the class session another short lecture may be delivered with the use of informal cooperative learning.? The class ends with a base group meeting.Basic Elements of CooperationNot all groups are cooperative (Johnson & F. Johnson, 2009).? Placing people in the same room, seating them together, telling them they are a group, does not mean they will cooperate effectively.? To be cooperative, to reach the full potential of the group, five essential elements need to be carefully structured into the situation:? positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, promotive interaction, appropriate use of social skills, and group processing (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).? Mastering the basic elements of cooperation allows teachers to:1.? Take existing lessons, curricula, and courses and structure them cooperatively.2.? Tailor cooperative learning lessons to unique instructional needs, circumstances, curricula, subject areas, and students.3.? Diagnose the problems some students may have in working together and intervene to increase the effectiveness of the student learning groups.The first and most important element is positive interdependence. ?Teachers must give a clear task and a group goal so students believe they “sink or swim together.”??Positive interdependenceexists when group members perceive that they are linked with each other in a way that one cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds.? If one fails, all fail.? Group members realize, therefore, that each person’s efforts benefit not only him- or herself, but all other group members as well.? Positive interdependence creates a commitment to other people’s success as well as one’s own and is the heart of cooperative learning.? If there is no positive interdependence, there is no cooperation.The second essential element of cooperative learning is individual and group accountability. ?The group must be accountable for achieving its goals.? Each member must be accountable for contributing his or her share of the work (which ensures that no one “hitch-hikes” on the work of others). ?The group has to be clear about its goals and be able to measure (a) its progress in achieving them and (b) the individual efforts of each of its members.?Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual student is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual in order to ascertain who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in completing the assignment.? The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her right.? Students learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals.The third essential component of cooperative learning is promotive interaction, preferably face-to-face.?Promotive interactionoccurs when members share resources and help, support, encourage, and praise each other’s efforts to learn.? Cooperative learning groups are both an academic support system (every student has someone who is committed to helping him or her learn) and a personal support system (every student has someone who is committed to him or her as a person).? There are important cognitive activities and interpersonal dynamics that can only occur when students promote each other’s learning.? This includes orally explaining how to solve problems, discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, teaching one’s knowledge to classmates, and connecting present with past learning.? It is through promoting each other’s learning face-to-face that members become personally committed to each other as well as to their mutual goals.The fourth essential element of cooperative learning is teaching students the required interpersonal and small group skills.? In cooperative learning groups students are required to learn academic subject matter (taskwork) and also to learn the interpersonal and small group skills required to function as part of a group (teamwork).? Cooperative learning is inherently more complex than competitive or individualistic learning because students have to engage simultaneously in taskwork and teamwork.? Group members must know how to provide effective leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management, and be motivated to use the prerequisite skills.? Teachers have to teach teamwork skills just as purposefully and precisely as teachers do academic skills.? Since cooperation and conflict are inherently related, the procedures and skills for managing conflicts constructively are especially important for the long-term success of learning groups.? Procedures and strategies for teaching students social skills may be found in Johnson (2009) and Johnson and F. Johnson (2009).The fifth essential component of cooperative learning is group processing.??Group processing exists when group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships.? Groups need to describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change.? Continuous improvement of the process of learning results from the careful analysis of how members are working together.These five elements are essential to all cooperative systems, no matter what their size.? When international agreements are made and when international efforts to achieve mutual goals (such as environmental protection) occur, these five elements must be carefully implemented and maintained.The Validating ResearchAmount And Characteristics Of ResearchThe study of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts is commonly recognized as one of the oldest fields of research in social psychology.? In the late 1800’s Triplett in the United States, Turner in England, and Mayer in Germany conducted a series of studies on the factors associated with competitive performance.? Since then over 750 studies have been conducted on the relative merits of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts and the conditions under which each is appropriate.? This is one of the largest bodies of research within psychology and education.An extensive literature search was conducted aimed at identifying all the available studies from published and nonpublished sources.? Seven-hundred-fifty-four studies contained enough data to compute an effect size (there are many studies from which an effect size could not be computed) (Johnson & Johnson, 1989).? The research on social interdependence, furthermore, has an external validity and a generalizability rarely found in the social sciences.? The more variations in places, people, and procedures the research can withstand and still yield the same findings, the more externally valid the conclusions.? The research has been conducted over twelve decades by many different researchers with markedly different theoretical and practical orientations working in different settings and countries.? A wide variety of research tasks, ways of structuring social interdependence, and measures of the dependent variables have been used.? Participants in the studies varied from ages three to post-college adults and have come from different economic classes and cultural backgrounds.? The studies were conducted with different durations, lasting from one session to 100 sessions or more.? Research on social interdependence has been conducted in numerous cultures in North America (with Caucasian, Black-American, Native-American, and Hispanic populations) and countries from North, Central, and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Africa.? The research on social interdependence includes both theoretical and demonstration studies conducted in educational, business, and social service organizations.? The diversity of these studies gives social interdependence theory wide generalizability and considerable external validity.Promotive, oppositional, and no interaction have differential effects on the outcomes of the situation (see Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).? The research has focused on numerous outcomes, which may be subsumed within the broad and interrelated categories of effort to achieve, quality of relationships, and psychological health (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005) (see Table 1 and Figure 2).? Figure 1 shows the relationships among the outcomes. 3. DYSLEXIA, DYSORTHOGRAPHY AND DYSGRAPHIA3.1. What is Dyslexia and symptomsWhat is Dyslexia?The word literally means 'difficulty in reading'. It is sometimes called 'word blindness". Individuals with dyslexia are usually of average or above average intelligence, but tend to have specific learning difficulties with reading, spelling.A generally accepted scientific definition could be: A functional, specific and persistent neuropsychological alteration in the reading processes assesed in the dimensions of reading comprehension, fluency and decoding, that is not caused by mental disability, neurological, sensory and perceptive alterations or of any other type. SymptomsProblems learning the letter?sounds?for reading and spellingDifficulty in reading?single?words, such as on flash cards and in lists (decoding)Lack of fluencyReading slowly with many mistakes (low accuracy) Poor spellingPoor visual gestalt / coding?(orthographic coding) 3.2. What is Dysorthography and symptoms Dysorthography is known as a spelling disorder within so-called writing disorders. It can be defined as "the group of errors affecting writing but not layout or spelling." (García Vidal, 1989). It refers to the significant difficulty in transcribing the written code accurately, i.e. the great difficulties in the association between the written code, spelling and writing rules of words. These difficulties lie in the association between sound and spelling or in the integration of spelling rules, or both.Depending on the process, there are different types of Dysorthography: 1. Natural Dysorthography: characterized by a deficit in the use of an indirect or phonological path (a cognitive process that allows reading or writing words based on their minimum components, phonemes or graphemes), so the writing words is based on the use of the direct or lexical route. It affects phonological development and phoneme-grapheme rules of conversion. An addition or omission of a letter or the change of a letter involving a change of phoneme to pronounce the written word is considered a natural spelling error.2. Visual Dysorthography: characterized by a deficit in the use of the direct pathway (a cognitive process that allows general reading and writing thanks to the existence of visual images and their spelling ), so that writing must be based on the indirect route. It affects orthographic rules. An omission or addition of a letter 'h' or a change between 'b' and 'v' are considered arbitrary spelling errors.3. Mixed Dysorthography: a problem resulting from a malfunction of the two routes of production of the written word, both direct and indirect. So both natural dysorthography and visual errors are made.3.3. What is Dysgraphia and symptomsWhat is DysgraphiaDysgraphia is a specific learning disability that affects written expression in speed and quality of the feature. Dysgraphia is a neuropsychological disorder that generally appears when children are first learning to write. Writing includes a sequence of movements and writing prerequisites are a complex set of motor and information processing skills. SymptomsGeneral signsIllegible printing and cursive writingMixtures of print and cursive, upper and lower caseIrregular sizes, shapes or slant of lettersOmitted letters and words Copying, tracing or writing is slow or labored (no automatic task)Difficulties in thinking and writing at the same time and getting ideas down on paper quicklyGap between written ideas and understanding demonstrated through speech.Trouble in reading his own writingAvoidance of writing or writing not in complete sentences but in a list formatFrequent erasuresVisual-Spatial DifficultiesDifficulties with shape-discrimination and letter spacing Irregular spaces between words and lettersChaotic spatial planning on paper (writing not in line and inside margins)Troubled organization of words on the page from left to rightDifficulties in drawing or reproducing lines and shapesFine Motor DifficultiesStrange position of wrist, body or paper Unusual grip Tired or cramped handDifficulties to hold pencil/pen correctly Difficulties in tracing, cutting food, tying shoes, doing puzzles, texting and keyboarding, using scissors, coloring inside linesVisual Motor difficultiesDifficulty to pre-visualize letter formation.3.4. Compensative strategies for Dyslexia, Dysorthography and DysgraphiaThere are many ways to help students with dyslexia, dysorthography and dysgraphia. Strategies are divided into three categories:Modifications: changing expectations or tasks to minimize or avoid the area of weakness (included: attitude that teachers have to have and inclusive methodologies (see the website and the first point)Accommodations: providing alternatives to written expression and to do a comprehension of the reading texts in a more efficient way. See below: Compensatory strategies.Treatment: providing instruction for improving handwriting and writing skills and the reading processes (see the web)Compensatory strategiesIn the teaching-learning processSuggest use of a computer for taking notes during class; allow, and suggest the use of word processor and spell-checker. Allow and suggest use of tape recorder.Encourage the use of visual organizers to assist in outlining and brainstorming for extended writing assignments (i.e. map, schemes). Allow students to seat where they learn best (i.e near the teacher’s desk to have support and to have frequent eye contact; away from distractions; near positive class mates that can help them). Allow the use of a note taker or/and provide notes or outlines to reduce the amount of writing required.Reduce copying aspects of work (pre-printed materials)Allow use of specific paper (i.e. lined paper sideways; graph paper) and allow students to choose a line comfortable for them.Provide paper with raised lines to help writing letters in the right spaces.Suggest use of pencil grips and /or specially designed writing aids and suggest to test pencils and pens to see what works best.Provide additional time for writing tasks or reduce tasks (i.e. other students have 10 questions; students with dysgraphia 7)Divide writing activities in small steps. Key points from the day’s lessons listed on the board and printed for students.Clarify or simplify written directions. Present a small amount of work at the same time. Highlight essential information. Give the child the written text of the exercise and not ask him to write it. In this way, he will use his cognitive energy to solve the task and not to understand it.Allow them to use laptop or tablets to write in the classroom and to do homework.Use software that helps them to understand the materials well that they should read, using oral language (listening the text while they read).Focus on the idea that for them, it?s better to access to the contents with oral language and with visual help.Read them the texts they need to understand in order to help them to answer the questions, do the tasks, especially exams.In the PUPILS evaluation, teacher should pay attention not to “how students write” but to “what they write”:Take care the effort as well as achievement. This gives the pupil a better chance of getting a balanced mark.Pinpoint mistakes in an appropriate way to the child’s level. Use a pencil or, in general, avoid red pen.Don’t ask to rewrite pages. If you need this, ask to rewrite only the piece of work that is going to be displayed. Evaluate considering the contents more than the outcomesUse oral tests or multiple choice testDo not ask him to write long texts but schemes, summary, pictures, maps…In tests give him clear material from a graphic point of viewRead them the information they need to answer the different parts of the exams.891541172085Vocal synthesisEbooksAudible AudiobooksComputers…00Vocal synthesisEbooksAudible AudiobooksComputers… Useful materials3.5. ICT for dyslexia, dysgraphia and Dysorthography 3.5.1. General ICTNameKind of materialPlatform PrizeLanguageDescription- ageLivescribe Smartpen with notebookSmartPenWindows Macintosh 155€ItalianEnglishIt’s a smart pen that uses Bluetooth Smart to send everything you write to your smartphone or tablet, recording voices. The notebook has some specific options useful to interact with the text For every age.Super QuadernoSoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version)279€Vocal Synthesis in ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanThis is a special Text Editor, useful to improve reading and writing. It can be used with the Vocal Synthesis Loquendo.For students from 5 to 12 Years of ageSuperMappe Classic e EvoSoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version)79 euro eachItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishThis is a software born to design concept maps.Supermappe Evo?works with the vocal synthesis of ePico!, Carlo mobile Pro e Superquaderno SuperMappe Classic: from 8 to 12 years of