Final Reflections

That's me - I started out as a kitten, an inexperienced innocent in the field of assistive technology and now I feel like a lion: Hear me roar - I've already been to my principal to tell her that I NEED 5 iPads for next year for my students. I actually have the confidence to actually use them. I might even buy a phone with some G's - stop getting kidding yourself - I still like my one way phone and probably will not be turning that in, any time in the near future.

I signed up for this course because it fit my schedule. I didn't really have an interest in assistive technology and face it as an academic high school English teacher, my contacts with special needs students have been limited. I have had a few high functioning autistic students - social stories and a routine seemed to work with them. I have had a number of students with LD, but by the time they get to high school they know what technology works for them and are very capable of ensuring that they can access the technology.

So there I was, week 1 and Barbara was flying through the night throwing words that I didn't understand and expecting me to know stuff that I had never heard about. And then the icing on the cake - the news that we had to create our own Blogs. Being the determined (not stubborn) person that I am, I refused to quit, even though I considered that option. I listened, I experimented and I found success. In the process of completing the course, I increased my comfort and skill levels around the use of computers within an educational setting and I learned a tremendous amount of knowledge about a variety of special needs and the technology that is there to support these students. I was amazed by the applications available to support students in reading and writing. I can't wait to get my hands on an iPad and to share it with my students. I look forward to the inclusion of the interactive textbooks within the classroom experience.

All in all this was one of the most practical courses that I have completed for my Masters. I may even put my name forward for the school planning team - a committee that I have gone out of my way to avoid in the past as I felt that I had little to offer the students and my peers. I am a lion: Hear me roar and keyboard and Inspire and iMovie and...

Final Class

Class tonight flew by. We began with time to put a few last minutes posts on our Assignment 2: Ecology Grade 7 Science Blog. Leanne updated the helpful links on the site and then she looked for Apps that would help the students with dyslexia. Dawn was responsible for the autism post and finding Apps to support our 2 students with Asperger's Syndrome. I created the post and found Apps connected to Ecology and to support our student with dysgraphia. Before we knew it, Barbara was pulling us back into class to prepare for our final assignment. I am very excited about the Ecology Blog. There are a number of wonderful resources on it that will support all students and which offer activities, which can be used both in ELA and Science classes. I really like the UDL model for planning; differentiation is so important in both keeping students engaged and assisting with their learning. I almost wish I taught grade 7 Science...notice I said almost! I am quite happy with my high school English students. Check out our Ecology Blog by clicking here.



For the second part of the evening Mary Jo and I were responsible for creating a Blog on physical disabilities. We decided to focus on Muscular Dystrophy and Cerebral Palsy. While Mary Jo searched the net, I, yes me, the technology disabled person from week 1, created our Physical Disabilities Blog, posted it, remembered the url and added Mary Jo as an author. By the time I had completed creating the Blog, Mary Jo had found videos and a number of helpful links to include as support on the site. I added the links and Mary Jo posted the videos. The night flew by as we continued to learn about physical disabilities and all the technology that is available to support their needs.

Definition
Muscular dystrophies (MD) are a group of more than 30 genetic diseases characterized by progressive weakness and degeneration of the skeletal muscles that control movement.It can affect all muscles in the body. People with this disease often get progressively weaker as time passes.

Assistive Technology that Support the Disability

Wheelchairs



Wheelchairs are very important tools for students with MD. Wheelchairs allow students to easily navigate the school both inside and out. Students in wheelchairs can be active participants in all aspects of school including physical education classes.


Eye tracking Mouse



Eye tracking mouse emulators are tracking systems that allows users unobstructed and unlimited access to computer technology using only their eyes, which emulate the movement of a mouse. It allows the user to place the mouse pointer anywhere on the screen simply by looking at the desired location. "Clicking" can be done with an eye blink, a hardware switch, or by staring.
And the really cool news is that hands-free, motion-controlled apps and those controlled by eye gaze are beginning to emerge in iPad technology.

SkoogMusic



This techology allows students with MD to participate in music class. The Skoog is a soft, squeezable musical instrument that plugs into the USB drive on a computer. Using the software that comes with the skoog, children of varying abilities can participate in musical activities. The Skoog is a soft square with colored balls around it. Each ball has a different sound depending on which surface is touched, pressed, hit, squeezed or twisted. The Skoog has 5 touch-sensitive and color coded surfaces. Use of the Skoog makes music accessible to students who could not play a traditional instrument.


