Day 6 - Online Again: Low Tech Assistive Technology

Class 4 Pic Collage

In our last class, we looked at an Apple App called Pic Collage. It is a very versitile APP that can be used  by students with a wide range of ability levels and accross curriculum areas. With the ability to combine images and text, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. In Pictello, you can create interactive activites in the different subject areas, jounal, provide an alternate form of representation and assessment,

 

A Visual Journal

This first example is an activity related to a grade 6 science outcome  on electricity. One way that students can demonstrate their developing understanding about concepts is to journal about them.

 

An Alternate Form of Testing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Introductory Activity for unit on Non-Fiction (Grade Primary)

 

 

 

Day 4 - Storm Day

Day2

Proloquo2go:

In class on Saturday, we had the opportunity to work with Proloquo2go - an AMAZING app for augmentative and alternative communication developed by AssistiveWare that can be used on the iPhone, iPad or the iPod. It features real children's voices. It is fully customizable to individual users  and can meet a wide range of abilitiy levels- from a beginning symbolic level to fully developed literacy skills; complete with articles and proper punctuation.

 

 

 

Here is Vanessa using Proloquo2go.

 



First class - Let's see if I can sift through it!

Barb outlined the profile of the typical classroom today. With mainstreaming, the 'homogeneous' classroom is artifact of the distant past (if it ever really existed at all!) Technologies employed to deliver curriculum were simple and had been employed for the better part of a century: paper and pencil. A small step up from a slate and chalk!

Classrooms in Nova Scotia today are diverse. Students of varying ability levels with a myriad of differing learning needs and programming requirements greet us in our classrooms each day. An while other technologies are out there, schools, school boards and the Department of Education has been slow to respond to the rapidly evolving world of Assistive Technology.

Assistive technology is employed to support students with special needs in our classrooms. Classroom teachers work with Learning Centre teachers to develop programming to assist students. At the School Board level, Autism specialists, specialists in Assistive Technology (AT), as well as outside agencies, such as APSEA and OT contribute their expertise to develop appropriate programming for students with special needs. Students

with significant special needs are categorized as 'low incidence' and are typically on Learning Centre caseloads and often have Educational Assistants with them to help them navigate their day at school. Their AT support and equipment are highly visible in our classrooms and have been in place and evolved as technologies have evolved. But what about the 'high incidence' students- students diagnosed with LD or ADHD who are generally on Resource caseloads in schools in Nova Scotia? In my experience, implementation of AT support for this population of students has lagged well behind that of the 'low incidence' population. As compensatory strategies, AT for students with LD have been much to slow in appearing in schools in our board. 

We briefly discussed UDL - universal design for learning. I did a little research and found an article called Universal Design for Learning and Assistive Technology: Leadership Considerations for Promoting Inclusive Education in Today’s Secondary Schools, Messinger-William & Marino (2010). They describe how a UDL framework promotes and supports inclusion for secondary students with learning disabilities:

``the UDL theoretical framework guides the development of flexible curricula through three primary principles: (a) support recognition learning (i.e., What is this?) through multiple, flexible methods of presentation, (b) support strategic learning (i.e., How am I going to do that?) through multiple, flexible methods of expression, and (c) support effective learning (i.e., Why should I learn this?) by providing multiple, flexible methods of representation.``

The words that jump out of this quotation for me are multiple and flexible - methods of presentation, expression and representation. So a paper and pencil task just doesn't cut it anymore - especially for students with learning disabilities. They go on to say that ``the UDL framework helps educators move beyond a `one size fits all` model of instruction, which can maximize the educational benefits inherent in a  diverse classroom community.`` The Alexander Graham Bell activity that Barb kept throwing on the floor certainly qualifies as an example of a `one size fits all` instruction. So how do we meet the diverse learning needs of students with a learning difficulties?
 

 In Literacy Instruction, Technology and Students with Learning Disabilities: Research We Have, Research We Need, Kennedy and Deschler (2010) present several instructional models that I haven't even heard of! These include TPACK (technological pedagogical content model), CTML (cognitive theory of multimedia learning) and ETE (enzymatic theory of education). They go to say " as educators consider technology as astrategy to augment literacy instruct on, a major consideration will be the capacity to rapidly integrate technology-based solutions into existing teaching repertoires. Educators at all levels of the profession have a long history of resisting or rejecting new interventions

that are not a logical flt with their existing approaches to teaching. Technology can play a- role in helping teachers structure individualized literacy instruction;
however, the use of technology must be augmentative and logical in terms of its impact on the overall instructional plan." So even this old dog needs to learn a few few tricks! Thanks goodness for user friendly technology.

Enter Apple....

In terms of UDL, Apple makes devices that are truly accessible. Apple devices, including the iPad, iPhone and iPad permit,  as Barb said, "anywhere, anytime learning". These devices are immediately effective and accessible; they promote inclusion, are functional in a variety of settings and meet the needs of a wide range of students; and they are cost effective. We got two iPad's at my school this year! And we have a cart with 10 netbooks in it! Don't even get me started!!

PRESUME COMPETENCE:

I made myself do it - I stopped myself from intervening - the woman in the electric wheelchair didn't ask for help, so I really shouldn't presume she wants or even needs my help. I should instead presume that she is competent.
As Douglas Bilken of UNESCO states, "presuming competence is nothing less than a Hippocratic oath for educators. It is a framework that says, approach each child as wanting to be fully included, wanting acceptance and appreciation, wanting to learn, wanting to be heard, wanting to contribute. "

Introducing Henry- a teen advocate for disability rights.
 

Carly Fleichman - as a teenager, she began using a computer to communicate with her family.  There is a moment in the video about Carly when her dad expresses his regret for talking in front of her as if she were not competent. These young people are great examples of why we must presume competence.