Case Study Presentations Round 2

I enjoyed all of the presentations last night. It was great to see the wide range of students involved and the apps that were used to support them in their learning. I am very curious to play around with Comic Life. In the presentation, it was used with reluctant and unmotivated grade 12 students and it seemed to have a significant impact on their written output. Too bad they had to endure the tech issues. This can really frustrate already frustrated students. The Chosen One was an interesting presentation. It was evident that he really could handle the I Pod and manipulate the program. I think the Chosen One would be an interesting student to work with given his level of intelligence, energy and enthusiam. He will need a number of apps to keep his focus. The presentation of the student in grade six was great. I like to hear positive social stories and learning that a student new to the school and having lower functioning capabilities can be so supported by his peers is great news. Obviously, the programs in place to support his learning are working very well. I really enjoyed the last presentation because it was with an adult learner. I think that it is great that a 40 year old is still so motivated to learn after what he has gone through. You can really see the power of the text to speech apps when it allows a grown man to improve the quality of his life. The apps that he is using will no doubt make a significant impact in his education. Also, great to see that there are such institutions out there supporting adult learners in this capacity. Great night!

Case Study Presentations Round 1

Tonight there were 6 case study presentations. I really enjoyed all the presentations and it is evident that we all learned a great deal about assistive technology in this class. I really enjoyed the presentation of the young girl from NG. I like hearing how the apps supported her learning and the ah ha moment for her when she was able to point and hold up the I Pad when she needed to do so. I also enjoyed watching how a girl who was using the I Pod touch to communicate with her friends. Great use of the program Pictello! The My Toolbar presentation was very informative and detailed. It was great how the presenters broke down the positives and the neagatives of this program. I have since downloaded this program and am now exploring it. I was fortunate to go first and presented my case study which involved working with two grade 1 students on a Hyperstudio project. The project involved exploring, brainstorming, creating and presenting information and software. The theme of the project was social acceptable behaviors in different areas of the school. The kids learned how to create pages that were linked to each other, animation, video, input sounds and transitions. Both kids came up with great ideas of how children should behave in the classroom, the hallway, gym, cafeteria, on the bus and on the playground. I think they enjoyed themselves and they did a wonderful job. Our next step involves them presenting their project to each of their classes. Hyperstudio 5 is a great program for project based learning. It is easy to use and highly engaging for kids. The program costs approximatel $60 but you can get a 30 day trial for free at http://www.mackiev.com/hyperstudio/index.html  Check it out!

Writing Task Analysis

This week we had the opportunity to gain insight on students who are struggling with writing. We watched two videos of students that were extremely intelligent yet hit road blocks with their writing. We then had the opportunity to examine the extremely complicated process involved in writing a simple paragraph. Much like the reading process there are so many areas where students can run into difficulties if a small portion of that process is not working. It will be interesting to further examine the writing process and learn about the different measures that can be introduced to help some of these kids.

A Kursweil Night

Tonight we worked as a group of 5 to create a blog committed to teaching viewers how to use Kursweil 3000. 5 of us divided up different portions of the program last week and worked at researching our own sections of the program. Tonight, we all attempted to dump our findings into a blog as 1 continious post and ran into a few bugs. I think we can iron this problem out and in the end we hope to have a blog site that will teach viewers how to use this program because it is truly an amazing program. This video does explain the reading tool bar which I was responsible for posting.

Webinar and Scavenger Hunt

This week I had the opportunity to take a look at two recorded webinars via ONLINE Blackboard. The webinars titled Apps for Reluctant Readers and Apps for Reluctant Writers were hosted by Barb Welsford who spent a couple of hours highlighting different apps for students struggling with reading and writing. I enjoyed this as it was easy to follow and not only did she describe how to use the apps but explained what type of students may benefit from using the different apps and why.

Tonight, we had our class online using ONLINE blackboard and although it wasn't working perfectly, it was a great experience. We spent some time on a scavenger hunt for apps and were given a different urls to explore.

