Where are the Makerspaces?

The readings this week made me want to research local makerspace options in the area where I live in South Carolina. Here in Simpsonville, I was familiar with several DIY craft/paint/woodcraft stores that operate as for-profit businesses. I had not heard of any makerspaces locally, but I knew my daughter would love to visit one. I located the following resources in upstate South Carolina:

ReCraft Creative Reuse Center Recraft is a non-profit store and makerspace in Greenville, SC that specializes in collecting and reselling useable craft supplies and equipment as well as providing space for creative exploration. This location is open to the public and family-friendly. 

Synergy Mill is a DIY non-profit makerspace in Greenville, SC. The space includes materials and equipment for woodworking, metal work, paints & finishes.  The membership is a monthly fee, however, there is a one-day pass available.  

Greenville Woodworkers Guild is a non-profit membership woodworking makerspace. The organization of the guild workshop seems more formal.  

Have you located any makerspaces near where you live?  

Cyberbullying and Digital Citizenship

 

As I made my way through this week's videos and readings on Cyberbullying, I felt like I was a ping pong ball being bounced between two extremes…hopelessness and hopefulness. I felt emotional watching the PSA-type videos and reading about the prevalence of cyberbullying in Faucher et al. (2015). I cannot help but relate on a personal level to the target audience of many of the videos as a parent of a 13-year-old.

On a professional level, as someone who works in an elementary school library, I noted the majority of resources provided were geared toward adolescents and older age groups. Therefore, I felt inspired to look for materials I could use with younger students. I believe that education about digital citizenship needs to begin when children are first allowed access to technology, and realistically, we could begin teaching it in preschool. In the school system where I work, Kindergarteners are issued Chromebooks during the first month of school, and for the majority of children, it seems this is not their first experience online.   

I have chosen to include resources about Digital Citizenship in my Digital Curation assignment. Here I will share some of the resources I have found thus far:   

Common Sense Media  - Digital Passport
https://www.digitalpassport.org/
Google - Be Internet Awesome 
https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/interland
Nerdy Book Club - Using Picturebooks to teach Digital Literacy
https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/top-ten-picture-books-to-use-to-teach-digital-literacy-by-erin-marone/

Resources

Faucher, C., Cassidy, W. & Jackson, M. (2015). From the sandbox to the inbox: Comparing the acts, impacts, and solutions of bullying in K-12, higher education, and the workplace. Journal of Education and Training Studies. 3(6), 111-125.

Text to Speech Screen Readers

Text to Speech Readers have been a helpful tool for me throughout graduate school. However, I wish they had been available during and before undergrad. In third grade, I was diagnosed with Dyslexia and ADD - inattentive type. (Now, it is called ADHD, but in the 1980s, there was a different distinction between ADD and ADHD.) I currently have two different Text to Screen Readers loaded on my Chromebook and the iPhone app for one of them on my phone. In this blog, I will discuss my experience with these Text to Speech Screen Readers, including what I consider to be their strengths and weaknesses. 

Read & Write 

Read & Write is a Chromebook extension. I first learned of this extension when I started working as a Media Clerk in a school library in 2019 when I noticed that it was loaded on student Chromebooks. I found the extension via a Google search for "Read & Write extension". Here is the direct link to the Read & Write Chromebook extension. I added the free basic version to my Chromebook and pinned it to my browser toolbar. I primarily use Read & Write to read my writing aloud. Hearing my writing read aloud by a different voice helps me find errors and omissions. 

Additional features of Read & Write: 

• Settings allow for adjustments in voice, language, and reading speed 
• Allows the user to record their voice reading aloud and play it back 

Pros: 

• Basic features are free Read aloud works on documents and websites 
• Teachers can apply for a free Premium Account  

Cons: 

• Voices are less natural-sounding 
• Read aloud does not work for PDFs 
• A large toolbar appears when the extension is in use 
• Hover Speech setting is sensitive to mouse movements   

Natural Reader 

I uploaded the Text to Speech Reader extension for Natural Reader after uploading another free Chromebook extension, Read Aloud, first. I was looking for a screen reader that would read PDF files. I had been experiencing a lot of eye strain and fatigue symptoms reading the many web-based and PDF research articles that are required reading for graduate studies. 

