Post Script

I was at a training session for French Immersion Early Literacy Teachers. We were all given iPads to use with our students. I am very excited about this. I enjoyed sharing with the teachers in my group how I have already incorporated the iPad into my daily instruction. I was thrilled that our French Department asked us if we wanted this technology and then asked us to experiment with apps and settings and report back to the group. I am very excited to see how my collegues will use this technology. I am sure we will all enjoy learning together how to best support at-risk literacy learners.

April 6, 2013 Day 6

Today is the day we present our case studies. I felt that we learned a lot during our first course last summer with Barb. We did but I felt the case study gave us a chance to try out some assistive technology with real children. It was a very valuable experience. I am a classroom teacher. In this capacity I have not had much experience with children needing assistive technology. I now see the everyday uses of technology in my classroom. I have experimented with Dragon Dictation with my French Immersion children. It was a great experience. They loved seing the words thay spoke appear on the screen. it gave power to their words.

I also enjoyed watching the student we used in our case study learn how to use the apps we recommended and see the difference they could make in his school life. He may not have appreciated it at the time, but I feel the follow up he will receive from his parents will pay off in the long run.

Here is the presentation of the case study I did with Tiffany.

Case Study.pptx 

While watching my classmates present their case studies, I was struck by a common theme. As teachers in the same board, we do not all have the same access to technology. Many of us have very little access to technology. I think it is our jobs as classroom teachers to be advocats on behalf of our students. We all worked with people with challenges and found some sort of technology to help them.    We all chose Apple devices and used apps that would help the person we worked with. We all seem to have some access to these products and the apps are either free or inexpensive.  As classroom teachers we need to become problem solvers and find ways to support our students with challenges. What struck me was that solutions could be found for students that would let them attain grade level expectations but they are not always accessible. Children are then placed on IPP's who don't really need to on them because if some form assistive technology was provided the students could met grade level expectations. With the Apple products, children can have access to many supports through apps but there are also many supports offered through the Settings. This Universal Design for Learning allows the students to blend in with their peers. We also saw how some reluctant students became more engaged through the use of these products.  I feel the expenditure on technology is worth it if we can support students rather than sentencing students to IPP's for life. Many classroom teachers are not aware of what is available to their students to support them.  Maybe this should be a professional development area of focus for our board. If we know what is out there in terms of technology, we can make more informed decisions on how to best help our students.

I believe that we need to stop looking at assistive technology as something to be offered only to our struggling students, bt as something to integrate to all our students. Who knows what they will be able to accomplish. Their imaginations are the limit!

March 23, 2013 Day 5

Another online class! Barb was under the weather so back to the virtual classroom. The beginning of today's class was spent looking at low tech assistive technology. We were all asked to everyday objects that could have an assistive tech life as well. I found the following YouTube video about contact paper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDwrrTRWTFM

Barb also asked us to keep our eyes peeled while grocery shopping to find other items that could have a double life as low tech assistive tech. A teacher friend of mine needed a slanted surface for a student to use while writing. A binder wasn't working for this student so my friend fashioned a slanted writing surface using a pool noodle and a clip board.

The website below has some great ideas for low tech assistive technology.

http://ddas.vermont.gov/ddas-boards/boards-dds/boards-dds-vctf/making-communication-happen-worldwide-conf-2010/light-tech-communication-supports-favro

I really liked this idea for holding cards while playing a game. You just need clothes pins and pieces of cardboard. Good for people with fine motor issues.

 

 

I thought this was a great idea for cutting food. It is dental floss. Greatly reduces the chances of cutting yourself!

The second part of the class was spent creating a blog offering technology suggestions for blind or visually impaired people. I worked with Tiffany, Nancy and Tarah. Here is the link to the blog we created.

http://tarahnancymaureentiffany.blogspot.ca/

February 23, 2013 Day 4

We were introduced to Ruben R. Puentedura in today's class. He is the founder of a consulting company in New England that specializes in educatonal technologies to help tranform the classroom experience for students. He developed the SAMR Model for selecting, using and evaluating technology in education. His blog is available on the following website. He posts his presentations to different organizations and his work with the Maine Learning Technology Institute is outlined as well. The amount of information available on his site is overwhelming to say the least but it is a great site to wander in for information on integrating technology into the classroom. I really like the SAMR Model for educational technology integration.

• S - Substitution - The technology introduced acts as a direct substitute for something else. There is no change in function.
• A - Augmentation - The technology introduced acts as a direct substitute and improves function.
• M - Modification - The technology introduced allows for significant task redesign.
• R - Redefinition - The technology allows the completion of new tasks that were once thought beyond reach.

This makes me think back to our first class in assistive technology when Barb asked us to think about our goals for a student. Was is compensation or remediation? We need to be clear on our goals when introducing technology. This doesn't mean that our goals can't change as our students learn and grow, we just need to know what we want our students to be able to accomplish.

The website can be found at www.hippasus.com  I recommend taking some time and having a look!