First, I checked out STARFALL and played around with ABC, Learn to Read, It's Fun to Read and I'm Reading. I thought that each of the programs were very useful and appropriate for emergent readers. The phonics instruction in these programs would be fun for kids because they were colorful and interactive. They also allowed students to self-direct instruction. The strategies that each program offered would be effective tools for all teachers to use in their classrooms.

Second, I checked out EAROBICS and checked out GameGoo. I played a number of games including: Squanky the Tooth Taker Quiet Quest for Opposites, Fearless Friends, Wizards and Pigs Poetry Pickle and Monkey Business. The first game was a great way to teach opposite vocabulary to students. Fearless Frieda was a phonics program that teaches students how to spell different words and rewards them by having Frieda jump high on her skateboard. The Wizard and Pigs Poetry Pickle program is a higher level petry game that teaches kids about Rhyme, Alliteration and Rhythm. monkey Business is a fun program that asked the user to build sentences and bridges in the process so the monkey can travel across water. All of these programs were interactive, fun and appropriate for students struggling with word recognition, context and sentence structure and usage.

Third, I checked out NATURAL READER,a text to speech program. This is a free program and easily downloaded on a PC or MAC. The program simply coverts your text into speech. I actually pasted a paragraph from our school newsletter into the program and the reader (you can choose) read back the text. Although the speech wasn't perfect, it did a decent job and did I mention it was free? Great for kids who struggle to read small or large amounts of text or for those who need to hear what they have written to see if their ideas are clearly stated.

I am now looking at UDTECHTOOLKIT and am finding it to be a comprehensive site with tons of useful programs that would benefit all levels of writers and readers. So far I looked at the graphic organizer section of this site and found some amazing programs to help students create maps and diagrams to support their writing. This site will need a lot of perusing time. I will spend a lot of time here.

Great night of exploring!

Class # 5

Tonight we spent much of the class learning how to use ReelDirector. ReelDirector is an app that is easy to use and great for managing and editing video clips. This app would be an excellent way for students to explain, present and illustrate their learning. This is a great app for reluctant writers. This is also a great tool to promote cooperative learning in the classroom. There are endless possibilities for this app.

Bill, Connie and I played around with this app for an hour. We filmed 4 separate clips then edited, modified and rendered them into a short video called the Appsolutely Amazing IPods. Take a look!

CLASS # 4

For the first part of this class some students used the first 30 minutes searching and placing recommended apps on their blogs. Some of us were able to use this time to play around with the app Pictello. Afterwards, everyone had the opportunity to present their favorite app. I presented Blackboard Lite. Here are a few other that were recommended by our class: No fear Shakespeare, Audio Books, I scroll, Text to speech, Tap Speak, Flash Card Deluxe, Model me going places, Speech Tutor, Over Drive Media Console, Shakespeare in bits and Brb's favourite, Cookie Doodle.

After the presentations, we had a closer look at Pictello. This is a very interesting and handy app that is easy to use for both teachers and students. Basically, you choose a title, add a pic, add a voice, add another page, add a pic, add text, etc until your story is complete. It's that easy! If you are a visual learner like me you can watch this  VIDEO that explains the steps. Below are a number of ways we brainstormed how Pictello can be used in a school setting:                                     

                                                      PICTELLO

* How to sign out a book

* Steps to play a game

* Teaching kids to get ready for home

* How to ride the bus

* Order lunch

* How to play safe

* Asking questions in class

* Fire and Isolation drills

* How to move from class to class

* How to eat in the cafeteria

Afterwards, Bill and I worked together using Pictello to create a social story for Fire Drills. This was fun and we think after it is refined, it may be useful for students who are unfamiliar and/or anxious with such events. We then spent some time sharing our story with the rest of the class.

