Case Study Presentations

     I really enjoyed the case study presentations, it is wonderful to see all of the Assistive Technology that is being used in our board.  The projects all exemplified how important Assistive Technology can eb for our students and I really enjoyed seeing both the pros and cons of each program, as this is very useful information to have.  I had never heard of Hyperstudio which Dave presented and it seemed like an easy-to-use program that would work well, especially with students at the elementary level.  I loved seeing how much IPods and IPads have affected the lives of students, Bill's presentation showed this well.  I found that in my own case study, that this has become a preferred method of Assistive Technology, given their portability and many uses.  Ann and Cathy's presentation were both very encouraging, it was wonderful to see the progress that their students have made.  I could relate to Vida's presentation about Comic Life well as I have used this program many times as a high school English teacher.  I agree that the program itself offers a wonderful means of presenting student's knowledge, though not always without frustration.  This program allows students to create remarkable end products when it works. I also really enjoyed our final presentation which told the story of an adult student, it was wonderful to hear how his community have come together to support him.  Assistive Technology offers students access to tasks they may not otherwise be able to complete, as well as helping to lessen the frustration of completing tasks.  Thank you Barb for introducing us to many new forms of AT!

Misunderstood Minds

             For the past two weeks Barb has shown us clips from the PBS series "All Kinds of Minds".   These can be found at Barb's blog:   http://misunderstoodmindsld.blogspot.com/?v=0.  Each of the eleven videos told the tale of a different student and their struggles and experiences with writing and reading.  Through watching these videos, a couple of things became apparent to me- one, all students are so unique and the they once again highlighted how difficult daily tasks can be for some individuals.  Barb had us try writing with our non-dominant hands to experience how difficult it can be for an individual with grip or output problems.  This was very difficult, messy, and required far more thought than writing with my dominant hand.  It really allowed me to gain a  better sense of how difficult the writing task can be for many of my students.  As I completed this task, I thought about specific students who I have watched write before and I was better able to understand their frustration and exhaustion in completing this task.  The videos about Nathan and Lauren again reaffirmed how exhausting written tasks can be for individuals with a Learning Disability.  Lauren's story really showed how parents struggle with a child's diagnosis and the question of whether or not to medicate.  We also stopped and took a close look at the writing process by actually brainstorming the many steps involved in this procedure.  Barb also showed us Co-Writer and how it works and how to create topic dictionaries which can be very useful for many students.

My Study Bar- Class Two

 So after last week I had a chance to try My Study Bar with some of my students at school again.  Here are some of the updates of each of the applications within My Study Bar:

•  Planning: Includes Xmind (a mind map), this worked in all cases,  Sunbird (a portable calendar) which also worked, and Hott Notes (a sticky note option) which did not work at all.
•  Reading:  Tbar (screen masking), RapidSet, Vu-Bar (screen ruler), this worked and the students said it was “neat”, also the Orato (text reader) worked and was well received by students, the ssOverlay did not work. 
•  Writing:  LetMe Type (word prediction), worked in all cases, but was sporadic, Lingoes (talking dictionary) did not work for us, Balbolka (writing support) worked, and Rapid Typing (typing tutor) also worked. Tiny Spell did not work properly.
•  Vision:  This includes a Magnifier which worked in all cases , students enjoyed playing with this, Sonar (curser ring)worked, but was difficult to close once opened, and the Thunder- screen radar which students enjoyed playing with, but the purpose of which was unclear.
•  Voice: This did not work on any of our computers.  It requires a specific voice which is not available on school computers.

So far, My Study Bar has shown it has many merits and benefits for students who struggle with literacy-related tasks.  Although there are some parts that have not worked for me, it is still a very worthwhile tool for students.

My Study Bar

       My group worked on the My Study Bar application during the past few weeks.  This application was fairly easy to use and offered many applications that would be useful for learners with literacy-related challenges.  This is a free download which can be saved to a memory stick and can travel with students.  There are six different categories available in this application, these are:

• Planning
• Reading
• Writing
• Vision
• Voice/Help

      There were some parts of the download that did not work on my computer, but worked on other group member's computers.  This application could be frustrating for some students, particularly when the category applications will not work.  Also, there are certain tools that once used on your computer are difficult to remove.  Two examples of this include the: "Sonar -curser ring" would not leave my computer once I used it.  I had to shut down and reboot the computer.  Also, the "Let Me Type" word prediction tool would also not go away even after it was disabled.