We also discusses PECS today in class. That stands for picture exchange communication system. It is an alternative and augmentative communication system that allows for non-verbal communication for people with communicative, cognative and/or physical disabilities. When I looked PECS up in Wikipedia it spoke about the 6 phases of PECS Protocol. These range from using a single picture to initiate communication to the user answering questions and interacting with their environment.  Many augmentative and alternative communication systems are labour-intensive to create and cumbersome for students to use. Today in class groups presented the communication boards they created for a casestudy they created using Proloquo2go.  The program is easy to use. The most complicated part of using this app is considering the needs of the user. Their age, previous experience using other communication devices, physical and cognative challenges, ability to follow multistep instructions. I enjoyed the presentations by the other groups, they included thingd in their presentations that I hadn't thought of. A great learning experience!

The difference between a communication device such as BoardMaker and Proloquo2Go I think is portability. BoardMaker is a system of pictures that can be put together to make sentences, ask questions, answer questions etc. I feel the problem with this system is that as the user's communication skills improve, the boards become more complex, and therefore less portable. It is no longer efficient for the user. BoardMaker is also very labour intensive to create. The creation of the boards, cutting, laminating and sorting the pictures and creating the boards is very time consuming. Once our user's needs and capabilities were established, the boards were quick to create. The devices that the users would use to run the Proloquo2Go app are portable and the devices are the same as what all the other children are using. This device does not separate them from their peers, it will help them to blend in more.
Below are some examples of manual communication boards. It is easy to see where frustration could be a problem with these systems. An iPad or iPod Touch with an app would be so much more user friendly!

VS

For me there is no contest!





Today we revisited Pic Collage. We used this app during our first course with Barb. It was a fun app that both my own two children and my school children enjoy using. When parents come to me to tell me thay are pulling their children from school for a week or two and ask me to put together a work package I recommend Pic Collage. They can capture memories from their vacation and write about them either whie they are away or use them as writing prompts during writers' workshop when they return.

Our assignment today was to come up with 5 uses for Pic Collage in our classrooms. I teach a combined 1/2 French Immersion class. It is not always easy to find resourses in French for areas of our curriculum such as health, science and Social Studies. I worked with Tiffany and we came up with the following ideas.

This is a health activity for Grade One. The students need to be able to identify foods that make a healthy snack and foods that are a not so healthy snack. This Pic Collage allows the student to drag the food items to the column where they think they belong.

 The students can once again drag the pictures to the correct location for this Grade Two Science outcome. It can then become a talking or writing prompt.

A Pic Collage is certainly a fun way to make three digit numbers for a Grade Two math outcome. This activity can be used as a centre. The students can roll three dice or choose three nimber cards to make a three digit number. They can then use the Pic Collage to model the number they made with the dice or cards. It can also be used to order numbers if the students use a combination of three digits to create the largest or smallest possible numbers.

We also created a matching game to help young students with vocabulary aquisition in a second language. This would be a great centre activity.

Pic Collage can also be used to create webs. The templates available with this app are numerous and can fulfill many objectives. This is a web we use with Grade One students to help them with writing personal narritives. It is a great writing prompt!

Another app that Barb wanted us to look at is Book Creator. We spent so much class time creating Pic Collages that we ran out of classtime. So I went looking to see what Book Creator had to offer a Grade One/Two teacher. Each year in September/October I create a class book about me students. It serves many purposes. The children interview the student choosen for that day. The pose questions in French and the interview subject must respond in French. I record the responses to the questions so the children see the written output to this mostly oral activity. We could use Book Creator to complie our interviews. We could include a picture of the child, a vidoe clip of the interview and type a biography of the student based on the responses they gave to the interview questions. The students could them share this book with their families at home as most of my students have access to an Apple product at home. This app could be used for creating class books after a field trip or guest speaker, creating math story problems, rewriting popular stories and including themselves in the story or rewriting the ending, writing instructions such as a recipe or a how to book. Another use I love as a French Immersion teacher is that you can create books to help teach vocabulary. Each bookm can be created around a theme such as food or clothing. I love how you can use or own pictures and embed your own videos. A great motivating feature!  

I have added a YouTube tutorial for Book Creator.

February 9, 2013 Day 3

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January 26, 2013 Day 2

The day began with another discussion about communication. When trying to set up a device for a non-verbal child it is important to have all the people in the child's life there. This reminded me of Glynis and Lynne, our two profs from the Introduction to Inclusive Education.  We are educating the whole child. Parents should be included in the planning, they usually know their children better than we do.  I also reflected on Barb's advice on where to start when planning to provide a student with asstsive technology.  She said to begin with the child and not the device.  If a student is going to use the device, they have to like it and want to use it. This always brings me back to Universal Design for Learning.  If their device looks like all the others they will be more likely to use it.  No child wants to be different from their peers.  We also need to be thinking in terms of what device will yield the best results for a student, not what device we prefer. 

One option we explored for helping a non-verbal child with communication was Proloquo2Go.  It is an Apple app that can be used with an iPhone, iPad, iPad mini and an iPod touch.  Very common devices used by children. 