Apps to Consider

Dragon Diction is an app designed to help students recognize words spoken as text. Students can speak and then observe the spoken words written as text. This is a good app with students struggling with text. This will eliminate some of the frustration that struggling readers and writers may have. This is a great compensatory strategy. (FREE)


Bookster is a fun app for kids learning to read. Bookster is a read-along storytelling app that reads to kids, records and plays their voices, and teaches vocabulary along the way. Designed by educators to help kids of all ages develop literacy skills, Bookster makes beginning to recognize and read new words fun and easy for even the youngest of readers. (FREE)


Oh the Thinks that you can Think-This app allows children to use their imaginations by giving them a chance to imagine it themselves, and ultimately, leading the child to tap the colorful dancing question marks and see the story appear. There are three ways to read this omBook (Oceanhouse Media digital book) 1. Read to Me- listen to the narrated story with words highlighted as they are read. 2. Read it Myself-read the book in its traditional form. 3. Auto Play-plays like a movie, automatically reading and turning pages. Great for younger children! ($3.99)


BIG Contacts-This is app designed to help those who cannot see small print. This is for anyone who has trouble reading default text. You can you can use this app whenever you want to read text, send an email, or send a text message. ($0.99)


ABC Pocket Phonics Lite- is three apps in one that can teach kids the following: Letter Sound, Letter Writing and First Words It teaches readers how to sound out and spell over 170 frequently-used words. There’s about 20 words in the Lite version. The lite version is a free app that can be used to teach children who are beginning to learn how to read. (FREE)

Kids Books - The Reading Bug- This is a great little story app. It is a story about a little chameleon that is out to catch a new kind of bug: the Reading Bug! You become part of his journey as he travels his neighborhood trying to find someone to help him catch it. It Features: Automatic navigation and narration, child voice, adult voice or silent for self reading, automatic or manual page turn. This app will help early readers make connections between the words they hear and see. ($0.99)


Quick Voice-This app allows you to record your voice and share it with friends, parents and teachers. It can be used as voice recorded reminders or autitory responses to assignments and or assessments. It gives struggling students another option to express their knowledge. (FREE)


School Blackboard Lite-With this app a student can draw and write in chalk on a blackboard. This can be used for students to write text, create drawings, compute math etc. It has some neat features such as the ability to manually erase; rotate your drawing and it can use a variety of sizes of chalk both black and white. It is a fun app that allows students to be creative and offers an alternative to pencil and paper. (Free)


Everyday Mathematics® Addition Top It- This is a fun game app that allows students to practice their math skills while playing a game with a partner. Players take turns drawing two cards, finding their sums, and then comparing the sums. Players score points for correctly finding their sum, identifying the greater sum, and for having the greater sum. The player with the most points at the end of 8 rounds wins! Visual and audio reinforcement of correct and incorrect answers help players master addition facts and comparison skills. ($1.99)

Kids Clock Challenge Lite - This is a fun application that teaches students how to tell time while playing a beat the clock type game. Each 60 second challenge shows an analog clock. Pick the correct time from the digital clocks as quickly as you can to increase your score. The more accurate and quicker you are the higher your score. The High Score Challenge motivates kids to be the best and rewards them when they reach the top of the Leader Board. This is great for kids who are struggling with analog clocks. (FREE)

Assistive Tech Class #3

Tonight, we spent some time presenting our task analysis of reading which we completed on Inspiration. We also got to watch and listen to others talk about the process, struggles, connections and benefits of completing the assignment. It was comforting to hear that other groups were making similar connections and their maps were quite similiar in nature. I think that the assignment gave me a greater understanding of how and why readers may struggle and the many different areas in the process that could be potentially disabling to a specific student.

Afterwards, we began to look at the different apps available on I Tunes that might be useful to struggling and reluctant readers. We learned how to manipulate and download an app that we may find useful for future intervention with students.

Task Analysis of Reading

During our last Assistive Tech class we paired up and did a task analysis of the reading process. Stacey and i worked together using Inspiration 9 and mapped out the different steps that take place when we read.

This was not an easy task by any means. We take for granted as readers and don't usually think about the complex process of reading. It is our intent to map out the process and discover where students have difficulties and then use assistive tech adaptations to aid in the process.

Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology

Tonight I am learning to blog in my assistive tech class.