Webinars

Keep up with the latest ed trends with a webinar, and bring your team!

Our webinars address timely and relevant topics like new education standards, high-stakes testing, closing the achievement gap, and how to choose the right accommodations for your students.

Live Webinars

Our live webinars are always free to attend—you just need to register!

More (new!) webinars are coming your way in 2019!

On-Demand Webinars

Our on-demand webinars are always free to view—you just need to sign up!

Quick Accessible Quizzes Through Google Forms and Quizbot™

For better or worse, quizzes are an educational staple. They help us understand what students understand so we can adjust instruction and help students grow.

But if a quiz is inaccessible to a student, it doesn’t serve its purpose. The results may be confounded by the inaccessibility rather than being built so that the student could “show what they know.”

Through Google Forms, we can make accessible quizzes. They have so much potential for teachers, but overall, teachers aren’t using them

Quizbot™ makes it easier for teachers to get started, because it does the heavy lifting—it creates an accessible quiz automatically and loads it into Google Forms (complete with answers).

Join us for a live Quizbot™ webinar and

  1. Learn how to build a quiz
  2. Differentiate quizzes for students
  3. Customize questions in Google Forms
  4. Add videos and images to quizzes


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Readtopia Math Preview

Teachers love Readtopia’s Thematic Units and how they form the foundation of learning across ELA, social studies, and science. Now we’re working to add Math to each thematic unit.

Readtopia Math® uses experiential learning to help explore the math inside age-respectful literature. They are meaningful and relevant—connecting students to the stories and topics they love.

Join us for a short (15 minute) webinar with Readtopia Specialist Allison Dennis to see what’s included in the New Readtopia Math!

  1. Thematic Units within Readtopia provide familiar context to math lessons
  2. Math Domains cover standardized test skills (Expressions and Equations, Geometry, Money, Multiplication, Division, Number Sense, Statistics and Probability, Time)
  3. Instructional Strategies include Videos, Hands-on Applications, and Independent Practice
  4. Activities for Whole Groups, Small Groups, and Individuals
  5. Math at Six Levels of instruction
  6. Unit Assessments with written text and visual support


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The Secret to Finding the Right Reading Accommodations

Does your district really have a handle on deciding which students can benefit from a reading accommodation? Is your process data-driven?

Attend a live webinar about uPAR—a protocol that shows educators what kind of reading accommodations each student needs (read aloud or independent reading without an accommodation) to give the best access to the curriculum possible.

  • See how uPAR assesses multiple students at once.
    Watch student reactions to seeing their own data.
    Learn how to explain uPAR to your team so they can make the right decisions on reading accommodations


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How Access to Complex Text Improved Elementary Reading Scores

We have long known that the most important factor in student learning is excellent instruction, but this goal is made more complex by the varying needs of students. The principles of Universal Design for Learning have pushed us to see accommodations such as text-to-speech (TTS), which we formerly considered appropriate for only a small subset of students, as useful for a broader range of students with reading challenges. Tools such as the Protocol for Accommodations in Reading (PAR) and uPAR can help us identify which students will benefit from TTS. In this session, we’ll share:

  1. how we used uPAR to screen kids for reading accommodations.
  2. how using Snap&Read made it possible to give students access to complex text—regardless of independent reading level.
  3. how we used Bookshare to provide qualified students with access to rich reading material.
  4. data showing gains in students’ unaided reading scores after only one semester.

And we’ll offer some tips to help teachers incorporate these strategies in their classrooms.


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Using Author’s Chair as a Platform of Communication in Special Education Classrooms

The human need for communication is essential and universal. Everyone from emergent communicators to world-famous authors share the same desire to be heard. In special education and autism classrooms, communication through First Author Writing Curriculum culminates through the Author’s Chair—the place of honor where every student gets to share, listen and respond to peer writing. They present what they wrote through any means available to them whether an AAC device, verbally, or through a partner.

 


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How Top Special Educators Teach Writing to Improve Communication

Communication skills are a crucial element of student development, and students with complex needs are no exception. Yet, many students with complex needs have difficulty communicating. I will share ways educators are using writing as a tool for expression and communication. These classrooms show us that implementing comprehensive writing instruction has wide-ranging effects that we’re only beginning to understand.


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3 Strategies to Promote Equity in Culturally-Diverse Classrooms

You teach students from diverse cultures. Each one comes to your classroom with unique background knowledge including native language and traditions. American instructional methods and materials may be foreign to your students. How will you help all your students feel connected to the materials you teach? Beth Poss (assistant principal and SLP) will share strategies to help you better accommodate your culturally-diverse students and help them access classroom materials through UDL, Accessible Education Materials (AEM), and technology.

 

Join Beth for an important conversation around teaching culturally-diverse students. Beth will define and give clear examples of:

  1. Accessible Educational Materials—Support accessibility, independence and progress
  2. Universal Design for Learning (UDL)—Address learner variability in ALL students
  3. Culturally Responsive Teaching—Effectively describe, respond to, and plan for issues that arise in diverse environments


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NEW Co:Writer Test Mode for Assessments

Lock icon over list of state assessment names
Co:Writer automatically adjusts features to comply with testing requirements.

With testing just around the corner, you won’t want to miss this live conversation about testing accommodations. See the recent updates to Co:Writer that helps you better comply with your state’s requirements around testing accommodations, including:

  1. Setup/Management — Select your assessment from the drop-down menu in a centralized location and Co:Writer automatically adjusts over 35 features to comply with testing accommodation requirements for any number of selected users.
  2. Settings — A drop-down menu provides automatic settings adjustment to comply with state assessments (see list below).
  3. Installation — Co:Writer Test Mode is built into the same tool your students use throughout the year. No additional installation is required.
  4. Test Security — Co:Writer, in Test Mode, does not send any text outside of the secure writing environment—eliminating the risk of compromising security.
  5. Proof of Accommodation Use — Co:Writer data shows when the tool was issued to each student and usage data to prove it was used for the required time period leading up to the assessment.

Let’s find out what students CAN do!


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What Really Matters in Your Special Education Reading/ELA Program

How should you use your time to elevate learning in the classroom while creating alternate assessment outcomes?

Get answers at this free webinar with Dr. Karen Erickson (researcher, special educator and alternate assessment leader), Don Johnston, and educators. They’ll share what really makes a difference in your special education Reading/ELA Program—and how Readtopia delivers the key components of a comprehensive reading curriculum that works for students with complex needs

You’ll also hear from districts using Readtopia with their students. They’ll share how Readtopia:
– brought lessons to life through age-respectful ELA, social studies, and science content for middle and high school students.
– elevated their Reading/ELA block.
– created opportunities for communication and interaction with peers.

 

Now’s the time to choose your reading curriculum for next year. This webinar will help you make the right decisions that will bring benefits to your students and educators for years to come.


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