sped-se

= SPED Research Resources =

Simple English Wikipedia
Under the other languages on the left side of a Wikipedia entry, is Simple English. It is Wikipedia pages rewritten with simple english & grammar. Great for student struggling with english. Sentences are are shorter & basic vocabulary, which help with understanding complex terms or phrases. Be aware this does not mean short articles, just simple words are used.

Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is known as a computation & statistics search engine, but it is so much more. I prefer to call it a Knowledge Engine. Another way to think of it is a Google/encyclopedic knowledge for students, especially those with special needs. It's not an index of the web like Google or Bing or a replacement, it's an index of information. It is not a replacement of Google, but it is one of the smartest search engines available. It presents results in a clear easy to read format, & it can compare two different search results.

Instead of searching the web like Google or Bing, it does computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, & methods. Wolfram Alpha’s goal is to build on the achievements of science & math to provide a single source that can be relied on for definitive answers to factual queries.

To really understand how this application works, try typing in your birthday to see what you get. You may notice right away that you get information right away without having to search through webpages as you would on Google or Bing. Now try typing in “1 Apple, 1 Orange.” What did you get? It compared the nutritional information of an apple & orange. Feel free to search examples or choose explore a random search.

There is such a range of applications that it can be almost difficult to understand all of its uses in the classroom. **Wolfram Alpha for Educators** is a collection of free lesson plans, examples of, & ideas for using this site in the classroom. The lesson plans are arranged in three categories – mathematics, science, & social studies. All of the lesson plans are available as free PDFs.

//Last Updated - May 2014//