Assignment presentations

Assignment

         Today we worked on getting the presentation presentable.  The hardest part is always ensuring that the children have step by step instructions.  This project made good use of our Task Analyzing Skills.

 

          We examined the Neurological Framework and we checked to see if we had made the right decision about why we chose to use Book Creator.  We liked that the focus was on the content of the resume, and not on the writing.  The point of doing a resume is to demonstrate to an employer that you have the skills and abilities necessary to do the job well, and Book Creator seems to have the ability to do that.
         We filled the class with typing and discussing what to keep in the presentation.  It felt something like a PLC.  So, I guess it is a light day, for Blog reading.  Lucky you!!! So, you can do this...

 

July 17, 2015

Starr, Meagan and Starr presented Leopold for us. His long term memory and his receptive language is strong. He has a lot of trouble with mobility, details, social cognition.  They did not really know about higher order cognition, because he is nonverbal.
       They made taking Leopold to the farm and getting photos as an engagement piece for him. They had a very clear break down of the activity. They used an EA with the student to help ensure that they were able to track his progress, and monitor his behaviour.

Vivian is a high functioning student who has trouble with organization, self-regulation,
Tools4 Students has graphic organizers that are great for helping her to organize her thoughts.  They used breaks to help her keep from getting frustrated.  I think that they did a great job of matching the apps to Vivian.  They thought of all of the different apps and

             Heather, Cailyn and Corbin- Also had Jessica.  They chose Book Creator as the App to help, just as we did. Her problem with working memory, may mean that she needs something that does not require thinking of content and then co-ordiinating that with the process of writing the material. I like that they said that it is hard to know what she can do in terms of higher order thinking, without having met her.  They also said that once this set up is done, it can be used later for other students. I think that we looked at Jessica as having more difficulty than they did.  I think that working with her daily, would give us the information necessary to know which method would work better.


Tena, Sonya, Tracey, & Maggie- They had Jake.  Jake is a higher functioning student with Autism.  Jake helps out people who are picked on. He is distracted easily. He can be exhausted and overwhelmed when he has been working on a task for a long time.
           Pages is the best App for Jake because his cognitive ability requires him to have more independence. He is also familiar with the app anyway. The yellow highlighter had all of the instructions, and then he can put each part into his own words.

Jenn, Jeanette, & Jasmine- They had Jude who is an emergent reader, but his receptive language is excellent.  He needs single step instructions. His expressive language is a challenge. The Neuro-developmental framework showed that Clicker Sentences was appropriate for his age and cognitive ability. They would use both Book Creator and Clicker sentence.  Book Creator would  be good to help him with his challenges with following directions.they used Book Creator to give step by step instructions.  They used the marker to show where to touch the screen, etc. They mentioned the need to train EAs, teachers, and students on each of these tasks. I think this is a great idea.

Francine, Sara and Lee- They had Leopold, They noticed he responds well to verbal instructions.  They thought Leopold would benefit most fro a portfolio because there are fewer words, it allows visuals.  They used two i-pads to create a social story of Leopold.  They started b;y showing a step by step instruction on how to do Book Creator until they learned that he didn't need that much instruction on the use of the app.  He needed the structure of Clicker sentences in order to do the work.  They used the "guided" sentence set option to help give him the structure he needs. The punctuation is provided, so that keeps Leopold from getting too bogged down on procedure which causes frustration.

No class on Monday.

This afternoon Maggy and I went to the Dollar Store to look for Low Tech. Assistive Technology.  When I got home.  Here is what my children were working on...

        They came up with something very creative.  I got lots of pictures, but I wasn't doing overly well with the ideas.  Maybe I was overthinking it.

Book Creator, Clicker Sentences, Tools4Students and Pages

 Clicker Sentences 

Clicker Sentences- gives a great range of learning levels.  I love how this App allows you to scaffold! 


 








         





       You can create sentences  and put them in sentence order, guided order (in which it highlights the next word for them), Randomly or in Alphabetical order. You can have the words spoken as the student touches each word, or you can turn off, "speak each word." When the sentence is complete it reads the full sentence.  This helps students to realize the connection between words and sentences. You can even create pop-ups that allows the student to view what the sentence should look like before attempting to sequence the words. 
      For reluctant writers, it may reduce a lot of anxiety that they can use words that are in front of them and no longer have to worry about spelling the words. It may help with spelling, because it requires recognition of the words in the sentence set in order to create the sentences.
        This App is a literacy building program.  If you are assessing content, then Book Creator or Video Scribe may allow for students to concentrate more on the meaning of the content.

   Tools 4 Students

           Tools 4 Students has a lot of great graphic organizers for higher order thinking.  Upper elementary or enriched students may benefit from this structure, because it allows them to handle more difficult tasks with independence.  It features, Cause/Effect, Character analysis (identifies how a character acts, looks, and feels), and another four windows (identifying what the character sees, hears, tastes and feels), Pro/Con, Drawing conclusions (by merging from three different sources), and many more.  This would be a valuable tool for many Resource Teachers. 