ageSuperMappe Evo: from 12 years of agee-Pico!SoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version), 10With feeVocal Synthesis in ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanThanks to its five specific areas for the strategic management of information, it offers many software in one: Texts editor, PDF, Questions, Reader e la calculator. It can be used with the Vocal Synthesis Loquendo.EditorL’Editor è l’ambiente in cui, oltre alle funzFrom 12 years of ageCarlo Mobile ProSoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version), 10279€ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishCarlo Mobile supports reading, calculating and study: it has vocal synthesis, PDF option to work on books, the translator and the speaking calculator. From 12 years of ageC-MAPsoftwareWindowsMac OSXLinuxSolarisFree ItalianEnglishTo create concept mapsFrom 11 years of ageFreemind softwareWindowsMac OSXLinuxSolarisFreeItalianTo create concept mapsOpenofficesoftwareWindowsMacLinuxFreeItalianMany softwares in one: video-writing, creation of table and presentation, drawing, databaseOCR AnastasisSoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version), 1055 €It transforms normal printed books and PDF documents in digital versions that can be used with vocal synthesis From 8 years of ageVueSoftwareWindowsFreeItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanTo construct concept maps useful to studyFrom 8 years of ageVoice readerSoftwareAndroidIOSFreeSeveral languaguesTexts reader. Allows pupils to learn listening the contents.LeggiXmeSoftwareWindowsAnd internet for online dictionariesFreeItalianWith voices in ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanSoftware with vocal synthesis and tools to read texts and PDF documents: it has the possibility to use spellchecker and calculatorFrom 8 years of age 3.5.2. AppsName/websiteKind of material Platform PrizeLanguagesDescription- ageSimple Mind APPAndroidTwo versions: Free or with feeItalianEnglishApp born to create maps with text, lines, video, picture and much more From 8 years of age PoppletAPPIOSTwo versions: Free or with fee (4,99€)ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanApp born to create concept maps with text, lines, video, picture and much more From 8 years of agePagesAPPIOS19,99 €ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanWriting texts in few minutes using many tools. Possibility to convert documents in Word or PDFNotabilityAPPIOS5,99 €ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanApp used to take notes using I-padFrom 8 years of ageDyseggxia (in inglés)Piruletras (in castellano) is a game for mobil phones that help pupils with Dyslexia to solve their Reading and writing problems towards different games. All the tasks included have been designed in a scientific way to treat this kind of problems. Visual Attention Therapy (a demo)ENGLISHThis apps usually is used in a therapeutic context. It?s useful to improve the Reading process, concepts recognition, the concentration, memory, attention and the speed. LetrisAPP- IOS- ANDROIDFreeSPANISHENGLISHIt?s a game to create words as quick as possibleRespira, piensa y actúa (Breath, think and do) (Sesame Street)APPIOSFreeSPANISHENGLISHThis app helps pupils to make decisions towards different Social stories and to relax breathing with a guide. Voice dream readerAPPIOSANDROID14,99€SPANISHENGLISHITALIANTURKISHPOLISH?Read while you listen to! This is a reader that reads several kind of documents.Ideal group readerAPPANDROIDFreeSPANISHENGLISHTexts reader.4. DYSCALCULIA4.1. What is dyscalculia and symptomsWhat is dyscalculiaIn the DSM-V (Diagnostic Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders) Dyscalculia is included into the Neurodevelopmental disorders. In particular, into Specific learning disorder, defined as “neurodevelopmental disorder of biological origin manifested in learning difficults and problems in acquiring academic skills markedly below age level and manifested in the early school years, lasting for at least 6 months; not attributed to intellectual disabilities, developmental disorders, or neurological or motor disorders”“Developmental Dyscalculia (DD) is a specific learning disorder that is characterised by impairments in learning basic arithmetic facts, processing numerical magnitude and performing accurate and fluent calculations. These difficulties must be quantifiably below what is expected for an individual’s chronological age, and must not be caused by poor educational or daily activities or by intellectual impairments. Because definitions and diagnoses of dyscalculia are in their infancy and sometimes contradictory, it is difficult to suggest a prevalence, but research suggests it is around 5%. However, ‘mathematical learning difficulties’ are certainly not in their infancy and are very prevalent and often devastating in their impact on schooling, further and higher education and jobs. Prevalence in the UK is at least 25%. Developmental Dyscalculia often occurs in association with other developmental disorders such as dyslexia or ADHD/ADD. Co-occurrence of learning disorders appears to be the rule rather than the exception. Co-occurrence is generally assumed to be a consequence of risk factors that are shared between disorders, for example, working memory. However, it should not be assumed that all dyslexics have problems with mathematics, although the percentage may be very high, or that all dyscalculics have problems with reading and writing. This latter rate of co-occurrence may well be a much lower percentage.” (British Dyslexia Association)Some students understand the logic behind the math but they are not sure how and when to apply their knowledge to solving problems.These characteristics can bring the students to low self-esteem and anxiety. Dyscalculia could be a lifelong condition, but children can have a happy and successful school life if parents and teachers take into account these characteristics.SymptomsThe main signs are difficulties in:learning to countrecognizing and memorizing numbersConnecting number to a real quantityorganizing things in a logical waysolve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and/or divisionproblem-solving abilitiesdoing math operationslearning and using math vocabularymeasuring objects or playing strategic gamesmanaging budget or accountlearning math conceptsconcept of timesense of direction (left/right)mental calculations and/or estimation4.2. Compensative strategies for DyscalculiaThere are many ways to help students with Dyscalculia in classroom. Strategies are divided into three categories:Modifications: changing expectations or tasks to minimize or avoid the area of weakness (included: attitude that teachers have to have and inclusive methodologies (see the website to have more details)Accommodations: providing alternatives in the way to work (included: Compensatory strategies (see it below).Treatment: providing instruction for improving counting skills (see the web)Compensatory strategies Allow more time and decrease the number of exercises.Read assignments aloud: this strategy is a strengthening for pupils.When giving grades, take into consideration the objective difficulties of the pupil: evaluation process has to be individualized; pupils’ evaluation has to respect personal development. Teachers could use a personal comparative method that measures personal increase and not class’s increase. Using concrete examples to link math to real life and improve the number sense. Using visual aids when solving problems, including drawing pictures.Assigning manageable amounts of work so your child won’t feel overloaded.Reviewing a recently learned skill before moving on to a new one, and explaining how the skills are related.Breaking new lessons into smaller parts that easily show how different skills relate to the new concept. Playing math-related games designed to help your child have fun and feel more comfortable with math.A quiet, calm, structured, orderly environment can help learning processes. Allow students to seat where they learn best (i.e near the teacher’s desk to have support and to have frequent eye contact; away from distractions; near positive mates that help them). Give students extra time to take notes, copy and take tests.Reduce copying aspects of work (pre-printed materials).Allow use of specific paper and allow students to choose the most comfortable for them.Key points from the day’s lessons listed on the board and printed for students.Accommodations can include things like letting a child: Record lessons and lectures.Use a calculator in class and/or at home for the homework.Number line (written on the notebook, attached to the desk, Bortolato’s line)Multiplication table.Tubò (for multiplications)Allow the use of fingers to count or to do maths exercices.Formula sheetsSpecial notebooks with structured pages (some examples: )In the evaluation of the pupils learningCare for the effort as well as achievement. This gives the pupil a better chance of getting a balanced mark.Pinpoint mistakes in an appropriate way to the child’s level. Use a pencil and, in general, avoid red pen.Give more time for the execution of a work.Evaluate considering the processes more than the results.In tests, use sheets that must be clear from a graphic point of view.Evaluate in a constructive way, always separating the error from the content (do not evaluate transcription errors, spelling errors, etc.).Let the student know that it is always possible to improve. Give precise indications about how to obtain improvements.Pay attention to how you correct (formal aspects of the correction).Do tests/exams in the early morning and, if possible, with the help of an adult (i.e. special education teacher) Example of Formula sheets4.3. ICT for Dyscalculia 4.3.1. General ICTName/websiteKind of material Platform PrizeLanguagesDescription- agePersonal ReaderE Personal Reader Map+Software with pendriveWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version),10239 €ItalianEnglishUsing its pendrive, this software permits to read with the vocal Synthesis a digital text.There is also a version linked with “SuperMappe” to take notes, construct concept maps and read them (from 12 years of age) From 8 years of ageSuper QuadernoSoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version)279,00 €Vocal Synthesis in ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanThis is a special Text Editor, useful to improve reading and writing. It can be used with the Vocal Synthesis Loquendo.For students from 5 to 12 Years of ageSuperMappe Classic e EvoSoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version)79,00 € eachItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishThis is a software born to design concept maps.Supermappe Evo?works with the vocal synthesis of ePico!, Carlo mobile Pro e Superquaderno SuperMappe Classic: from 8 to 12 years of ageSuperMappe Evo: from 12 years of agee-Pico!SoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version), 10With feeVocal Synthesis in ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanThanks to its five specific areas for the strategic management of information, it offers many software in one: Texts editor, PDF, Questions, Reader e la calculator. It can be used with the Vocal Synthesis Loquendo.EditorL’Editor è l’ambiente in cui, oltre alle funzFrom 12 years of ageCarlo Mobile ProSoftwareWindows XP Vista, 7, 8 in desktop option (except than RT version), 10279,00 €ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishCarlo Mobile supports reading, calculating and study: it has vocal synthesis, PDF option to work on books, the translator and the speaking calculator. From 12 years of ageVueSoftwareWindowsFreeItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanTo construct concept maps useful to studyFrom 8 years of ageLeggiXmeSoftwareWindowsAnd internet for online dictionariesFreeItalianWith voices in ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanSoftware with vocal synthesis and tools to read texts and PDF documents: it has the possibility to use spellchecker and calculatorFrom 8 years of ageCalculator Casio FX-350 ES PLUSCalculator -With feeAll languagesCalculator with options to calculate: powers, roots, fractionsFrom 11 years of ageC-MAPSoftwareWindowsMac OSXLinuxSolarisFree ItalianEnglishTo create concept mapsFrom 11 years of ageFreemind SoftwareWindowsMac OSXLinuxSolarisFreeItalianTo create concept mapsOpenofficeSoftwareWindowsMacLinuxFreeItalianMany softwares in one: video-writing, creation of table and presentation, drawing, database. 4.3.2. AppsName/websiteKind of material Platform PrizeLanguagesDescription- ageSimple Mind APPAndroidTwo versions: Free or with feeItalianEnglishApp born to create maps with text, lines, video, picture and much more From 8 years of age Dynamo-maths /Dinamo-númerosAppOn linePurchable. More info: team@dynamomaths.co.ukSpanishEnglishIt?s a very complete programe for pupils, organized in three steps with rewards and it could be adapted to the different situations.PoppletAPPIOSTwo versions: Free or with fee (4,99€)ItalianEnglishFrenchSpanishGermanApp born to create concept maps with text, lines, video, picture and much more From 8 years of ageThe King of the mathsAPPAll devicesAndroidIOSFreeSeverallanguagesIt?s for Secondary school pupils. It includes activities to work: arithmetic, geometry, fractions, among other contentsDragon Box ElementsAPPAndroidIOS7,99€Several languagesIt?s a game to help pupils to learn Geometry. Until 8 years.Monster numbersAPPAndroidIOS1,79€Several languagesThis app allow pupils to work the sum, subtraction, multiplication and division. For pupils between 4 and 14 years old.Maths vs ZombiesAPPAndroidIOSFreeSeveral languagesThe children who play with this game have to save the humans solving maths tasks in a funny way. For pupils between 7-9 years old.Special numbersAPPIOS12,99€Free a “demo”SpanishGermanFrenchEnglishPolishTurkishOtherIt?s to work count, ordinal numbers, comparison of quantity.Designed by scientifics, with the help of parents, teachers and pupils. 5. ADAH-ATTENTION DISORDER AND HYPERACTIVITY5.1. What is ADAH and symptomsWhat is ADAH- attention disorder and hyperactivityA complex and heterogeneous behavioral disorder, with a neurobiological basis, which appears in childhood and is identified when the child is around seven years old, whose causes are mainly genetic and environmental.It has a chronic character and follows a persistent behavioral pattern of a lack of attention skills and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity.It appears with an intensity and frequency greater than normal, interfering significantly not only in the child’s performance but in other daily activities too (López-Ibor A. et al, 2002)On some occasions it also appears associated with learning difficulties: dyslexia, dysgraphia, dysorthographia and dyscalculia, as well as other comorbidities such us: Defiant disorder, antisocial behavior, tics, etc.In people with ADHD there have been found anomalies in the chemical functioning of the brain (neurotransmitter activity: dopamine and adrenalin) and in the structural level ( volumetric anomalies in brain, cerebellum and caudate nucleus) of some brain areas (prefrontal lobe and the areas related to it)There is a general agreement that ADHD is a dysexecutive disorder characterized by: -Difficulties in the pre-attention system.-Difficulties in sustained attention.-Difficulties in verbal fluency.-Difficulties in inhibition and self-regulation processes.-Difficulties in working memory-Difficulties in cognitive flexibility.