Check out or blog to find more inforamtion and to view the amazing videos: http://maryjowanda.blogspot.ca/

Blogging Times Two

Wednesday May 30 - We began class tonight with a review of assistive technology and Universal Design for Learning (UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual need) and then the fun began. We started our next project for which we had to create a Blog that included teacher resources and student resources for an unit on Ecosystems for a grade 7 Science class. We needed to ensure that our resources provided different ways to present information, differentiated the ways that students could show what they knew, and stimulated student engagement and interest in the topic. Our class consisted of 21 students with a wide diversity including 2 students with Asperger Syndrome, 3 with dyslexia, 2 with dysgraphia, 1 non-verbal with autism and an emergent literacy learner. Once Leanne created the Blog, Dawn, Leanne and I were off with fingers flying. We began by finding a variety of learning resources textual and visual at different reading levels, so that all students could understand the material. Next we looked for interactive websites to increase student engagement. We added in activities for visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners. When planning education games, we considered the social and learning needs of our autistic students. We added in a First Nation's perspective to the knowledge base, so that all our students could see themselves in the curriculum. Interactive quizzes were included so students could receive immediate feedback on their learning, quizzes at different reading levels. We ended the night by including a PowerPoint that identified apps that would be helpful for the students in our class. We need to add in a variety of assessment opportunities and have discussed included assignments such as making a food chain or web using Inspiration or a digital text explaining key ideas using iMovie or Photostory 3. Both of these applications will allow students to include pictures, text, music and their recorded explanations if they wish. I am very excited about the number of resources we collected in the short period of time. I'll have to pass this link on to the grade 7 Science teacher :) Check out our Blog: http://wandadawnleanne.blogspot.ca/

Supporting All Students: Learning Disabilities, Writing and Universal Design

Tonight's class was jam packed. We began with a group assignment on Misunderstood Minds, a series of videos which presented information on the impact of learning disabilities and the failure of schools to accommodate for learning disabilities, on the both the students and their families. My group was introduced to Nathan a first grader and Adam, a high school student. Their stories were heartbreaking. Adams and Nathan's stories underscored the need for schools to identify early, students who experience difficulty learning, find the areas that cause difficulty and to create a consistent plan that is enforced grade to grade and which supports students through both remediation and compensation. We as teachers need to improve our ability to differentiate learning and to convey our lessons using multiple modalities and to transfer this multi-modality focus to our assessment practices as well. Students with learning disabilities need to be supported or we as a society will pay the price in the future with increased dropout rates, increased crime rates and increased mental health issues. My daughter is currently working on a PHD in forensic psychology in Australia. The focus of her thesis is resilience among teenagers in the criminal justice system. She reported that of the clientele in her study only 20% of the teensagers tested scored as having average or higher intelligence, as being free of any identified learning disability and as not suffering from a mental health issue. 80% of the youth in her study were diagnosed as being globally delayed or with a learning disability and or with a mental health issue. We need to begin supporting the students with learning issues now. Here's the link to see the PowerPoint my group created for the Misunderstood Minds videos. The class then looked the cognitive processes involved with a writing task. I knew that writing involved a lot of brain power and I had heard from past presentations that writing is one of the most challenging task for students, but I had no idea how difficult it actually was until I saw the visual web of the steps a person follows in order to write: many of these steps happen simultaneously! Here's a tumbprint of the visual or click on the word visual to see an online pdf of it.

There are so many places where neurons can misfire or information can be sent to the wrong part of the brain. Looking at this, how can we not provide support to make this task doable for students with learning disabilities? For the last part of the evening, we learned about Universal Design for Learning. Universal means the methods and learning needs to be used and understood by everyone. Design looks at creating plans that need to be flexible and accommodates for all. For the learner the focus needs to be on what (the knowledge to be recognized) the how (the skills to be learned) and the why (the rationale for the learning the what and the why). Universal design for learning has teachers considering their goals - what will their students know and be able to do, the barriers to the learning and the multiple means of representation to be used to convey and assess what students will learn to know and do. UDL reminds us that helping students will learning disabilities results in improving achievement for all students. The way people learn is as unique as their fingerprints. Classroom strategies cannot have one size fits all. Here’s a outline that contains more info on UDL:

A video which explains UDL:

A picture says a thousand words.