      I am looking forward to learning more about My Study Bar and haivng students try it and see what they think.  It definitely has some good qualities, including the Vu-Bar screen reader which isolates the line of text you are trying to read, the Orato-text reader offers a speech to text option which seemed to work quite well. 

    Check out our blog on My Study Bar:  http://mystudybar.blogspot.com/

Black Board Collaborate

    This week's class was in the Black Board Collaborate classroom, we were able to explore various resources which would be useful for all readers and writers, specifically those who struggle ....

    My favorite website was the http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/ as I tried to focus on those who struggle with writing.  I  found this resource to be the most helpful for use at the high school level.  It included  a wide variety of text to speech options, creating bibliographies, research tools, useful apps, graphic organizers, multi media and story telling, as well as reading and writing tools.

Read, Write, Think- This site offers webbing tool,s graphic organizers for many written assignments, it includes interactive organizers to be used for different types of writing.
http://www.readwritethink.org/

ThinkPort- This site offered a great selection of graphic organizers, which are available in many formats, such as PDF, word, or html
http://www.thinkport.org/technology/template.tp

Great Source Write- This site included lots of information on various types of writing and the steps involved in the process of writing.  It offers sample pieces of writing and clearly lays out the steps in the process.  You would have to have fairly strong reading skills to use this site.
http://www.greatsource.com/iwrite/

Apps for Reluctant Readers and Writers

We were able to view Barb Welsford’s Apps in Action for Reluctant Readers and Reluctant Writers during this class.  Both of these Webinars provided resources for students we see in every classroom.  I can just imagine what education would be like if every student was able to have access to such tools and if IT was available to each school and student. 

I decided to focus on the writing apps.  The following are a few apps I think would be useful in the high school classroom:

Dragon Dictate:  As easy as a tap and talk, this allows students to record their ideas and then the app transfers the speech to text.  This app is free…I have had the chance to try this app and it is easy to use and is fairly accurate in tranfering the speech to text. 

IThoughts $7.99 which is very similar to Inspiration will allow students to create brains storms and planning before writing. 

Pictello and Reel Director have been discussed in an earlier blog, but are wonderful tools for reluctant writers as options to written text.

POW!  I liked this app as well because it is similar to Comic Life, which I find many of my students like.  This app may work better for elementary students though.

Writing Toolkit- $3.99- reading and decoding.  I loved the examples!  There is a lot of information in this app, I liked this app better than Storyteller!

Writepad- This program would be better for use on an IPad.  It is available for only  $3.99. 

Voice Memo- With this app you can complete email recording for only $0.99.

Tiki Notes-  This app is free!  It may take awhile for student to get the hang of using this app.

Pictello

     The Pictello app was really neat and could be used for any age group!  It was quite easy to use and didn't take long to pick up on the tricks of the app...  It (like many of the other apps we have learned about) could be used for a wide variety of purposes.  It could be used to outline Math Steps, Writing a Five Paragraph Essay, Presentation Alternative, Steps to Building my Lego Creation, Green Team Guide, Making a Cup of Tea (Connie's favorite!  :), Guitar Class- Learning a Song, Buying in the Cafeteria, Changing for Gym Class, Summarize/Retelling a Story, and so many other options.  The more we investigate these apps in class, the more students I can envision being successful in so many different ways using technology, it is all very exciting.  I also loved the cookie doodle app!

     

IPod Touches and Reading Apps

     The reading task analysis presentations were all very interesting.  It was neat to see each group's approach to breaking down the process.  The final example that Barb shared with us was very impressive, it made me feel as though I had definitely neglected some of the steps involved in the reading process.  I really enjoyed using the IPod touches, shopping for apps., and searching for reading apps.  There are so many wonderful options available! 