-Difficulties in social and emotional skills. SymptomsCRITERIA 1: ATTENTION DEFICITDoesn’t pay attention - Doesn’t listen - Doesn’t follow instructionsto details Loses important/ - Distracted by external - Dislikes concentration necessary things things tasks CRITERIA 2: HYPERACTIVITY & IMPULSIVITY- Plays/moves when he - Inappropriate behavior - Doesn’t play/ sit quietly shouldn’t Can’t wait for his turn - Talks without control - Interferes with others’ work 5.2. Compensative strategies for ADAH5.2.1. In the teaching-learning processesCHANGE THE ENVIRONMENT AND ADJUST STIMULY TO THE PUPILStructure the environment:Orders:. First make him stop what he is doing.. Choose appropriately the moment and the situation.. Give one and clear order in a positive way.. Use a firm tone of voice and use proximity and physical contact.. Make sure he is looking at us and guarantee he pays attention to the order.. Do not give explanations, argue or reason about our order.. Ask him to repeat the order to himself, loud voice if necessary.. Repeat the order only twice and be systematic.. Make him do the order if you need to tell him a third time, guiding and giving physical accompaniment: make him see he is able to do it, and avoid bad consequences and punishment.Norms:. Reach consensus about which, how many and the consequences for not following them.. Use visual reminders.. Use external verbal reminders from the adult and make him repeat it as self-instruction.. Meet the agreed consequences both when they follow the given norm and when they do not.. Do a problem solving process to analyze it.. Use a mistake-correction strategy while the pupil is working, not only at the end of the process.Habits:. They are more immature than their peers and often have not acquired previous basic habits.. They need: more practice and reminding; they need us to be more present and even accompany them to achieve it; therefore they should do it more often with our direct supervision.Externalize (outsource) and internalize information:Externalize: turning the information that we get into something physical, tangible.. Use visual reminders (pictures, post-it, notes).. Make time ?visible? (watches, timers, chronometers, sand watches…songs and music).Internalize: being a model for them and working to get the rest of the class to be a model for them as well using strategies such as:. Self-instructions as self-guides.. Inhibiting the immediate response and reflecting on it before doing anything.. Self-control and self-regulation when facing emotionally difficult situations.MANAGING CONSECUENCES FOR THE PUPIL“If we do not foresee and we do not adapt the environment to the child with ADHD difficulties beforehand, we will be facing inappropriate behavior and failure? Behavior modification techniques (managing consequences): reinforcement, extinction, time out, punishment… ARE NOT EFFECTIVE with pupils with ADHD.The most efficient techniques are the ones that can be applied:*More often* More intensely*More immediately* More contingently*More persistently* More tangibly (see more details in our platform)STRATEGIES TO HELP THE PUPIL MANAGE HIS BEHAVIOURResponse inhibition:Programme ?Stop and Think?: Train the pupil to stop whatever he is doing when shown a visual Stop sign and then follow this instructions:. I stop. I observe: ?what has happened? ?how do I know it? ?how can I solve it?. I decide: ? what alternatives can I think of? ?What consequences follow each of these alternatives? ?which one do I think is the best?. I take it to action. I evaluate the results.Training on self-instructions:The pupil with ADHD needs to acquire an internal language to regulate his behavior.EMOTIONAL SELF REGULATIONIf a child with ADHD seems to FEEL everything AMPLIFIED. Both positive and negative emotions.Often children with ADHD show a spiral of intense and negative emotions: - Fear of failure: at exams, not to be invited to birthday parties or social events, to do it wrong ?again?, to get a bad note on the school diary…- Shame: when they don?t know the right answer in the class, when they something silly without thinking, when they get a row in front of the class…l- Anger: for not being understood, for accumulating negative situations, for getting a sanction they think is unfair…- Sadness: for feeling incompetent, a failure… ?no matter what I do I ALWAYS get it wrong?We all know that someone SAD, UNGRY, ASHAMED, ANXIOUS OR SCARED “thinks worse”When talking about a child with ADHD this situation gets more severe because of the executive dysfunctions that make it very difficult for them to self-regulate and express their emotions.What we know is that to work on EMOTIONAL REGULATIO teachers need to focus on helping them, supporting them, teaching them, training them, preparing them for:- Controlling inappropriate behavior. - Learn to calm himself and regulate the physiological alert. - Focus his attention again.We need to invest the whatever time needed to help the child to calm downNOT ONLY to face anger and bad mood explosions, but also to face anxiety or fear, shame or sadness; and pay them the necessary attention cause these emotions have very important consequences on the child and his environment.If we act focusing on our own body and limbic system, through full attention to this emotional state and its sensations, our brain will let us go ?though a motorway? (where many more neuronal connections will take place) and will allow our cortical brain, once we are calmer, to follow instructions.GENERAL GUIDELINES TO HELP THEM LEARN BETTER IN THE CLASSROOM:Establish frequent visual contact with the child.Use short, clear and simple sentences to address him.Help them focus: Present the key concepts before you start the full explanation.Emphasize the most important information as you explain/talk.Use color codes when you teach them how to underline.Encourage them to make mental images and visualize what you are working on/explaining.Introduce drama/role play or any kind of kinesthetic representation of the concepts/ideas.Promote active participation, ask them frequently to help them maintain attention to oral information.Do not expect quick answers when you ask them. Give them time to answer or agree with them other ways to give you delayed answers.GUIDELINES TO HELP THEM PERFORM BETTER AT WRITTEN TASKS:Simplify instructions, give them directly to them and ask the pupil to repeat them before tackling them.Give them instructions for exercises, activities, homework, etc.; on writing with visual bine monotonous activities with other more motivating and active.Asked them to show you the exercises as they are doing them: avoid the use of ?all or nothing? correcting.Allow them choose topics, areas, activities, themes to stimulate their personal involvement and motivation. As possible connect with their interests. Reduce cognitive impulsivity directing them on how to review and use progressive correction of mistakes.Be sure it is more important to focus on quality and autonomy when doing their work than on quantity. And remember they always need more time and direct supervision than others to do what is expected of them.IF A PUPIL WORKS SLOWER:Avoid unnecessary tasks (i.e. copying the question) that tire them and slow down even more their work rhythm.Fraction complex tasks and give them to the pupil one by one.Make them aware of time (i.e. timers, chronometers, verbal or visual sign agreed with the pupil, etc.) Choose the ?best performance? of the pupil at difficult tasks for him and make sure your praise them ALWAYS for trying and especially when they improve their performance.Be very careful with your verbal expressions, such as: you are so slow!; goodness me, have you not finished yet?Adjust your expectations and be realistic, so you do not transmit the pupil the continuous feeling of failure, of never reaching the aim.Avoid asking them to finish at home what they have not finished in the class. Think that: parents are not trained teachers and have less strategies than you to help them with their work; the pupil will be more tired after school, more distracted and will work slower; doing that we reinforce the opposite to what we want them to learn, that is ?Working at home does not make up for not working in the classroom?.IF A PUPIL IS DISORGANIZED WE CAN:Try to be methodical in your class organization.Make sure they know exactly how to do what they are asked to do:. What materials they need.. Use self-instructions to review the task steps.. Establish routines that help them ?organize? their work.Make sure they have at hand ONLY WHAT THEY NEED for the task.Do not make them rub out all the time by monitoring their performance, do not wait to see how they do by themselves unless it is something they have already mastered Supervise they write on their diary what they have been asked to do (not what ?they think? they have been asked) and use this as specific aim to learn with practice.IF A PUPIL IS INATTENTIVE WE CAN:Establish with them auditory or visual signs to call their attention (avoid calling by their name all the time).Organize tasks accordingly to their attention capacity.Make sure the pupil is paying attention before giving them the instruction, not the other way round.Avoid giving them complex instructions. More effective to give one at a time.Support their written work with manipulative, auditory, visual or kinesthesic materials.Use digital resources that help them focus their attention and give them visual support to verbal explanations and practiceGive them individual short explanations after you give them to the class group, making sure the pupil ?has listened and understood?.Keep giving them positive feedback and praise their effort while they are working, do not wait till they have finished: “praise them when” you see they ?have listened to you?, ?paid attention?, ?organized their work?, ?done first time what they were asked to do?, etc.IF A PUPIL GETS EASILY FRUSTRATED?Foresee the problem! And give guide and support before they abandon the task or they get angry.Avoid correcting EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME. Design activities that work on one difficult aim at a time and focus on it (e.g. if we want to work on ?calculation? we do not work on ?problem solving?; if we work on calligraphy we do not focus on grammar as well; etc.) Avoid negative verbal expressions (e.g. again!) or that imply ?all/nothing? judgments (e.g. that is wrong!). Replace them for positive expressions (Ok, don?t worry, we will try again tomorrow!; It is better than the last time you did it, and we are going to keep working on…; try to do this a bit slower and check if it helps you to improve…)Praise verbal, affective and socially their success, SWOW THEM HOW MUCH YOU VALUE IT! (Great! Now you?ve got it!; I knew you could do it! I am so very happy that I need a cuddle! I would love to get a big clap for all the people that have managed to get this right today!...)Establish clear limits to their frustration oral expressions and agree with them and beforehand how you are going to punish if needed (e.g. you can complain but you can never hit a friend or classmate, and if you do so the consequence will be…)5.2.2. In the evaluation of the learning processes1. Continuous evaluationContinuous evaluation allows us to control and value the progress, no matter how little or how slow it is.Evaluation tasks should be short, frequent and diverse, because the allow us to have a better knowledge of what they are really learning, and also about how they learn better, what is most useful for them. Doing it this way also helps them maintain motivation and persist on their work.Self-evaluation should be a constant process that accompanies work and learning processes. Between teacher and pupil there has to be an exchange of information that allows them to come to agreements, to set aims, etc.Value their effort to learn as much as the actual ?results?.2. Quantity and time: When we do use exams to evaluateIf possible do not programme more than 3 exams in a week.Try to programme exams in the first hours of the school day. Do not programme more than one in a day, especially if they are long exams or very important (e.g. a final exam).Give them the time they need to do it, remember they need more time to answer and they perform slowly.Make sure that they read properly and know exactly what they are asked to do. Allow them to ask questions about their doubts at any time during the exam.Reduce the exam content and give them time reminders during it.Give them each question at a time and allow them to walk to you to hand it in and get the next one. Monitor the time they have for each one. Use extended time when needed.Give some extra minutes to get organized before they start. Decide if they would do better if they do the exam in more than one session, since their attention can be so weak sometimes.Always help them to control the time they have, remember they do not do well at it and need reminded.3. Evaluation contextReduce the number of questions on each sheet of paper.Read for them the exercise and make sure they understand what they are asked to do before they start the exam.If needed, combine oral and written test, and different types of written test (multiple choice, graphics, fill-in gaps, matching sentences, etc.). In general we could say they find easier to answer short-questions and well differentiated parts of complex questions. Highlight the important information in the exercise or underline in different color each part of it.Adapt the time they need to do each exercise, and monitor them as they go along since they have a weak sense of time and get easily distracted.Choose a place for them where it is more difficult to get distracted. Using headphones could be useful to isolate them from oral distracting stimuli, even if they listen to music that helps concentration.Use formal exams often avoiding the accumulation of large information to study. Better often and short exams.Do previous practice of exams with the pupil so they get used to the type of questions and the format of the actual exam.If there is comorbidity with other learning difficulties (such as dyslexia or dyscalculia) allow the use of a PC or a calculator to do the exams. Guarantee they have previous practice in the use of these tools and know when and how to use them in exams.Allow the use of headphones or other devices to reduce the stimulation that gets them distracted.If they need to do a long answer exam combine oral exams with written ones but always give the pupil the questions one by one, monitoring the time given to do each of them.Be careful with the font, size, colour… of the script you use. Avoid accumulating information or beware that the less information possible helps them focus and perform better.4. SupervisionMake sure the pupil understands the questions before they start answering them.Allow the pupil to make questions or to have access to the initial instructions at any time during the exams, since quite often they forget part of the instructions or get confused or disorganized.When the pupil also has writing difficulties or is very slow at writing we need to simplify this task or even change it for another one to be able to find out what he knows and not “how difficult it is for this pupil to answer the questions the way I make them”.Supervise they have answered all the questions before handing in the exam, beware sometimes they forget to turn over the page or they get disorganized and leave questions unanswered by mistake even though they know the right answers. Train the pupil to “double check” their exams before handing them in.Help them to keep concentrated during the exam without calling their names aloud: touch them in the shoulder if you see they are distracted, stop beside them and give them “short reminders” that can be useful such as “point at a question they have left unanswered”, “remember to stop and think before answering”, “I am sure you know that so breath in and read it again”, etc.Do not penalize them for spelling mistakes on written exams. It is something we can work on and evaluate in a different and specific way. When pupils with ADHD focus on a complex task such as “answering exam questions” they tend not to pay attention to “minor” aspects such as spelling that they should be able to do correctly and automatically but have not yet achieved.5.3. ICT for ADAH Apps for ADAHNamePlatform PrizeLanguagesDescription- ageADHD Tracker 1.0Prepared for iPhone 5Supporting iOS 5.1+FreeEnglishUsing the Vanderbilt Scales published by the American Academy of Pediatrics “ADHD Tracker” makes completing and submitting a behavioral assessment easier for parents and teachers of children ages 4 through 18 years who have already been diagnosed and treated for ADHD.ADHD Treatment - Brain TrainingRequires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.$9.99EnglishBased on the latest scientific literature.Neurocognitive therapy has been clinically shown to improve executive functions in as little as three months in several double-blind studies. Until now however, similar digital treatments have cost hundreds of dollars* An effective alternative to stimulant based treatments* Increases attention and controls impulsivity* Designed for both children and adults* Personalized treatment based on performance.EpicWinRequires iOS 8.0 or laterCompatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch1,99dollarsEnglishEpicWin is an iPhone app that puts the adventure back into your life. It’s a streamlined to-do list, to quickly note down all your everyday tasks, but with a role-playing spin. So rather than just ticking off your chores and reminders, completing each one earns you XP to improve and develop your character in an ongoing quest to improve stats gain riches, and level-up.Visual Attention Therapy (demo)EnglishThis app is useful to improve Reading, concept recognition, sustained and focused attention, planning and memory. It has different levels of difficulty.Breath, think and do (Sesame Street)IOSFreeSPANISHENGLISHThis app helps pupils to make decisions and improve the skills related to planning (learning and behaviour) towards different social stories. They learn to do a guided breathing. LetrisIOSANDROIDFreeSPANISHENGLISHThis game is to create words as quick as possible.Cut the ropeIOSANDROIDFree ITALIANSPANISHENGLISHIn this game, pupils have to give sweets to the character (a green animal). It helps to improve the memory, impulse control and the attention. Magic PianoIOSANDROIDFree with some items to purchaseSPANISHENGLISHUseful for children from 3 years old. It?s very interesting because most of pupils love music. So, towards the music, they could improve memory, aural attention and creativity. MemoradoIOSANDROIDFree with some items to purchaseSPANISHENGLISH.TURKISHITALIANPOLISHThis is a tool very interesting to improve working memory, impulse control and other executive functions.FlowfreeIOSANDROIDFreeITALIANSPANISHENGLISHThis app is ideal to get better in planning.More apps in 6. NVLD- NONVERBAL LEARNING DISORDER6.1. What is NVLD and symptomsWhat is NVLDNonverbal learning disorder (NVLD) appears to be the result of an alteration of cognitive functions linked to the dysfunctions in right hemisphere. It is characterized by the concomitance of difficulties in social skills, school performance, low visual-spatial skill and clumsiness. It was described in 1971 by Johnson et al, from the observation of children whose main characteristics were: Inability to understand the meaning of social context, poor ability both for academic learning and difficulty in nonverbal learning. Difficulties in interpreting gestures, facial expressions, touch and other nonverbal communication elements. It was linked to dysfunction in the Right Hemisphere (R.H.) by the overlap of these symptoms in adults with R.H. injury. The most comprehensive author in the field of NVLD is Rourke et al. (1994) who defined the diagnostic criteria and suggested an affectation in connections of the Right Hemisphere.SymtomsIn general, the symptoms of nonverbal learning disabilities mainly are: - Difficulties in activities which require psychomotor coordination.