I did not enjoy using Read Aloud. It was a free extension and easily accessed PDFs uploaded on my Chromebook. However, I found the robotic voices grating. Also, I was not fond of the large pop-up box that appeared when the extension was activated. Additionally, I was hoping to find an iPhone app that would allow me to listen to articles on my daily walks or during long car rides. So I searched for the "Best Screen Reader Apps" and found Natural Reader. 

Bingo! Natural Reader was just what I was looking for: a Chromebook extension and iPhone app with human-sounding voices. 

Pros: 

• Chromebook extension and iPhone app access allow with one account 
• Numerous read-aloud voice options  
• Works for documents, webpages, and PDFs 
• Smaller pop-up control panel (compared to Read & Write and Read Aloud)  

Cons: 

• Free demo ends with a paywall after limited use (20min/day for Premium Voices) 

For me, paying for the upgrade from free to a premium subscription was easy. Natural Reader ticked all the boxes. 

There are many Text to Speech Screen Reader options for students of all ages, teachers, and other working professionals. I would advise trying several options and seeing which features work best for you and/or your students. 

Additional Resources 

10 Helpful Text to Speech Readers for Back to School (Univ. of Michigan - DyslexiaHelp)
Best Assistive Technology for Reading in the Classroom (Common Sense Media)

Classroom Audio Distribution Systems (CADS)

Source: Creative Commons. https://freesvg.org/1547932402

In 2007, I taught 4th grade in a public school in Charlotte, NC. All fourth-grade teachers were sent an email invitation to apply for the Instructional Technology Interactive Whiteboard Grant Award. Applications required teachers to partner with someone from their school. I partnered with the computer & technology lab teacher. In January, we were accepted into the grant program along with other 4th grade teachers in the district. We received a SMARTBoard brand Interactive Whiteboard package completing a 15-hour training course. At that time, interactive whiteboards were not as prominent, and the boards installed through this grant program were some of the first in district elementary schools. Although interactive whiteboards are well documented as effective teaching and learning tools, I will not focus on that technology in this blog post. Instead, I would like to turn the reader's attention to a smaller "accessory" item installed in my classroom and the technology lab as part of this grant program: 

Front Row: Speaker Voice Amplification System

Source: (n.d.). Front Row. photograph. Retrieved July 7, 2022, from https://www.gofrontrow.com/products/juno-systems/

Front Row has updated and expanded its systems since 2007, but the components of a basic Classroom Audio Distribution System (CADS) are similar. CADS generally consists of a wearable pendant and/or handheld microphone, an amplifier, and a speaker(s) system.

 

Source: (n.d.). Front Row. photograph. Retrieved July 7, 2022, from https://www.gofrontrow.com/products/juno-systems/

Other CADS systems are Audio Enhancement, Lightspeed, and Teach Logic. 

In hindsight, I wish I had access to the Front Row system during the previous school year when I had a student who was hard of hearing in my class. This student used an FM amplification device attached to his hearing aid. I remember the FM device being a frequent topic of discussion between us: 

Where is it? Don't play with it! Please leave it at school. 

The device was not necessarily kid-friendly as it was tiny, fragile, and easily forgotten, hiding behind the ear of a young student.  

 I can't help but wonder. Would the combination of a CADS and the FM device have made the classroom environment more accessible for all my students? There is research to support this theory.

From personal experience, I enjoyed having the Front Row system in my classroom. My anecdotal and personal review is positive. The only negative I recall was the inefficiency of passing and placing the pendant between students. I certainly would have used a handheld device more frequently. Using the Front Row CADS system:

• I experienced less voice strain as a teacher.  

• Students with softer voices could be heard when wearing the pendant. 

• Students enjoyed wearing the microphone pendant for class presentations. 

 

Additional Resources: 

This video by St. John's Medical Center explains how individual FM devices work for a student and, most notably, how classroom conversation sounds without the system.

 

This PDF created by Oticon (producer of pediatric hearing aids) provides information on integrating classroom audio distribution systems and individual FM systems.  

These PDFs from the Educational Audiology Association on the importance of good classroom acoustics and using CADS to improve speech-to-noise ratios in classrooms. 

 

If you haven't already, may I suggest reading the book El Deafo by Cece Bell? It is a graphic novel autobiographical memoir and was awarded the Newberry honor in 2015. 

Source: www.amazon.com