This is my first experience using iMovie and as soon as I saw how many trailer options there were, I was hooked!!! What a fun way to finish off the course and my last morning of my masters! We easily decided on what our top three takeaways were (collaboration, the endless accessibility options on the iPad and all students having accessibility to showing what they know ways that work best for them), so we were able to quickly get moving on the creativity part and literally having a blast together.
Barb, thank you for making two of our final masters courses such a phenomenal learning experience!
Last day of our masters is upon us...hard to believe that it's already been two years! youtube AT for ALS The following video tells the story of a new technology that is in the early stages to use brainwaves to control small appliances, etc...
This technology offers hope to anyone who has ALS that they may maintain more of their independence longer. Technology like Eye Gaze offers them means to communicate once they lose the ability to speak but having a piece of technology that works on their intact brainwaves is impressive!! To see how far we have come with regards to technology over the years and how someone with ALS' quality of life has improved as a result gives hope that maybe one day we will even find a cure.
Wow!! I think that is the best word to sum up today's presentations from our Book Creator assignment. The ideas that came out of them are amazing and I'm looking forward to using many of them in my own classroom. It was a challenge to do but here is a list of my top activities/lessons (it turned out to be a long list...):
Way to introduce new staff to the school, where to find things, what expectations are, etc... (Staff Handbook)
School Rules (Game Show idea as an example)
Library Resource/Inventory - linked to e-books or Tumblebooks
Friend Wanted - create an add describe the kind of friend you are looking for
Family Album
Doers & Dreamers Guide
Timeline to represent your life or list of events
Choose which direction you want the book to go and click on the link to follow which direction you choose
Curriculum Night Guide - include students in it
Show student progression in subject areas over the course of the year
Mindfulness Walk - looking for items to match colours in the rainbow
Videos on body language - what is it telling you??
Social Stories
Yearbook
Visual Schedule
Visual Dictionary
Tour of space (link rubric directly into Book Creator)
Elevator Pitches or other oral presentations
2 minute rant
School Newspaper
Interactive Cookbooks
Collaborative Class Trip Reflection
Student Portfolio
Interactive Non-fiction Book
Videotaping self saying sounds to watch shape of mouth as saying each sound
Christine and I continued to plug away on our final assignment today. We made good headway but still need to finish it tonight. There are more details that I feel we would continue to add to it if we had more time. That being said, I'm also someone who would continue to tweak a project like this until the end of time if I was able to!! I love the diversity that Book Creator brings to the classroom for students. It offers up a multitude of options when it comes to work production/presentation, not only in the app directly but also because there are numerous apps that can be imported into it. Incorporating more opportunities for my students to choose ways to demonstrate their understanding in the ways that work best for them is one of my goals for this upcoming school year. This is something that I have been more consciously aware of the last couple of years and every year I try to make more of a concerted effort to the previous year. Our technology is very limited in our school of almost 500 students, so sharing what we have is a must and needs to be taken into consideration. I do have a couple of netbooks for my classroom but we are always sharing them amongst our classes so that one class has as close to a class set as they can at one time. I'm currently looking at this set up and trying to determine if there is a better set up when it comes to sharing our classroom netbooks to maximize options available to students. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Today was all about Book Creator and our final assignment...I'm having a hard time digesting the word "FINAL"!! Three more days and our masters will be finished...where have the last two years gone?!
So Book Creator...I love how you can import just about any other program into Book Creator as it makes it that much more versatile. "Using Book Creator in the Science Classroom" - this video has some good ideas if needed. Once we got in our pairs and on our way to create our own Book Creator of 20 ways we could use the app in our own classrooms, Christine and I decided to split it into two groups of 10. We did this because I'm teaching in the classroom and Christine does ELS and this would provide a greater diversity in our activities. I decided to try and have as many different subject areas over my 10 activities as possible and thought about lessons/projects that I have done with my students but could change to incorporate Book Creator. We both got off to a good start, bouncing ideas off each other. Also, as I'm not an iPad owner, I found it very beneficial to be able to ask Christine questions about different apps that I wasn't as familiar with in order to save time. Looking forward to finishing it up on Monday :)
Alternate Access for students with low incidence disabilities (highest needs) Video on Switch Access: The video talks about the importance of support system and knowing that someone is on the other end of the phone if needed (therapists). Here we are, likely a few decades later and I find that this is quite far from reality in our board. There is a strict process to go through to get a referral into the board for OT or other supports and even then there is no guarantee that you will see them over the duration of the school year. If you do see them, you are lucky to see them once. I do realize that this is not the case for all school boards, however as a whole, I feel that we are moving in the wrong direction when it comes to strong support systems for our students. Looking at the technology that Joy is using in the film, she is a student who would greatly benefit today from the use of an iPad with AAC apps to aid with communication. One of the things that stood out for me in this video is that they said that they know that the alternate access for students is working when they are being included by other students outside of the school setting (ie. being invited to birthday parties, etc...) I did find much of the video to be dated, especially in the way the students with disabilities were treated and referred to. We have come along way, not just in respect to technology, and it's important that that is remembered when we are in our own school settings to ensure that there is not a regression there as well. Presumed competency should always be where one starts and that wasn't what we were seeing in this video. Centres: We got to explore centres that used a variety of switches and eye gaze. #1. Powerlink/switches: This enables a person to turn a device on/off, on with a timer shutting it off, or the switch must be held down in order for the device to stay on.
10 ways to use the Power Link
fan
television
air conditioner
timers
bells
anything in kitchen (kettle, popcorn maker)
light
disco ball
heater
lamp
heat pad
vibrating massage pad
spinner
#2. On-screen Keyboard PC:
Options using the on-screen keyboard are having to click the actual letters or hover over the letters. There is also the scanner keyboard which highlights the on-screen keyboard and allows you to go through the keyboard row by row to select your letters. This option would be extremely long and slow to create even a short message.
#3. iPad and Switch Access via Bluetooth: Trying curling on this was a lot of fun! Though figuring out how to use it with two players was a bit more of a challenge.
AT and Me - excellent resource for Switch Access Apps
#4. Eye Gaze - Once calibrated, eye gaze is quite easy to use (for the activity that we were trying it on at least!). The calibration takes a few extra minutes to do but worth the time as it makes the program much more efficient for the user.
Activity ideas using this technology
AAC
music creation
typing using on-screen keyboard
math
educational games
reading
assessments
online research
social media/leisure activities
#5. Alternate keyboard for Chromebook: The portability of the keyboard is not great. If it were stationary, it would be better but having to transport from location to location it is not good. The keyboard offers the student greater contrast by having yellow keys with black writing as well as more easily visible read writing with larger letters/numbers and symbols.
#6. Android: Good price ($100), portable. Not great for anyone with visual impairment as it is compact.
Some accessibility options we discovered
TalkBack
Switch Access
Magnification Gestures
Large Text
High Contrast text
Color Inversion
Color Correction
Voice Aloud Reader
Big Buttons Keyboard
Color Note
Easy Speak - AAC Soundboard
Read & Write
Speech to Text
Text to Speech
#7. Youtube: The following videos demonstrate three different forms of AT being used by three different students (switch, AAC with toe and eye gaze).
Having a PC, I found exploring my own device discovered more accessibility options available then shown in the video clip. I do feel that the best way to know what is on a device is to take the time to search on the device itself to become familiar with it.