 

 

Pages is another app that we explored today.  This is a Word Processor.  It can do what other word processors can do, so I have been using it a lot lately.  I just need to learn how to export it to email, since my laptop does not have Microsoft Word on it right now.

 Book Creator is a quick, easy and engaging way to create personalized books on any topic.  You can add pictures from your photo albums or import photos or videos to the book.  You can easily insert text, or you can easily use the sketch pencil to draw any diagrams or make arrows or words to label diagrams.  It can even be uploaded onto iBooks for publishing.

 Helpful Tip to remember: Volume Purchase Program allows teachers to pay half for Apps, when they purchase in bulk.

Literacy and Low Incidence Disabilities

We were talking about transitioning students to university and adulthood, in class today.

What are the best strategies to effectively help them communicate their qualifications?

How do literacy skills impact the effectiveness of our communication?

Students who have low incidence disabilities feel alone and helpless. 

 How can we help those students transition? They often have trouble with transference of the skills. How do we teach resume writing to these students? 

      We were challenged to imagine a trip to the grocery store with a student with low incidence disabilities. What challenges are presented.  Firstly, a grocery list requires literacy skills, short term memory skills, long term memory skills and comprehension. Being able to understand the specials being offered over the intercom, and on the price tags, requires comprehension. Being able to communicate with the cashier requires conversation skills.  These basic daily tasks can be intimidating for many of our students.  We need to practice these skills in the most authentic way possible.
      Apps like Video Scribe can be a good App to help give an opportunity to both practice literacy skills, and incorporate images and videos to help make connections to the given lesson.
       The vastness of the brain processes involved in resume and portfolio creation is intense.  It is important to realize how difficult it is for these students.  We also have to impress upon these students why we write resumes.  Students must buy into the whole idea.
         By using a voice recording, and adding it to pictures of the students, it helps a young student to practice explaining what her skills and abilities are.
          I found filling out the neurological Framework to be an excellent assignment because it would be a good way to understand the student. It is good for understanding the vocabulary terms more clearly (terms such as, "higher-order cognition", "Social-cognition", "Verbal Pragmatics", and "Non-verbal pragmatics".  You have to understand the definitions in order to truly fill in the framework accurately. It also shows how important it is to actually work with the individual. 

"Trying to give meaningful responses without having met the student is like doing a puzzle without looking at the picture."--- Mark Hill

         Tomorrow we will take what we learned today and we will integrate the technology that is needed to offer solutions for these students.  I think that thinking of resume writing and life skills, is the most important thing we can do.  We get caught up with the assessment of academic skills and behaviour profiles, but we don't think put enough emphasis on essential life skills that will be used after students leave our care.  

Please share your ways of incorporating  life skill training in your practices.
      

Assignment #1 Proloquo2go

       I think, that I could get caught up creating elaborate boards, on Proloquo2go.   In this assignment, we were asked to create a communication board for a given subject. We chose Lisa who was a University student and a Mother, who had lost her ability to speak when she was young child.  We tried to keep most of her case true to her video, but we needed her to still be a minor.  So, Mike and Ken and I imagined Lisa to be a High School student. 
      Mike made an Ultimate activity for Lisa,

and Ken, made a cooking lesson for her. She will make a delicious stir fry.

      I created an activity where she had to find examples of good Marketing strategies being put to use in the grocery store.  For example, she would have to look through a grocery store near the school to see if the displays were visually pleasing and following the basic principles of advertizing that she had been learning about in class.

      We found that in some ways working with an older and very intelligent student made the board creation to be simpler, but yet in some ways it was not.  For example, it was easier because we weren't limited in the words we could use, yet on the other hand, designing a board with that much vocabulary requires more organization to keep it user-friendly.
      We decided to keep some of the pictures on the buttons in order to make it easier for her to find the buttons quickly.  That is the down side of having a lot of buttons to control--it is much harder for her to find them. I found the grid size was something that was hard to get used to.  It was a delicate balance.  If you put too many on one page, it makes the board busy, but if you don't then you have to toggle back and forth among folders. 
       It is easy to see how this program could be used for many students. I am wondering about whether schools would still want to pay for Proloquo2go for a student is diagnosed as Non-verbal, but who also has trouble with following directions, and is often without an EPA.  Is it still the case that Principals, or School Boards would take the chance to pay for an App that is guaranteed not to completely cure the problem?  Would it be better to spend money on an EPA that can prevent a student from getting distracted?  There are other apps that may serve as an alternative, as well.  Perhaps Clicker Sentences would be more useful.  Let me know what you think.
       Thank you, Mike and Ken!  Lisa is in good hands. "Ultimately" She is really Cooking now!