 

 

We began an assignment using Proloquo2Go.  We were given a description of a student and asked to design boards that could be used at school, at home and in his community.  I thought it would be very easy to design the boards.  Put a bunch of button s on the board, the more the better in case the user finds themselves in a new situation, then the button they need will be there.  There is so much preparation that goes into creating a board that is right for the user. The user shouldn't have to fit the device, the device needs to fit the user.  When creating the board for our user, we had to consider his capabilities and limitations. Any buttons we wanted to include either had symbols within the program or we could search the internet or even personalize more by using pictures we took. I enjoyed creating the communication boards.  It really made me stop and think what a non-verbal person student would need to make him or herself understood.

The two following videos show Proloquo2Go in action.  The first one is how it will assist non-verbal children. The second is a clip of a child actually using the app.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using Proloquo2Go with an Apple product such as an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch has, in my opinion, a few key advantages. The first is financial. I checked our iPad mini and Proloquo2Go is available for this device. An iPad mini can be purchased for $329.00, and the app is under $200.00.  That is significantly cheaper than other text to speech devices.  As already mentioned, children will be happier using a device that is the same as their peer group rather than a device that will make them stand out from the crowd.   

 

January 12, 2013 Day One

I always enjoy face to face classes as opposed to online classes.  They allow for conversations and side bars that I find both interesting and frustrating.  Today's revelation was a cause of frustration.  During the conversation around the table was a source of frustration.  I think the four protocols for the DOE purchasing of technology needs revision.  As a classroom teacher who is willing to embrace the use of technology in my classroom, I find the lack of availability frustrating.  Budget constraints have the technology roll outs coming slowly particularly for the lower elementary grades. The latest roll out of the netbook trolley is a great example. For starters, the trolley is located on the first floor, most of the P-2 classes are on the second floor.  We have to find a space that has a plug in for the router before we can even begin to think about using it! We are limited in the programs we can use, deep freeze doesn't allow us as teachers to bookmark websites for student use and the management of storing documents for the students. They always manage to lose those memory sticks! That is important in the lower elementary grade in order to maximize student usage.  It is a huge waste of our technology time trying to get younger students logged on to the computers and then have them find a website and then in French Immersion have then find the button to change the website to change to French. If I am able to book mark sites for my students it allows them the time use the website rather than wasting time waiting for me to help them. There are much better bangs for our technology bucks if the DOE would look at and revise their technology purchasing practices. I liked the presentation featuring the mobile devices with universal design for all users.  Maybe it is time for current thinking to be disrupted!

We also discussed Universal Design for Learning. For me this all ties into how children don't want to be different from their peers.  Products like iPods, iPads and iPad minis allow students with special needs access to adapted technologies without attracting unwanted attention. As a recent convert to Apple technology, I know I am only just realizing the potential of these products in my classroom.  I have been using them in the more intimate setting of the Early Literacy classroom where I am working with children in small groups.

The i Movie app has great classroom potential.  It is an app that all the students will love to use and make assignments more accessible to students with special needs.  I can see how this could be used for students to demonstrate what they learned at the end of an unit of study.  It can also be used by teachers and students as a hook to get students interested in a new topic. My own children have enjoyed making trailers with their friends. It certainly captures their imaginations!

Here is the i Movie my partner and I made:

During the afternoon class our discussion turned to communication.  We watched a CNN video about a young woman named Susie Rubin. In the video, Susie said that she was thought to be mentally handicapped because she could not communicate and was self-abusive. Her parents thaought her mental age was two and a half years. Her IQ was tested and she scored 29. At the age of thirteen, Susuie began to communicate through the use of a computer and her life changed significantly. She said her mind awakened when she began typing.  After she began communicating her IQ was tested again and this time she scored 133.  A significant difference.  This makes me wonder if the standard IQ test for a non-verbal person is really a fair assessment of their capabilities.  How many other non-verbal people are there out there whose potential is not being met because of a misdiagnosis by inadequate testing methods. The diagnosis of autism for Susie opened door to support which have allowed her to go onto post secondary level education and living a life independent of her parents.  This would not happened for a person with a diagnosis of a mental handicap and an IQ of 29.  One comment she made really made me stop and think as a teacher.  Susie said that it took every once of energy she had to sit quietly in class.  How many children in our classrooms feel that way?  Children with focussing issues such as ADD will certainly feel this way. If they are using all their energy to keep quiet and sit still in class, how much are they really learning?

Barb urged us to research the term Presumed Competence as a follow up to the video about Susie Rubin.  I had no idea what the term meant and found the following article that I felt explained it very well.  It gave me something to think about.

http://www.disabilityisnatural.com/component/content/article/83-free-articles/314-presume-competence-challenging-conventional-wisdom-about-people-with-disabilities-free

Our discussion on communication centered on three criteria for effective communication. They are:
1. Common Language
2. A communication partner
3. Joint attention

We looked at the app Prloquo2Go for non-verbal communicators.  The universal design for learning on iPod Touch, iPad and iPad mini allows for greater access.  The device used for the ap looks like a device that any other child would carry.  It is not a clumsy board with symbols velcroed on. It can be tailored for each individual user.  The programmer needs to think of the skill sets and needs of the user.  We had the opportunity to use the app and the preloaded boards.  Our assignment next week will be to create a board for a specific student case study.