- Orientation in space.- Poor visualization skills.- Underdeveloped visual perception and visual thinking abilities.- Lack of understanding of the nonverbal aspects of communication and difficulties in interactions with peers.- Emotional disturbances. These difficulties are centered in three areas: Motor area (Lack of coordination, poor exploratory behavior, severe balance problems and difficulties in graph- motor skills.Visual- spatial-organization: tactile and visual perception, attention, tactile and visual memory, (lack of overall image, poor visual memory, defective spatial perception and difficulties with spatial relations)Social: (lack of ability in understanding nonverbal communications, difficulties in coping with the new situations and lack of judgment and social interaction).Common features of NLD:AREASDeficitSkills strengthsSOCIALUnderstanding of nonverbal communication, judgment and social interaction They have interest in the social relationship, although they could have problems to understand nonverbal information, they want to be in contact with peers and have initiative to communicating and for the social interaction. ACADEMIC Attention and tactile and visual memory.Related mathematical reasoning and spatial location Reading comprehensionSpellingOrganization in problem solving and reasoningLanguage: prosody (intonation and modulation of volume, tone and rhythm), nonverbal content pragmatic use (because it could be the reason why they suffer the peers jibe) Attention and auditory memoryoral reading and spellingGood phonological skillsLearning through verbal mediationMechanical memoryVISUAL-SPATIALAbility to see the wholeVisual memoryPerception and spatial relationship Attention to detailMOTOR CoordinationMotor Skills Better in individual sports than group sports. EMOTIONALTantrums Empathy and affect modulation Anxiety/depressionFearfull or anxiety reactions to novelty They have normal basic human emotions and emotional needsNonverbal learning disorders appear much less than language based learning disabilities. The symptoms are different, but can be noticed quite early in the child’s development. First of all it manifests itself in lack of psychomotor coordination, sometimes the child makes verbal comments for the nonverbal activities, trying to spontaneously help himself. The verbal abilities is a strong part of these students, but there are some weaknesses in this part too: despite the fluency in spoken language it misses “the point”, these children are not sensitive to the reactions of other people to their speech, they are too focused on details and experience difficulties in seeing the whole picture, they have quite good factual knowledge because of the ability to memorise, but it is difficult for them to apply their knowledge to new situations, to generalise, to solve problems. This is why these children have difficulties in mathematics. The more abstract, the more complicated the learning material is the more evident becomes their inability to cope with the learning tasks. Having the experience of failure, they often demonstrate emotional problems. Their perception of language is also too literal, which causes misunderstandings about the intentions of other people towards them. Sometimes these children, due to their shortcomings in social functioning, may become the targets for bullying. Because of lack of sensitivity to nonverbal clues, too concrete and straightforward communication these children may experience difficulties in establishing and maintaining friendships. So usually children with nonverbal learning disorders have few friends around. 6.2. Compensative strategies for NVLDIn our platform teachers and families could find extra information related to the areas that it?s good to train. Here, we are going to present the strategies that a teacher has to develop in order to compensate the problems these pupils have to access to the learning pensative strategies in the methodology and activities:6.2.1. EDUCATIONAL SPACES AND ACCESS TO COMMUNICATION ADAPTATIONS?Flexible groupings and working in small groups allow a more individualized teaching learning process. Simplify language, avoid the use of figurative language, sarcasm, slang, and double meanings....It is important that students learn to properly improve their social interactions. This learning can be developed both in the classroom and in more individualized surroundings using direct models, role play , rehearsing and practicing how to deal with social situations which can be used in other natural environments.Promote involvement with a classmate through structured meetings, allowing the student to develop social skills and generate friendship.Make sure class rules are understood: These should always be within the students’ sight. Encourage peer learning: cooperative groups, peer tutoring, pair -work...Due to the difficulties in adapting to changing environments and the difficulties of interaction, the classroom should not have an excessive number of students and the overall atmosphere should be calm, limiting an overload of stimuli and disruptive situations, since these students need a highly structured and predictable context of schooling.It should also be noted that these children are vulnerable as they have fewer personal resources, they do not usually defend themselves well and can be subjected to abuse from other classmates, therefore we must ensure that these kids are controlled not only within the classroom but in other areas and situations in the school, such as break time, gym class, extracurricular activities, the school canteen, etc. 6.2.2. ORGANIZATION OF THE HOMEWORK OR WORK IN THE CLASSROOMThese guidelines are useful for designing homework as much as organising activities in the classroom. This kind of pupil needs to learn in a specific way how to organize notebooks, and other school materials. And it needs to be specifically trained. These pupils need to use an agenda, but normally school agendas have a very small space to write, so, it?s better to have an agenda that allows the pupil to write more or use a normal notebook where the pupil only has to write the date and then organize the information. In addition, pupils with NVLD usually have a problem with writing skills, so teachers and parents must be patient and: a- give them more time to do written work; b- use ICT strategies that allow them to write faster (or record a voice); or c- use cooperative learning, for example, a partner helps the pupil to write important information (homework, instructions, exams dates…)Some scientists recommend that pupils with NVLD should use only a notebook for all the subjects as it helps them to save energy to concentrate on more complex tasks. Pupils must write the date and hour every day, and then the subject and all the activities, etc. This strategy could be useful. If finally, the teacher or the family sees that it does not help, it is better to stop using it and use different notebooks as they normally do.6.2.3. MEASURES TO ADAPT TO THEIR WORK RATE Decrease writing tasks. Do not ask them to write if not necessary (for example, do not force them to copy the activities wording) simply give them the opportunity to use alternative ways: voice recording, oral tasks, use a computer or tablet…Many teachers and parents believe that writing these wordings trains the writing process but this does not work. It is better to train writing with a creative approach and with more motivating content. And it is also better if they write little but more correctly and do it themselves, without needing so much help and extra time.Favour the use of activities where pupils do not have to write a lot: short questions, join or connect sentences or words, complete sentences with key words, “True or false” questions, multiple choice, etc. As always, with a pupil with learning difficulty it is recommended to properly control the amount of tasks that each pupil has to do. For all children to work more than 1-2 hours each afternoon-evening (depending on age) is a mistake, for these pupils it is counter-productive or self-defeating. Therefore, it is very important for the teacher to decide how many activities should be given to these pupils. And, in addition, the family must consult with teachers how many tasks they will help the pupil to do. In some cases, it is better giving a smaller amount of tasks, and in others to control the time that the pupil can work for and stop when the time needed to do the tasks exceeds a reasonable limit. As a guide, this information to design the homework is recommended:Before 6 years old: do not give homework (although parents can show tales, books adapted to these children…)6-8 years old: around 40 minutes.8-9years: 60-90 minutes.10-12 years: around 90 minutes.Secondary Education: between 90 and 120 minutes. Simplify the tasks as much as possible: for example, do not compel them to use different colour ball-pens. For pupils with NVLD this is worse than using a one-coloured ball-pen.6.2.4. ORGANIZATION OF THE PAPER Due to problems in writing, illegible in some cases, and with paper organization, these ideas could be taken under consideration: Type of notebook. There isn?t a general rule, but it is recommended to use thin, small notebooks (A5 size). Most of these pupils prefer using one line notebooks, but others might benefit by using Montessori lines. There are no general rules, these are valid for all pupils so flexibility is advised . Pencils and ball-pens. Most pupils improve their writing using liquid ink ball-pens. Better to test and choose what is best for each pupil. These days we have erasable liquid ink-ball pens, so they have the chance to erase mistakes and do not need to write with pencil. Position. A comfortable body position is recommended for writing, but for these pupils it is important to reduce tension and tiredness. They must be trained to sit straight, not to sit too near the paper, turn the paper slightly and hold it with the other hand. Train the right position of the hand and fingers writing. Encourage pupils to train handwriting. This kind of skill could be trained until 3rd level in Primary School, but not later.However, if writing is illegible, it could be trained in short and continuous sessions. To motivate them carry out a dull activity, provide little rewards, draw a picture or table where they can write their success and work…Perhaps in training this kind of skill it is useful to use software or apps for computers or tablets. Visual marks to help them organise lines and writing. For instance, write or draw an arrow or square where the date must be written, or start the paragraph, etc. The teacher or a classmate (cooperative learning) could write the clue; also train the pupil with this problem to do these marks on paper to promote self-control of the task .In future, the pupil will be more able and might not need these marks Never make them erase too much and do not tear the paper if things are written badly, as the level of frustration is directly related to a worsening of writing skills. We should remember that the problem with writing is common in this disorder, so “highlight the positive”. It is enough if the writing is legible and we can read what has been written. On the contrary, if we highlight the “spaces with good writing” or praise somehow what they have written well, they will improve faster and their self-esteem will increase.6.2.5. GUIDELINES FOR DIFFERENT CURRICULAR SUBJECTSSpanish Language:These pupils learn and show what they know using oral language. They can learn better in a traditional way: using their verbal memory. However, their weak points here are handwriting and Reading comprehension, especially if they have to infer information or read abstracts or texts without structure (for instance, double meanings of a sentence, metaphors, “moral” of a text; for example, in Aesop’s Fables, these pupils would have a problem understanding the moral of the tale, they could have a superficial understanding).Regarding handwriting, see guidelines explained above.How to help them to infer:Train with “Riddles”. First with simple examples.Work with concrete questions related to the reading, not only about superficial information, but about the causes of the different situations, the behavior of the characters and help them to find this information in the text, giving them “clues” that will gradually disappear as they become more skilful. Propose them to imagine different “ends” to their favourite tales and in the texts that they need to work on and understand.Invent more parts to the story. Imagine how the story could be in the future.Study with them, helping to organize information. After reading, make sure that they have understood everything; if they have not we will need to revise the difficult contents with them and use verbal reasoning and training their memory to help them learn the main contents. MathsThese pupils often have good mental calculation skills. Their problems are more frequently related to:Mistakes at writing numbers in the right sequence, cause as well mistakes in Arithmetic.They could have difficulties to understand mathematics problems, where they have to do inferences of important information.They could have problems with Geometry. To help them the following could be considered:Put visual clues (arrows for example) on the paper for make calculations.Give verbal instructions and verify if they have written numbers correctly before letting them make mistakes.Write information in a bigger space and give the main idea in a different sentence.Give more time to answer activities where they must understand temporal concepts or in Geometry.Sciences (Social and Natural Sciences)Pupils often do not have problems in these subjects, as they can use verbal reasoning and memory to understand and learn the content. Then they must write the content, so perhaps they have a good level (here, pay attention to their handwriting, or spatial distribution of the content, try to “ignore” the “mess” for marking purposes, as this is one of their biggest problems)They could have problems for example understanding maps or in Geography (spatial concepts) and graphics.Here they need extra verbal explanations, more time with “clues” to answer, do exams with a teacher guiding the process, increasing verbal activities, etc.ArtDrawing:- They need more training and practice to understand spatial concepts, and the use of verbal guide.-Place more emphasis on the creative process than on the result.