May 5th- Day 1

This is our first day of class.Looking forward to learning more from Barb as the last class was amazing and I continue to use all that I learned from the first assistive tech course. We introduced ourseleves using the Pic Collage App on the IPad. It was a fun way to get to know everyone in the class.


AT Looked at Today

Pic Collage App in the classroom.

 *introduce students on the first day of school (similar to how we did it today)
*present group work in any subject
*student who has writing difficulties can do a response
*Student Star of the Week can take it home for presentation
*Visual Schedule
*Life Cycle of Animals

Prolquo2go

AAC- Augmentative Communication. Although this was an expensice APP for $200 it is great for a non verbal student. Can select sets that are approprieate for individual student. Helps students who have trouble with literacy. Talks in complete sentences.


QR Codes in the classroom

Testing
Students can gain more info about any topic
Business
Books
Adds interest , would keep students attention
Treasure Hunt
Tech Centers

Assistive Technolgy Past, Present and Future Presentation 

Definition of Assitive Technology (by Barb Welsford- Past, Present and Future Presentation

Assistive Technology is about providing access to a task and improving performance of an individual with a disability- Definition from Barbs presentation

How to we match technology to a student (quick version)
look at task, where will it be used, ease of use, teacher needs to be trained

Thoughts for the Day

AT allows students who were uninvolved in the classroom can now be extremely involved in the classroom they become apart of the class where before they were on the sidelines watching and not participating.

For students who were emabarrassed to leave the room and did not want to sit a t a large computer or even a laptop can now use something like an Ipad which is less obvious to others and the student is able to complete assigments with more ease and not drawing attention to themselves or thier disability.

In the past thousands of dollars were spent on AT and  in the present you can use one device that takes the place of computers, laptops, magnifiers, scanners and hundreds of computer programs now  the I Pad can do all of that just install the app that matches the student.

We talked alot about non verbal students and how AT allows these students to show their knowledge.

The AAC (Augmentative Communication) apps would have been fantastic to use when we adopted Caleb, as he was unable to understand us and at the time he was not speaking Chinese or English. We taught him some sign language but these apps would heve been great to allow him to get his needs and wants across to us.

Here are a list of APP's available on the adroid. All are free!
AAC Apps- quick, common language,
Gabby Tabs Lite-Free on Android For larger versions you can buy.
Aac Talking Tabs (free on android)
AAC speech sommunicator (free on android)
Jabtalk (free on android)

We discussed communication and the three components of it.  It is interesting to break down someting we do everyday and look at all that goes into the task. I think sometimes we take for granted that we can communicate without  much thought.
These are the three components needed to communicate effectively. Communication Partner, Common Language, Joint Attention