     In a world of ever-changing technology, it is important for educators to incorporate available resources in the classrooms.  Although many students own or have access to an IPod or IPhone, they are not accessible for all - so I am not sure how a teacher could implement the use of them in their everyday curriculum.  I do believe that they are wonderful as a form of assistive technology.  The wide selection of apps offer many alternate means of accessing information, presenting information, tools to share knowledge, the list goes on and on.  The apps are designed to support all ages, all abilities, and all interest groups.  I am very impressed to see that many of the apps are reasonably priced so that people are able to afford them.

     Here are our top apps for high school students (with a focus on reading):

10 Favourite Apps!

	Top Ten!	App	Cost	Uses
1		Shmoop	Free	This app is similar to Coles Notes; it provides users with notes on many classics used in high school English classes.  It provides a wide range of text overviews, summaries, plot& character analysis, study questions and quizzes to help students review their knowledge.
2		Prizmo	$9.99	This app allows you to scan text and have it read to you.  It can translate into fifteen different languages.  It recognizes printed text, whiteboards, etc… It includes image processing and text-to-speech is available in 10 languages with 35 voices to choose from.
3		QuickVoice	Free	This app allows you to record for seconds to hours students can save their recorded files as an MP3, and then be able to email their work to the teacher.  It is available for use in 6 different languages.  It offers students another method of sharing their knowledge.
4		vBookz	$3.99	This app comes with over 30,000 copyrighted books, it reads it chapter to chapter while highlighting the text, and it comes with a magnifying glass interface.  You can scan a text into Kurzweil (save as ePub format - Pages) and put this into vBookz.  You can also adjust the speed of reading and the voice.
5		Body Talk	$1.99	This app is a body language guide to help you to read other people and situations.  It includes text, photos and videos to help the user.  You can search by body part, motivation or significance of movements.  This app is great for anyone, especially those who struggle in social situations.
6		No Fear Shakespeare	Free ($0.99 for each play or $4.99 for all 18 plays)	With modern-English language translation of each play, side-by-side of the original version, students can read the play and understand it too!
7		Canada Driver’s Ed	$1.99	Students can read the manual, study topic-by-topic, take a mock test, and get detailed results that indicate areas for further study.  The ‘Progress Meter’ is a great motivator!
8		Conversation English	$4.99	Common idioms and expressions are worked into 20 English conversation lessons.  Each lesson incorporates listening, reading, comprehension, vocabulary, and sentence completion skills through matching, fill-in-the blanks, and other activities.
9		English at Work	$4.99	The sister app to ‘Conversation English,’ this app provides 14 lessons for English in the workplace.  Common idioms, phrases, and expressions are worked into lessons on listening skills, telephone skills, email skills, conversation skills, and more!
10		English Grammar In Use Activities	$9.99	This app is full of grammar activities that are designed to be fun for students.  With imagery, audio, recording, and instant feedback, students will be engaged in the 16 areas of grammar.  There is also a sister app with tests!

Our Reading Task Analysis

Reading Analysis

Wow- today's class was a real eye opener! There are so many processes and steps that need to happen simultaneously for reading to occur.  The reading process is something that many people take for granted.  There are physical aspects, emotional aspects, short term and long term memory, and the many cognitive processes required to read.  Creating the task analysis was quite difficult to do as it felt as though no matter how much information we brain stormed, there was always something else that we could add to the web.  It was also quite difficult to determine which steps were connected to which, as they all seemed to be intertwined.  When we watched the video The Challenge of Reading they stated that to read you utilize seventeen different regions of the brain, which definitely explains how intricate of a process reading truly is.  The information presented about dyslexia was also very interesting and informative and I would like to learn more about this topic.

Assistive Technology

Assistive technology is a range of strategies and resources which include services and tools used to enable a student to achieve a task. Assistive technology has the potential to increase a student's control over objects, daily activities and age-appropriate experiences, and subsequent learning.  Assistive Technology is constantly changing, is an on-going process, and is very different from IT .  It is all about creating independence in achieving a task. 

I am very excited to see the new technologies that are available and I am hoping that this course will help me to program more efficiently for the many students I work with who have Learning Disabilities.  I really enjoyed watching Tyler's progress, it was amzing to see how he had changed and his usage of Assistive Technology was amazing and seems to be constantly changing and improving.  I found the task analysis on reading very interesting and it was a great reminder of how people can sometimes take for granted processes and the many steps involved in these.