- Practise distribution of space on the paper. Allow them to use good practice examples (but keep in mind that even with a model beside them, they could have problems copying well).MusicAs musical education is based on the stave or pentagram comprehension and interpretation which involve spatial based skills, they could have serious difficulties here. Also they have difficulties with fine psychomotor activity so they could have great difficulties to play an instrument.Therefore in this subject we must value more their knowledge about conceptual contents (i.e. History of Music) than on procedural contents (i.e. playing the instrument) or visual-space based contents (i.e. reading a pentagram).Physical EducationThey would have more difficulties than most pupils, but we must practise motor coordination. Although there could be problems imitating others, they will eventually do the exercises better if they have a model than if they have to do them only from visual memory.Be aware that classmates could tease them for being clumsy when doing difficult physical activities. Adapt the level of difficulty and praise their effort getting the class-group involved in this positive feedback.6.2.6. COMPENSATIVE STRATEGIES IN THE EVALUATION OF THE PUPILS LEARNINGPupils with NVLD could have problems with written exams due to the following:Illegible writing.Not completing tasks on time.Poor organisation and the teacher cannot understand the content. Here are some ideas to help: Give them more time. At home train how to do exams for different subjects, giving rewards for the effort, not only for the results. Teach them strategies like: always start answering the questions they know best, ask for an explanation to ensure the question has been understood well, etc. Adapt exams. We must adapt the way we evaluate, but not the content. For example: Distribute the questions in a bigger space. For example, if the usual exam has 5 questions per page, write only 2-3 for pupils with NVLD or even give the questions one by one in different sheets of paper.Use simple sentences and visual clues. Give an oral explanation individually. Give one example of possible answers.Write questions in a bigger space (more paragraphs, or with a plan)Design different types of questions: short questions, join sentences, multiple choice, choose between “True” or “False”…Use oral exams. Time management. Use a sand clock, for example, to encourage them to manage time, giving rewards if they finish the task before the time set (or when the sand runs out if using a sand clock). Do not penalise the mark of an exam because handwriting is bad. We must focus on the content even if the information is not well expressed or organised. Do not use traditional ways of evaluation only. Teachers could do a register of daily work, ask for tasks done with computers or video/tape recording using ICT, trying to increase motivation and learning.6.2.7. KIND OF MATERIALS AND RESOURCES They could need psychomotor parks and objects to practice these skills.To train manual skills they need: different sizes balls, glass beads to string, different shapes and sizes boxes, bottles, bags, objects to recognize without seeing, materials to create objects (rubber, paper, clay…The materials we usually use to do Crafts and those we use in Kindergarden are good. To train social skills, it?s good to have “social stories” to practice different situations. Allow the use of support material: ?For mathematical operations teaching aids such as abacuses, countable material, multiplication tables and even a calculator are suggested.As for dysgraphia due to lack of visual-spatial hand-eye coordination a laptop or tablet is recommended, materials which allow writing that do not condition the outcome of the work. Allow submission of coursework in alternative formats to written text, such as computer presentations, audio, films, etc. ?Prioritize quality of work over quantity, since problems such as dysgraphia and control of handwriting may affect the rhythm and completion of tasks. For this reason it is advisable to regulate the amount of homework, decreasing it. 6.2.7. HOMEWORK HowPupils with NVLD is usual that need help, so, it?s very important not to ask them too much homework. We have to be into account that they usually follow special trainings to overcome their weak points and skills, so it?s better not asking them too much written tasks.Maybe for them is more useful if they revise the contents that it have been introduced every day in each subject, using new technologies, like software that help them to make, for example, conceptual maps…Don?t let them alone. They need guide, rewards and support. WhenAs a guide, we could use this information:Before 6 years old: do not give homework (although parents must provide tales, books adapted to these children…)6-8 years old: around 40 minutes.8-9years: 60-90 minutes.10-12 years: around 90 minutes.Secondary Education: between 90 and 120 minutes. WhatIt?s better to practice the points: 1-Motor coordinationArm coordination. It?s good to practice this kind of exercises: Throw and receive objects. First with bigger objects, and later smaller ones. Throw objects into a basket or box. Or insert rings in a bar… Bounce a ball. Pass objects from hand to hand. Play with darts and a bullseye. Play bowling, basketball, handball, games with rackets, volleyball… Bring objects into a tray. Play a xylophone. When training is advanced, the child could cover the eyes while doing the activities.Leg coordination. Crawl (even though if the child is older already knows how to do it is a good exercise for them).Run avoiding obstacles.Go up and down stairs (different sizes).Jump from one hoop to another.Stop a ball with a foot.Hit a ball in a static position and then in movement. Try to score a goal.Do skipping.Practise football.Again, children could cover their eyes to practice more. Static and dynamic balance. Stand only on one foot.Tiptoe.Walk joining the toe and the heel.Walk over a line in the floor.Walk on one leg.Jump and keep the balance.Ride a bike or skating.Play in a park and in psychomotor parks.Firstly, the child could have the teacher?s support. Later, they must try to do them by themselves.Fine motor activities and eye-hand coordination:Although these children will have problems and are clumsy, we have to be patient and encourage them to train these activities: trim, buttoning, type on a keyboard, open and close with a key, catch different small objects, model with clay or mud, peel or paste, nail tacks, tighten or loosen screws, open and close different types of boxes and bottles, hang clothes with hangers, string beads, do origami, removable toys…2-Perceptive and spacial skillsSpacial structuration Do jigsaw. Complete unfinished drawings. Build figures or pictures using geometric shapes (Tangram) Play draughts and chess. Play with counters where the child has to put his/her counter to correspond with the teacher’s counters on a table.Spatial orientation Play with “right-left” games/activities. Identify figures in a mirror. Repeat teacher’s body positions and face expressions. Identify pictures in the same position of a model. Put objects in the same position as others. Follow small circuits and gradually do bigger or more difficult circuits. When on a trip using a map ask them to explain the route.. Walk in the country/outdoors trying to help them to remember the way. Draw a plan about the followed path and consult before and after.Visual perceptionStart trying to encourage them to draw simple pictures, for example, lines. Gradually drawing more difficult objects. Always provide a lot of emotional support and rewards.Draw the hands of a clock over empty clocks.Teacher draws a path over a dash line and the pupil must repeat it by drawing on paper. Tactile perception Put a few objects into a black bag (you can increase the amount to make it more difficult when they are ready) and ask the child to identify the objects eyes closed. Then, practise with letters and numbers made in plastic.Teacher draws an object (on paper or other material) and the pupil has to look for a similar object inside the bag without looking. Pupils can guess with eyes closed what the teacher is drawing on the back of their hand.3-Writing. We should only train a better writing if illegible. If the pupil is older it is advisable to do short training daily (a few minutes). Practise writing on large blackboards, on sand, large papers. We can reduce these materials as the pupil improves. Train movements that must be written. With smaller children, train simple lines (different directions and circles).4-Social interaction and social communicationFollow the guidelines written in our platform. 6.3. ICT for NVLDNamePlatfom PrizeLanguageDescription- ageSESAMO STREET (BREATHE THINK AND ACT)IOS (Apple)freeEnglish, Castilian/ SpanishApplication helps children to plan decision making through social stories, and to take guided breaths.Executive functions: planning SOCIAL STORIES CREATORIOS (Apple)free, additional paid contentEnglish languageApplication for creating social stories in order to help children who have problems with social interaction.Executive functions: planningSUDOKU FUNAndroidSpanishThe aim is to place 1 to 9 into each grid cell so that each number can only appear once in each row, each column and each mini-grid. It has five levelsLumosityIOSAndroid0,99 per gameSeveralTo develop basic cognitive skillsFit Brains TrainerIOSAndroidFrom 0,99 to more than 100€Several languagesMore than 150 activities to develop cognitive fucntions. It has a scientific research as a basis.Bobbin 3D: Magic laberinthAndroidFree with additional contents to purchasesSpanishYou have to find your way across a path full of obstacles to reach the finish line.RORY’S STORY CUBESIOS (Apple) / androidpaymentEnglish language.This application is used to generate spontaneous ideas and link storiesExecutive functions: divergent thinking.SINCROLABIOS (Apple) / android / PC / MACfree trial versionspanishSincrolab is a platform of cognitive stimulation for neurodevelopmental disorders. Therapists can manage, design and monitor the progress of their patients while they train daily with our games designed by neuroscientists, allowing accurate recovery which is effective and fun. Executive functions: memory, impulse control, attention, planning.TANGRAM PUZZLEIOS (Apple) / androidFreeSpanish, EnglishDescription: Enjoy creating figures with Tangram, the famous puzzle game for children and adults. Tangram is a game known worldwide, which allows children to develop psychomotor and intellectual capacities and introduces concepts of geometry in a playful way. Executive functions: attention planning. Memory trainierAndroidFreeSeveralIs a continuous performance task that has been proven in several studies to increase your fluid intelligence. Mentioned in the Wired article "Forget Brain Age: Researchers Develop Software That Makes You Smarter"See more apps and useful webs in the platform of the project. 7. EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS7.1. What is executive functions and why is important in pupils with LDDefinitionThe term “Executive functions“ refers to a group of higher order cognitive abilities that coordinate and regulate other abilities and behavior making it possible to perform meaningful, goal-directed activities. They are called EXECUTIVE because they are crucial for EXECUTION of an action.To better understand the concept it may be helpful to visualize executive2483699494673function as a conductor, that makes it possible for various musical instruments in the orchestra (i.e. a number of cognitive abilities needed to perform an action) play in accordance to each other.Executive functions are sometimes called 'prefrontal' as they are associated with the prefrontal lobe, a functional zone of the cerebral cortex which matures the last in the course of human brain development. The greatest spurt in the development of the prefrontal cortex takes place around the 6th – 7th year; however, it is not before the onset of adulthood until it finally matures.There is no definite list of executive functions, various researchers attribute somewhat different cognitive abilities to executive domain, however, most agree that executive functions include mental flexibility, working memory, impulse control and planning. Three executive functions are most often studied in past decade, and these are working memory, mental flexibility (also called mental set shifting) and impulse control (also called dominant response inhibition). These three cognitive abilities are included in widely accepted 'unity and diversity' model of executive functions, proposed by Miyake and colleagues (2000). According to the authors of the model, working memory updating, shifting and inhibition are separable, but moderately related to each other.SYMPTOMS OF EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTIONInsufficiently developed executive functions may be blamed if a student:has difficulties initiating the task;is unable to plan performance of complex task;does not follow teacher speaking for longer periods of time;is easily distracted by noise ;blurts answers out of his place without rising his hand or waiting his turn;forgets task requirements in the process of performing the task;has difficulty shifting between tasks.Surely all children have these difficulties from time to time (recall that executive functions develop throughout childhood and adolescence) and need adult supervision in dealing with them, however, if a child constantly struggles with these issues and his academic results suffer, we may suspect problems with executive functions.Deficient executive functions are common in several childhood disorders, including ADHD and autism spectrum disorders, they often come along with specific learning disabilities or emotion and behavior problems, however, they may sometimes manifest when no other condition has been diagnosed.Executive function difficulties will most probably first become evident in elementary school, but as schoolwork gets harder and students are asked to be more independent learners, children with weak executive skills fall further and further behind. 7.2. Apps for training executive functionsNamePlatform PrizeLanguageDescription- ageFunctios that developVisual Attention Therapy (demo)ENGLISHThis app is useful to improve Reading, concept recognition, sustained and focused attention, planning and memory. It has different levels of difficulty.- Planning- Selective Attention - Reasoning spped.- Visual memory Breath, think and do (Sesame Street)IOSGRATISSPANISHENGLISHThis app helps pupils to make decisions and improve the skills related to planning (learning and behaviour) towards different social stories. They learn to do a guided breathing. - Planning.- Inhibition.Cut the ropeIOSANDROIDGratisSPANISHENGLISHITALIANIn this game, pupils have to give sweets to the character (a green animal). It helps to improve the memory, impulse control and the attention. -Memory- Attention- Planning- InhibitionMemoradoIOSANDROIDFree. You can by extras SPANISHENGLISHTURKISHITALIANPOLISHThis is a tool very interesting to improve working memory, impulse control and other executive functions.Planning.Memory.Inhibition Tangram puzzleIOSANDROIDGratisSPANISHPupils could enjoy doing pictures with this app. Planning.Attention.IsecuenciasIOSANDROIDFree, Lite version. You have to pay for the full appSPANISHA complete app to develop several executive functions. Planning.Attention.Inhibition Emotional intelligence.FlowfreeIOSANDROIDGratis.SPANISHITALIANENGLISHHere the objective is join different colours dots without blocking other dots. This can?t be done without plan well the strategy.Attention.PlanningSincrolabANDROIDIOSFree a demoSPANISHSincrolab?is a plataform for the cognitive stimulation. It has been thought to use in a special education or clinic context. There are two versions: children and adults. The teacher has to sign in to each pupil. - Attention.- Memory.- Inhibition - Planning.-Spatial reasoning.Memotiva(software)- Windows.- IOSAround100 €SPANISHTwo levels. It allows to improve visual and auditive working memory. Each pupil could see the progress in some figures. - Working memory.- Attention.NeuronationIOS- AndroidNot freeSPANISHENGLISHThis app firstly evaluates the level in the different functions and then, design a personal development programme. - Working memory.- Attention.LetrisIOSANDROIDFreeSPANISHENGLISHPupil has to build words as quick as possible- Planification.- Attention. - Reasoning speed.More in the platform of the Project. 8. GLOSSARY OF TERMS – ICT TERMS USED IN EDUCATION This glossary is based on the work of Davies G. & Riley F. (2012) "Glossary of ICT terminology". In Davies G. (ed.) Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers (ICT4LT), Slough, Thames Valley University [Online]. Available at: [Accessed 04/03/2017].? Sarah Davies in association with MDM creative. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Other glossary of terms about ICT vocabulary used in the educational context that has been used here and is available in: Acceptable Use Policy (AUP):?An AUP is a set of rules that define the ways in which ICT facilities can and cannot be used in a business or educational institution, including a description of the possible sanctions that can be applied if a user breaks the rules. Two of the most important topics covered by an AUP are (i)?e-safety?and (ii)?awareness of and compliance with copyright. Accessibility:?The fundamental issue regarding?accessibility?is that everyone should have access to the services provided by ICT, e.g. computer programs,?Email?and the World Wide Web, regardless of any visual, auditory, or other physical impairment they might have.?Action Maze:?A type of computer program used in Computer Assisted Language Learning. See?Maze?for a more detailed explanation.Active Matrix:?A term used to describe the newer type of computer?Display Screen?that makes use of Thin Film Transistor (TFT) technology: see?TFT. Active matrix screens have excellent colour resolution and can display motion accurately and rapidly.Address Book:?Usually supplied as part of your?Email?software. An?address book?in this sense is used to keep a record of all the email addresses of people whom you may wish to contact by email.ADSL:?Abbreviation for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A high-speed digital telephone connection that operates over an existing copper telephone line, allowing the same line to be used for voice calls. ADSL lines offer transmission speed that are usually in the range 2Mbps to 8Mbps, and are used mainly for?Internet?access. The term?asymmetric?is used because the data flows more quickly from the telephone exchange to the user than from the user to the exchange - because most Web users are more interested in receiving data quickly from websites rather than uploading it to websites. The term?symmetric?is used for connections where the data flows at the same speed in both directions, which is essential for accessing websites where there is a high degree of interactivity. Adventure Game:?Adventure games date back to the early days of mainframe computing. The early adventure games consisted entirely of written text, but modern adventure games incorporate elaborate graphics, sound and video sequences. The dividing line between an adventure game and a?Simulation?is rather fuzzy. In both sorts of programs there are a number of obstacles to overcome, and the player has to indulge in mind-stretching lateral thinking in order to overcome them. Adventure games are often set in a fantasy world, e.g.?Myst?or?Riven, but some are more down-to-earth and can play an important role in language teaching and learning, e.g.?Who is Oscar Lake??Adware?is software that may have been installed on your computer by a remote computer, i.e. via the Web. Many free utilities that you download from the Internet will install hidden software that sends details of the websites you visit and other information from your computer (which can include your email address) to advertisers so they can target you with popup ads and spam.AI:?Abbreviation for?Artificial Intelligence.AJAX:?Acronym for Asynchronous?JavaScript?and?XML. AJAX is a Web programming tool (or rather a set of tools) that makes it possible to create interactive Web applications that work in much the same way as computer applications on your computer's hard disc, i.e. more responsive, more spontaneous, so that when you click on something on the Web page there is very little time delay - as in your word-processor, for example. While you are browsing a Web page AJAX is working behind the scenes. AJAX allows your browser to fetch data from the Web and use it to update a fragment of the page without refreshing the whole page so that you don't have to wait for the whole Web page to refresh or reload each time you click on a button or initiate an action in some other way. This increases the Web page's interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability.?Google Maps?is a typical example of a Web application incorporating AJAX. Anchor:?A term used in connection with?HTML, the coding system used for creating Web pages. An anchor is the target of a?Hyperlink, i.e. a point in a Web document to which you jump when you click on a hyperlink.Animation:?The display of a sequence of images in a computer program or on a Web page to give the impression of movement.Anonymous FTP:?An?anonymous FTP?is a convention whereby users are not required to identify themselves with an account number, user name or password when they access a website from which they wish to download publicly available programs or files. Users may, however, be required to enter their email address before accessing certain websites. Anorak:?A colloquial term that is often used to describe someone who is fascinated by the technology of computers but not particularly interested in their applications. A synonym is? HYPERLINK "" \l "train" Trainspotter. Both terms are closely allied to?Geek,?Nerd?and?Techie?- which have slightly different connotations.API:?Abbreviation for Application Programming Interface. API is a so-called protocol of communication that enables different computer programs to communicate with one another. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks that the programmer needs. Although APIs are designed for programmers, they are also good for program users insofar as they guarantee that all programs using a common API will have similar interfaces. This makes it easier for users to learn new programs.App:?Abbreviation for?Application.Applet:?A small program written in the?Java?programming language and embedded in a Web page. When you use your?Browser?to access a Web page, an applet may run "inside" the Web page, as it were, to perform an interactive animation, make a calculation or carry out another simple task.Application:?A computer program or a suite of computer programs that performs a particular function for the user, such as a word-processor, e.g.?Microsoft Word, or a range of functions, such as?Microsoft Windows?or?Microsoft Office. Archive:?Used to describe documents or files that are not immediately needed but which should not be completely discarded. Artificial Intelligence (AI):?The ability of a computer to mimic human attributes in finding a solution to a problem.?Artificial Intelligence?techniques are applied in various ways in computer applications in the language world, e.g. in?Machine Translation (MT)?programs and in grammar and style checkers. ASF:?Abbreviation for Advanced Streaming Format. This is Microsoft's own file format that stores both audio and video information and is specially designed to run over the Internet. ASF enables content to be delivered as a continuous stream of?streaming audio?or?streaming video?data with little wait time before playback begins. This means that you no longer have to wait for your audio and video files to fully download before starting to view them. Assistive Technology:?This term describes computer software or devices used by people with special needs to enable them to access the services provided by ICT, e.g. computer programs,?Email?and the World Wide Web. Technologies under this heading include?Text To Speech (TTS)?screen readers for the unsighted or partially sighted, alternative keyboards and mice for people who have problems in hand-eye coordination, head-pointing devices, speech recognition software, and screen magnification software. Asynchronous:?"Not at the same time". Often used to refer to communication by?Email?or via a?Discussion List, where the recipients of the email or the participants in the discussion do not have to be present at the same time and can respond at their own convenience. Attachment:?A term used in connection with?Email. An attachment can be a?File?of almost any kind - a document file, an image file, a sound file or a video clip - that you can add, i.e.?attach, to an email.Attribute:?A term used by Web authors. An attribute of an?HTML?tag?controls how that tag operates. For example, in the HTML fragment?<img src="../images/home01.gif" alt="English home page">, the required attribute?src?defines the image file to be displayed, and the optional attribute?alt?defines the text to be displayed when the?Mouse?moves over the image. Attributes can only exist within tags.Authoring Package / Authoring Program / Authoring Tool:?These terms describe?content-free?software packages that allow the teacher to develop interactive learning and teaching materials without having to have a detailed knowledge of a computer?Programming Language. Avatar: A graphical representation of a real person, such as used in a?MUVE?or?MMORPG, a kind of "virtual world". Participants in a MUVE or MMORPG choose a name and a visual representation of the character that they wish to adopt as an inhabitant of the MUVE or player in the MMORPG. AVI:?Abbreviation for Audio Video Interleave (or Interleaved). A file format for storing video recordings on a computer. BBackup or Back Up:?Used as a verb,?to back up?means to copy a?File?or?Folder?from your computer to another?Storage Device, e.g. a?CD-ROM, as a precaution in case your?Hard Drive?fails or is infected by a?Virus. A?backup, used as a noun, or a?backup copy?describes a copy that you have made in this way. It is essential to back up new files and folders at regular intervals.Bandwidth:?The amount of data that can be sent from one computer to another through a particular connection in a certain amount of time, e.g. via a computer to the Internet and vice versa. The more bandwidth available, the faster you are able to access information. BECTA:?British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, formerly known as NCET (National Council for Educational Technology), MESU (Microelectronics Education Support Unit) and the CET (Council for Educational Technology). BECTA is due to close down under the recently elected UK government (May 2010).Binary:?A number system using base 2 instead of the usual (human) base 10, which is normally referred to as the decimal system. Computers use base 2 because they can only recognise two values, 1 or 0. Blackboard:?A commercial?Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)?package, i.e. a software package that integrates online communications software with content software enabling teachers to create courses that are delivered partially or entirely via the Web. Courses using?Blackboard?might be mainly text-based, but can be enhanced with images, audio and video. Blended Learning:?This term normally refers to combining Internet-based?distance learning?with face-to-face tuition but it may also be used to describe combining offline ICT-based materials with more traditional materials, such as books, audiocassettes and videocassettes. For example, students in a traditional class can be assigned both print-based and online materials, have online mentoring sessions with their teacher through chat, and are subscribed to a class email list. Or a Web-based training course can be enhanced by periodic face-to-face instruction.“Blending”was prompted by the recognition that not all learning is best achieved in an electronically-mediated environment, particularly one that dispenses with a live instructor altogether. Instead, consideration must be given to the subject matter, the learning objectives and outcomes, the characteristics of the learners, and the learning context in order to arrive at the optimum mix of instructional and delivery methods.This method is very useful in education/etc.Blog:?Contraction of the term?Weblog. A?blog?is essentially a website that contains discrete pieces of information posted by different users. New items of information are usually entered by contributors via a simple form, following the introduction of each new theme by a person who initiates the blog, and then submitted to the site, where they may be filtered by an administrator before being posted. A blog can contain news items, short essays, annotated links, documents, graphics, and multimedia. These posts are usually in reverse chronological order and often take the form of a journal or diary. A blog is normally accessible to any Internet user, but closed blogs may also be created, e.g. to document the thoughts and experiences of a group of students or to provide a means of communication between teachers and students following a particular course. The word?blog?is also used as a verb, and?Blogger?is used as a noun to describe someone who blogs (see next entry). Blogger:?Normally used to refer to someone who?blogs, i.e. who regularly writes?blogs. Also used to describe a service that provides Web-based tools used by individuals to create a?Blog?or?Weblog. Bluetooth:?Bluetooth?is a technical industry standard for radio technology which facilitates the transmission of signals over short distances (up to around 10 metres) between telephones, computers and other devices without the use of wires.?BMP:?Abbreviation for?Bitmap, a file format for storing images. This is the standard format used, for example, by?Windows Paint. BMP image files occupy quite a lot of space compared to other formats. See?EPS,?GIF,?JPEG/JPG,?TIFF. Bookmark:?A?bookmark?is a facility within a?Browser?that enables you to keep a record of Web pages that you have visited and may wish to visit again. Bookmarks are stored in a subdirectory of the?Windows?directory on your computer. In?Internet Explorer?bookmarks are known as? HYPERLINK "" \l "favorites" Favorites?(sic - spelt the American way), which is also the name of the subdirectory in which they are stored. Bookmarks are also used to mark positions in a?Word?document, i.e. positions to which you can jump from other points in the document by clicking on them with the?Mouse.Boot:?(verb) To start up a computer by loading the operating system into memory. The computer is regarded as?bootstrapping?itself into operation, i.e. picking itself up by its own bootstraps. The adjective?bootable?is often used to describe a backup disc that can be used to start a computer, e.g. when the hard disc fails or becomes corrupted for some reason. bps:?Abbreviation for?bits per second, the smallest measurement of data transmission speed, e.g. via a?Modem. Computer people normally measure data transmission speeds in?Kbps, meaning?kilobits per second, or?Mbps, meaning?megabits per second. If you have a 56Kbps modem (which is slow by today's standards) it means that your modem can transmit at speeds up to 56,000 bits of information per second.Broadband:?A general term used to describe a high-speed connection to the Internet. Connection speed is usually measured in?Kbps?(kilobits per second) and?Mbps?(megabits per second).Browser:?A software package installed on the hard disc of your computer that enables you to access and to navigate the?World Wide Web?- to "surf the Web" in colloquial terms. .Bug:?Not a nasty insect but a logical fault in a computer program which causes it to malfunction.Burn:?When data is written to a CD, for example using a CD-Read/Write drive, a pattern of microscopic dots is etched with a laser beam in a spiralling track on the CD surface. This is a process often referred to as "burning a CD".? CC&IT:?Abbreviation for Communications and Information Technology. The same thing as ICT but the other way round! C&IT (Communications and Information Technology) is a peculiarly British term that arose in Higher Education as a result of the 1997 Dearing Report and never caught on outside the UK Higher Education environment. Cache:?The?cache?contains information stored by a Web?Browser?on your hard disc, so that you don't have to download the same material repeatedly from a remote computer. Browsers keep copies of all the Web pages that you view so that the pages can be redisplayed quickly when you go back to them. The cache is normally stored under?Windows?in a folder called?Temporary Internet Files. This folder can become enormous over time and can cause your hard disc to become overloaded and then your computer may lock up. Camcorder:?A portable video camera, capable of recording live motion video for later replay through a videocassette recorder (VCR), DVD player or computer. Videos produced by a camcorder can be?uploaded?to a computer via a?USB?cable or? HYPERLINK "" \l "firewire" Firewire, edited using special software such as?Windows Movie Maker, and played on a computer using?Media Player?software.Cathode Ray Tube (CRT):?An older type of computer?Display Screen?or?Monitor, in which beams of high-voltage electrons are fired at a screen causing thousands of Red, Green and Blue (RGB) dots to glow in different combinations and intensities, thus producing the full-colour image displayed on the screen. Cathode Ray Tubes are also used in older domestic TV sets. Newer types of display screens are of the?LCD?or?TFT?flat panel type - like many modern TV sets. They are much lighter, use less electricity and take up less room on your desk. CBT:?Abbreviation for?Computer Based Training.CD-ROM:?Abbreviation for Compact Disc Read Only Memory. Central Processing Unit (CPU):?Also known as the?Central Processor. Chat Room:?A?synchronous, mainly text-based communication facility, offering a Web-based environment where people either drop into or arrange to meet and?chat?at specific times. You type in your text online, it is seen almost immediately by others online at the same time who respond online in real time. Clipart?or?Clip Art:?A collection of image files that can be embedded or inserted into Web pages, word-processed documents,?PowerPoint?presentations, etc. Some clipart images are copyright-free or in the public domain but others may be subject to a licence fee if you wish to make them public, e.g. on a website. See?Copyright.Clipboard:?A temporary storage area in a computer's memory. It may be used, for example, to store text that you are in the process of copying and pasting from one section of a word-processed document to another section in the same document or to another document. You should find a?clipboard viewer?program on your computer, which enables you to see what is currently being temporarily stored in the clipboard.Clock Speed:?The speed of a computer's?Central Processing Unit (CPU), which is normally expressed in? HYPERLINK "" \l "megahertz" MegaHertz?(= one million cycles per second) or? HYPERLINK "" \l "gigahertz" GigaHertz, (= 1000 MegaHertz). This figure represents the number of instruction cycles the processor carries out each second. In simple terms this indicates how fast the computer runs - how powerful it is. Computers that run at 500 MegaHertz (500MHz) used to be considered fast, but modern computers now run at over one GigaHertz (1GHz).Comms:?Short for?communications, as in Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Used to refer to ways in which computer systems communicate with one another, e.g. via a cable, a telephone line, satellite or mport: hardware link (socket) into which cables can be plugged so that a computer can communicate with printers, modems, other computers etc.?Compatibility: ?pieces of equipment and/or software which are capable of being used together without special modification or adaptation are termed ‘compatible’.?Compression: technique which reduces the amount of space required to store data. General compression techniques apply to any data, but better results can be obtained by using characteristics of the particular type of information, such as text, audio, image or video.?Content-free program: software providing a framework and all necessary tools and utilities for the user, but which of itself contain no data until the user enters their own. Can be used to produce a range of products.?Cookie?set of instructions from a web server to a client machine. Cookies may be used by a web site owner to identify and track users of that site. Browsers can be customized to accept or reject cookies.?D?Data: representation of information – facts, concepts or instructions – in a formalized manner in order that it may be communicated, interpreted or processed by human or automated means. In computing, information that may be processed by a computer.?Data capture/collection: acquisition and input of information for use on a computer using manual or computer input devices.? Data logging: acquisition of information by a computer through use of sensors to measure and record environmental changes – for example, the changes in temperature of water in a pond over the period of several hours.?Data-logging software: software which is able to take the value of a parameter such as light level or temperature from a sensor/interface box and scale it to a meaningful measurement, such as SI units. It often also presents the value either as a big number for a class demonstration or as a value-versus-time graph.?Database: structured collection of conceptually related data or data files organized and stored in a computer system. Databases can be set up in different ways: for example, the simplest are tables with a row for each record (a set of related items such as an individual’s name and address) and a column for each field (the categories within each record such as last name, house number, street, town, etc.). Hierarchical databases hold their data in tree structures, e.g. one for a school might divide into staff and students at a high level, with individual names at the lowest and divisions like department or class in between. The most powerful databases use a method of storing data which does not restrict the way users can query it.?Default: computer or software settings as set in the factory or by the software creator.?Desktop computer: traditional office or personal computer. This has three or more parts linked together by cables: the system unit which houses the central processing unit and disk drives, the monitor, a keyboard and probably a mouse.?Desktop publishing (DTP): production via a desktop or personal computer of page layouts which combine words, graphics and images with different sizes and styles of type and form the master copies of materials such as newspapers, magazines and leaflets.?Dial-up: connection to the internet or another computer over an ordinary telephone line.?Digital: in computing, the representation of information as discrete digits, or bits. Contrasted with analog.?Digital versatile disk (DVD): data storage medium, optical disk capable of storing high quality video as well as data such as programs, text, still images and sound (also known as ‘digital video disk’).?Domain name system (DNS): hierarchical naming system used to locate computers on the internet, matching the number by which one networked computer recognizes another (the IP number) to a name which assigns the computer owner to a domain or category of user. Top-level domains are indicated by the abbreviations at the end of the name. For countries outside the US, top-level domains are countries (uk, au, fr). Within the US at the top-level and at the second level elsewhere, domain names describe degree-awarding universities (edu in the US, ac in the UK), commercial organizations (com, co), government agencies (gov), non-profit and charitable organizations (org), etc. The next level down, and often the first element of the name, is the name or alias of an organization or an individual, so that the Open University’s internet identity is open (name of organization) ac (type of organization) uk (country).?DOS (disk operating system): standard operating system designed to manage files for personal computers, e.g. MS-DOS, developed by Microsoft for the IBM PC.?Dots per inch (dpi): measure of printer or screen resolution or quality. The higher the dpi the sharper and clearer the image.?E?e-mail (electronic mail): messages or letters sent and received in electronic form via computers.?EDI (electronic data interchange): system for exchanging trading information in standard form by computer systems through the use of electronic messaging systems – for instance, examination entries, personnel records and transactions between trading partners.?Electronic communication aid - see augmentative and alternative communication.Electronic whiteboard?- interactive screen modelled on a standard whiteboard that is linked to a computer. The computer image is projected onto the screen, sometimes using a standard data projector (often ceiling mounted). The user interacts on the screen with a ‘pen’ and the screen sends information back to the computer about the pen’s movements, enabling the user to interact with various software packages.?Embed. To insert information stored in one format into information in another format, for example a graphic into a text file.?Embosser?-special type of printer that can produce Braille from a computer.?F?FAQ see frequently asked questions?Favourites -see hotlist?Fibre optic cable?- very thin strands of pure glass used for transmitting high volumes of data at high speed.?File extension, filename extension?-suffix which follows a user-created filename which allows the file type (e.g. word-processed document, spreadsheet) to be recognized by the computer. Common extensions are &lsqb;filename&rsqb;.doc for a word-processed document and &lsqb;filename&rsqb;.gif for an image.??File transfer protocol (FTP)?-common method of transferring files from one computer to another over the internet. See also protocol.?Firewall?- means of protecting a networked computer system to prevent unauthorized access.?Fount (US font)?- family of type, complete set of letters, numerals etc. of one face and style. Each fount has a name (e.g. Times New Roman, Garamond, Gill) and can be displayed in different sizes. Many founts are available in different weights and variations, such as medium, bold, medium italic and so forth. Some are designed specifically for legibility.?Freeware?-software that can be copied and used without payment to the author.?Frequently asked questions (FAQ)?- list of the most frequently asked questions and their answers, produced as a reference document for individual e-mail discussion lists/groups or world wide web sites, in order to avoid repeating answers to the same questions.?Full motion video?- video signal before it has been processed by video compression.?G?GIF (graphics interchange format)?-format commonly used to store digitized images as most popular software can cope with it. See also JPEG.?Gigabyte (Gb)? -1024 megabytes or one thousand million bytes.?Graph–plotting software?- software which allows the user to create graphs from equations. Equations can be entered with parameters using familiar notation such as y = x? - 4. Many versions offer much more than this, for example, gradient functions, scatter diagrams, and a dynamic approach to transformation geometry.?Graphical user interface (GUI)?- screen representation of the computer’s control system, enabling the user to move an on-screen cursor, usually with a mouse, and ‘click’ on pictorial representations or icons in order to make the computer perform various instructions. Mouse movements usually have keyboard alternatives.?Groupware?-computer technologies used to support group interaction. Examples include conferencing (audio, graphics and video), electronic mail, computer conferencing, scheduling and diary management systems, shared desktop systems and multi-user editors.?H?Hardware?- physical components of a computer or a communications system, including both mechanical and electronic parts, such as the processor, hard drive, keyboard, screen, cables, mouse and printer. Contrasted with software.?Hardware compatibility?- computers which can use the same software because they share or can use the same operating system.?Home page?- opening or main page of a web site of a particular organization or individual.?Hotlist?- user-created list of addresses (URLs) of world wide web sites or pages to allow easy revisiting. Netscape calls this ‘bookmarks’, Microsoft Internet Explorer uses the term ‘favourites’ and ANT Fresco uses ‘hotlists’.?Housekeeping?- organizing and pruning information and software on a computer to keep them manageable and minimize the storage space they occupy.?HTML -see hypertext mark-up language?Http -see hypertext transfer protocol?Hyperlink?- in a hypertext document such as a world wide web page, the predetermined area (which can be a word or set of words, an image or part of an image) which can be clicked on to jump to other documents, or other parts of the same document.?Hypermedia?- conceptual term for the use of hypertext links to connect multimedia items.?Hypertext?-system enabling the non-sequential connection of information, linking one computer file with another or part of another. The user can choose to follow the link or to continue using the original file sequentially. Used for the world wide web. See also hyperlink, hypertext mark-up language.?Hypertext mark-up language (HTML)?- computer language used to create hypertext documents such as world wide web pages. The author using HTML ‘marks up’ or defines how elements of the text will appear on the web by inserting ‘tags’ which will be invisible to the ordinary user of that page. The tags are special instructions to the computer, such as to insert a picture or to change text size and style. Tags may also define text or an image as a link to another page (a hyperlink). Text editors or word-processing packages can be used to create HTML documents, and it is useful to know how to create and edit ‘raw’ HTML, but there are also many specially designed packages enabling easy HTML creation.?Hypertext transfer protocol (http)?- standard for the process of requesting and transferring a page on the world wide web. For the transfer to succeed, the page must have been constructed as a hypertext document using the hypertext mark-up language.?I?Icon?- in a graphical user interface, a small symbol or picture on the computer screen, for example representing a software package or a data file. The user clicks on the icon to start the package or open the file.?ICT -see information and communications technology?ILS -see integrated learning system?Information and communications technology (ICT)?- application of modern communications and computing technologies to the creation, management and use of information.?Integrated learning system (ILS)?- computer-based system with a diagnostic capability that monitors and manages the delivery of curriculum material to students so that they are presented with individual programmes of work.?Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)?-telecommunications standard for the transmission of digital information over ordinary telephone lines, and the name for the digital telephone network. Contains channels for digitized speech, data, image or video signals.?Interface?- equipment or software which enables a user to communicate with the ‘raw’ system they are accessing, for example, a menu or icons on a screen (see graphical user interface). Also any join between items of hardware or software, such as connections with printers. For a peripheral device such as a printer to communicate with the main computer, their interfaces must be compatible.?Internet?- also known as the ‘net’, the inter-communicating computer networks which host and provide access to the world wide web, file transfer, e-mail, news and other services.?Internet protocol (IP)? -set of communication standards which control activity on the internet. An IP address is the number assigned to any computer connected to the internet, and is the only way in which information sent through the internet can find its way to that computer. It is a number of the form A.B.C.D where each letter represents a number from 0 to 255, e.g. 193.63.56.222. See also domain name system.?Internet relay chat (IRC)?- method of ensuring ‘real-time’ and multi-user communication. When internet users are on line simultaneously, they can communicate by sending text messages which are read almost as quickly as they are sent – i.e., on a par with normal face-to-face conversation.?Internet service provider (ISP)?- organization with a direct connection to the internet acting as an intermediary for other users, providing them with an e-mail address and software, access to the world wide web, and often space on web servers for home pages etc.?Intranet?- internal web site set up to serve a closed group such as a school, which contains pertinent information such as school documents, bulletin boards, health and safety information etc.?J?Java?- programming language designed to add interactivity and functionality to the web by enabling developers to write and distribute programs that would run on any computer regardless of the operating system.?Joystick (games stick)?- input device with a stick which can move left, right, forwards and backwards to control the movement of a pointer on screen. The stick has a press switch which has the same action as the ‘select’ button on a mouse.?JPEG?- acronym for ‘Joint Photographic Experts Group’, JPEG is an image-compression format which reduces the storage space the file takes up.?K?Kb?- kilo-bit, kilobyte.?Kbits/sec?- unit of measurement of data transfer speed, 1024 bits per second.?Keyword?- particularly associated with ‘free-text’ databases, an important word within text which is marked to ease retrieval. A search using a keyword will display each individual record containing it.?Keyboard?- emulator device attached to the computer which enables switch users to use standard software. A grid of numbers, letters and symbols represents the standard keyboard. The user selects the characters required by scanning the device with the switches and the information is sent to the computer. See also assistive technology.?Keyguard?- rigid frame placed over the keyboard. It is raised above the keys and has holes in it to allow access to the individual keys through the holes. With a keyguard, users with poor fine motor skills may access the keyboard more accurately. An overlay keyguard works in the same way for use with an overlay keyboard. See also assistive technology.?Keypad?- input device which has letters, numbers or symbols on it, like a small keyboard. Numeric keypads allow only numbers to be entered.?Kilobyte (k)?- unit of measurement of storage capacity, 1024 bytes, or one thousand.?L?LAN -see local area network?LCD -see liquid crystal display?Leased line?- permanent connection over the telephone network to, for example, a PoP. Telephone charges are per line rather than per call made. Therefore, regardless of use, the costs are fixed and predictable.?Liquid crystal display?- thin flat screen used in portable computers, digital cameras and watches where space is at a premium.?Listserver?- automated e-mail distribution system, one method of supporting discussion groups using e-mail. The list is of e-mail addresses of everyone who has joined the group (known as subscribers). A message posted to the group is sent to the listserver which copies the message to every subscriber on its list. Each subscriber finds a copy of all the new messages from the group waiting in the mail. Also sometimes known as a ‘mailing list’. Many such lists are relevant to and subscribed to by teachers, such as SENCo forum, and many also make their archives available to non-subscribers via the web.?Local area network (LAN)?- communications system linking computers within a restricted geographical area such as a building or campus. This also allows computers to share information from a central source.?M?Mbits/sec?- one million bits per second.?Megabyte (Mb)?- 1024 kilobytes or one million bytes.?Modem (modulator-demodulator)?- device which translates digital signals into audio signals (and vice versa) so that data can be carried over ordinary telephone lines. Modems operate at different speeds depending on the model.?MPEG?- acronym for ‘Moving Photographic Experts Group’, an international standard for storing digitized video in compressed form.?Mud (multi-user dungeon/dialogue/dimension)?- interactive games environment allowing role play (often on the internet).?Multimedia?- combination of moving images, graphics, text and sound. A multimedia machine is fitted with hardware such as sound and video cards and a CD-ROM drive, and may include peripherals such as a camera, microphone and scanner.?Musical instrument digital interface (midi)?- device which allows the interchange of signals between a computer and any musical device fitted with midi such as a music synthesizer.?N?National Grid for Learning (NGFL)?- government initiative intended to connect all schools, colleges and universities to the internet, provide them with information and resources and prepare them for interconnectivity.?Netiquette?- etiquette on the internet, found in codes of conduct drawn up by users to stop abuses and abusive behaviour.?Network?- electronic communications system linking computers, computer systems and peripherals such as file servers and printers.??O?Object linking or embedding see embed.OPAC?- On-line Public Access Catalogue, in other words, an electronic library catalogue.?Operating system (OS)?-program or set of programs which controls the computer. Different types of computer use different operating systems, including MS-DOS, Windows 95 and successors, Risc-OS, and MacOS.?Optical character recognition (OCR)?- method of scanning where a light source and photo cell recognize patterns of dark and light on a sheet and with appropriate pattern-matching software can convert text on paper to computer-held digitized text.?Optical head pointer?- input device which allows the user to control the computer with a pointer attached to a headband. See also assistive technology.?Optical mark reader (OMR)?- scanner which can detect straight marks in given places on a sheet, for example, a completed multiple choice test or lottery ticket, and convert them to computer-held data.?Overlay keyboard?- flat, touch-sensitive membrane on which paper overlays containing words, pictures or objects can be placed. The keyboard is used as a replacement or accompaniment to the conventional keyboard for users with letter recognition or physical difficulties. The keyboard consists of individual cells, which can be programmed individually or in groups to perform a particular task or display specific text on the computer screen. See also assistive technology.?P?Pentium?- Intel’s successor to the 486 processor. Initially called a P5 and later referred to as a Pentium because it was the fifth in the 80X86 sequence of microprocessors. It would have been called an 80586 had it not become illegal in the United States to register a number as a trademark. See also central processing unit.?Peripheral?- hardware device which can be plugged into the computer to perform some additional function such as a disk drive, a printer, an overlay keyboard or VDU.?Pixel?- smallest point in a screen image. See also resolution.?Plotter?- output device which draws on paper or film with pens, usually to produce graphics.?Plug-ins?- optional additional features which can be added to a software package.?PoP (point of presence)?- location and telephone number provided by an internet service provider (ISP) for local dial-up access to the internet by users. The more PoPs in the country, the more likely you are to pay local call rates. (Do not confuse with POP, which stands for Post Office Protocol.)?POP (Post Office Protocol)?POP2 and POP3 are e-mail standards.?Port?- interface between the central processing unit and any peripheral devices.?Portable document format (PDF)?- used to store and transmit text and images with a set appearance, sometimes in order that documents appear exactly as in print with the same line endings and pagination. PDF files can be created and read using software such as Adobe Acrobat.?Predictive typing utility?- software which anticipate the completion of words as text is entered into the computer (also fuzzy matching). Useful for those who have difficulty with typing or spelling. Sometimes called predictive word processor.?Program?- in this American spelling, standard term for the set of instructions carried out in sequence by a computer to perform a given task. Programs are written in English-like programming languages and are then translated into binary code by an intermediary program called a compiler. Large software systems are normally sets of several programs.?Programming language?-artificial language constructed to enable the user to communicate with a computer and to create programs for it to run. Examples of programming languages used in school are Logo and BASIC.?Protocol?-rules or procedures usually set out in an agreed international standard (e.g., file transfer protocol) governing how communications are handled by a network of computers.?Public domain software?- freely available and distributable software, also known as freeware. It is free of copyright and should not be confused with shareware.?R?Real-time video?-display of moving pictures on a computer screen as they happen. For example, a television broadcast can also be broadcast on the internet. The pictures will be displayed as they arrive at the computer, instead of all being stored in a file first. Two-way real-time video is used in video conferencing. The recipient can see and hear the sender as they speak and can reply in the same way at the same time.?Resolution?-clarity and sharpness of pictures and text as they appear on the screen or on paper, often measured in dots per inch (dpi). The greater the dpi, the better the resolution. Screen resolution is measured by the number of pixels in a row and the number of rows and columns, together with the size of the pixel on the screen. The larger the screen, the higher the resolution should be.?Retrieval?- ‘calling back’ stored data into the computer’s working memory. Also used for rescuing data which has been erased or corrupted.?Router?- communications device that chooses the route by which information should travel through a network.?S?Scanner?- device by which hard-copy pictures and text can be converted into digital form for use on a computer. Small hand-held devices work by rolling the scanner head across the paper. Larger flatbed scanners work rather like a portable photocopying machine. With a speech synthesizer, it is possible to scan text into the computer and hear it read aloud. Can also be used to read bar codes and convert them into numeric data.?Scroll?- to move up and down or from side to side through a document or window to view or access its contents.?SCSI?- acronym for ‘small computer systems interface’, an internationally defined standard interface for connecting peripheral devices to a computer.?Search engine?- software, often found on web sites, which searches for information on the world wide web or text-based databases.?Server?- computer system that provides a particular service to devices on a network. In the context of the client–server model, a server is the software on a remote computer servicing a client with the resources the client requests. In a local network, a file server holds system software on its hard disk, and is usually the most powerful machine in the system. A network may have a number of file servers storing data of a particular type. Network users can access their own files remotely and interchange information with these central stores.?Shareware?- Software that is freely available but developers will ask for fees and depend on the user’s honesty for payment. Not to be confused with public domain software or freeware.?Small software?- relatively small programs or specially prepared collections of files in an application written for a particular purpose, to cover a focused part of the curriculum. Examples would be spreadsheet files available from the internet, exploration of aspects of probability and statistics, etc.?Softbraille?- Braille output provided by a computer attachment which uses small pins to produce Braille characters.?Software?- generic term for all computer programs. Software falls into two major types: applications such as spreadsheets or databases, and systems software such as MS-DOS or Windows. In addition, there are utilities or tools. Contrasted with hardware. See also compatibility, upgrade.?Spellchecker?- electronic dictionary, usually part of a word-processing application, which scans text on the screen and highlights any word it does not recognize. The writer is given the option to correct, ignore or add the word to the dictionary. The spellchecker can be set to offer alternative spellings to the writer. See also grammar checker.?Surf?- popular term for exploring the world wide web.?T?Tag?- formatting code used in hypertext mark-up language (HTML).?TCP/IP?- acronym for ‘transmission control protocol/internet protocol’, the standard set of rules ensuring the proper transfer of information on the internet.?TIFF?- acronym for ‘tagged image file format’, a graphic format developed by Aldus and Microsoft.?Tele-conferencing?- using telephone and computer links to connect people in a meeting who are in different locations. Also known as audio-conferencing or video-conferencing if live (real-time) pictures are involved.?Telematics?- combining information and communications technologies and services.?Teletext?- ordered and structured system for displaying a limited number of information screens on a video or television monitor adapted to interpret such information which is sent with transmitted programmes as a narrow set of data at the top of the picture. The two best-known systems are those used by the BBC (Ceefax) and commercial companies (Teletext, previously Oracle). These systems allow the user to make limited choices about the order in which they view the screens.?Telewriting?- strictly speaking, transmission of handwriting in real time from one system to another. More generally, the term is used to describe a system which offers not just the transmission of handwriting but also other features such as the transmission of pre-stored graphics in a graphical shared-screen environment. Telewriting often appears as a component of other systems.?Terminal adapter?-interface equipment between a computer and an ISDN line (the equivalent of a modem).?Text manipulation program?- term embracing software which allows the manipulation, storage, retrieval and printing of words, graphics and images. Also used for programs for language learners where the tutor inputs the text and the computer creates activities including Cloze, gap-filling, re-ordering etc.?Touch screen?- display screen which enables the computer to react to the touch of a finger or stylus.?Track pad?- touch-sensitive pad used to control the cursor, often found on laptop computers.?Trackball?- device used to control the cursor. The user moves the ball which in turn moves the pointer on the screen. Selections are made by pressing the buttons on the device, and this is especially suited to users who find small hand movements difficult.?Turtle graphics?- diagrams drawn by a screen turtle controlled using Logo or a Logo-like program. It is also called ‘turtle geometry’ since it allows the user to explore shape, space and angle of turn.?U?Uninstall?- use of a program to remove unwanted software from a computer.?Upgrade?- new version of a piece of software which is made available to registered users of an earlier version at a lower price than is charged to new users. Usually identified by a later version number – e.g., 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, show updates on version 1.0, whereas 2.0 would signify a major upgrade.?Upload?- to transfer data from a small computer (such as a personal computer) to a larger or main one. The opposite of download. Also the transfer of data from a storage medium to a computer.?URL (Uniform Resource Locator)?- unique reference locating a file on the world wide web and other internet resources – the Learning Schools Programme URL, for instance, is: . See also domain name system.?USB?- universal serial bus connector. Standard for connecting peripherals such as scanners and printer to personal computers simply and quickly.?Usenet?- largest and oldest distributed bulletin board on the internet, with over 20 million users. Users join groups (‘newsgroups’) to discuss specific topics, from astronomy and medicine to astrology and cat breeding. The Usenet has its own code of conduct (acceptable use policy or AUP), vocabulary (e.g. ‘spamming’ for posting advertising and ‘flaming’ for angry or abusive messages), and acronyms for common expressions (e.g. FYI – for your information, IMHO – in my humble/honest opinion).?Utility: software, usually small, which is designed to perform a single routine task, either on whole files, such as copying, deleting and sorting files, or as an extra bolt-on which extends the capacity of an applications package. See also software.?V?Video disk: also known as ‘laser disk’, analog storage medium, a large disk like a long-playing record. Not to be confused with ‘digital video disk’ – see digital versatile disk.?Virtual reality (VR)?- simulation of an environment by presentation of three-dimensional and moving images and an appropriate soundtrack, giving the user the impression of being able to move around within the environment. Users can experience tactility etc. with the use of sensors, gloves and/or helmets.?Virus: mischievous or destructive software transferred covertly to files and applications, often via the internet or with other files on a disk. Some can disable a computer or network once activated and must, if possible, be removed using anti-virus software. There are, however, many hoax virus warnings and users should not pass on such warnings unless they are sure of their reliability.?W?Web page: file created in hypertext mark-up language and displayed on the world wide web.?Web site: area on a server linked to the internet which is devoted to one organization or individual’s web pages.?Wide area network: in contrast to a local area network, which links computers at the same site, a network which links computers over a large geographical area, including telecommunication links such as satellites.?Windows: originally the graphical user interface (GUI) between applications and the operating system developed by Microsoft for IBM-compatible personal computers, and from Windows 95 on, the operating system and interface combined.?Wild card: symbol used in command or search instructions to stand for a range of characters. Thus, a question mark is used to stand for ‘any single character’, while an asterisk is used to mean any character or group of characters or none.?Wizard: on-screen step-by-step guide that helps a user perform a particular task.?Word-processor: software originally devoted to the creation, editing, formatting, storage, revision and printing of text, but currently often including the capacity to include graphs, spreadsheets, and photographs, and to produce sophisticated page-layouts.?World wide web (WWW): also known as the WWW, W3 or simply the web, a distributed information service on the internet of linked hypertext documents accessed using a web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape. On the web, any document can be linked to any other document.?World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): international non-profit organization devoted to developing the potential of the world wide web. Activities include setting standards and common frameworks in this rapidly evolving field, including an accessibility initiative.?WORM (write once read many): computer storage medium, optical disks on which information can not be erased or amended once it has been recorded.?Write protect: to protect a disk or file so that its contents cannot normally be altered or erased, usually by moving a notch on the disk casing, or amending the files properties.?WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)?accurate representation on the screen of the appearance of the final output.?Z?Zip: to compress files to reduce the storage space they occupy.?Zip disk: high capacity disk, capable of storing 100Mb of information on sturdy pocket-size disks. ................
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