Day 4

Day 4

The first task of the day was to watch the video A Pivotal Role in the Household video. The woman in the video had an ALS diagnosis but she didn’t let that stop her. In the video she shows how, with a single switch and AssistiveWare's Proloquo, KeyStrokes and SwitchXS software, she continues to perform a pivotal role in the household by doing the shopping, managing the bank accounts and even designing her own web site. She has no control of hands and the device is taped on her face. It is activated by cheek twitches. In Marie’s own words, “Without the computer I’d be like a vegetable”.  The video shows how a person’s life can be changed completely when AT is used to function and communicate.

The next task was for everyone to say one way students can demonstrate their knowledge in one word using Poll everywhere. It was a great reminder of how fabulous Poll Everywhere is for getting a quick pulse of everyone’s learning in a quick amount of time. I would use this strategy as an exit card or throughout a lesson when I wanted to quickly find out how students are feeling (taking the temperature) or what they are learning. A Pic Collage was created with everyone’s answers which again was a great reminder of how one could use Pic Collage as a universal design strategy in the classroom.

The Writing Process was the next item looked at. We began by sitting and writing a letter to our respective members of our school board that would be involved in requesting AT for a student. After writing the letter we were to write down a step by step list of what was involved in the writing process. What did it take for us to begin and continue to write our letter? This task was similar to the task of writing about the reading process step by step which was done in the week before and similarly, while I was able to add to some of the less obvious involved, I still had trouble coming up with them spur of the moment. I was able this time to remember that attention to task was the first important item and that one would need correct posture and be able to hold a pen. So I was not just focused with being able to form letters and sentences. But again, when reviewing the final list given by Barbara, I was flabbergasted with how much is actually involved with just getting the first word or sentence down. It would be a great resource to show students and teachers to remind them exactly how hard it is for some students to “just sit and write this down”. Basically as a teacher you are hoping students are pulling in so much information and control from the years before that the physical component is automatic for most. It was mentioned at this time that Co-writer universal and Word Prediction are huge in supporting kids in their writing and the writing process.

Next we examined a PowerPoint on the Writing Process which began with a quote from Margaret J. Kay who is a researcher who writes about what written language is. The PowerPoint went over different types of skills needed for writing and some ways we can use AT to accommodate for a lack of these skills. I placed the skills and possible AT solutions in the table below.

Type of Skill	AT Suggested Solution
Lower Level Content Skills (organizing)	Graphic Organizers (Inspiration or Pic Collage or Web Mapping)
Lower Level Mechanical Skills (pencil use)	grips, typing, word prediction, Read and Write for Google, Clicker Connect App or speak selection on IPADor portable device, Clicker Sentences or Write Out, Pencil Olympics Pages/Notes/Google Docs/Keynotes
Upper Level Content Skills	Co-Writer or any word prediction or voice or speech recognition- Dragon Dictation Siri on IPAD)
Upper Level Mechanical Skills	Co-Writer or any word prediction or voice or speech recognition – Dragon Dictation, Siri on IPAD

Next we watched a video from an Occupational Therapist called Sharpening Up on Pencil Skills. The video showed how controlling the trunk/middle has a lot to do with proper handwriting control. You need to tuck your tummy next to table or tuck your legs around the chair. They had a neat little activity to try with student called the Pencil Olympics. Holding a pencil is always a difficult item for me because I hold the pencil incorrectly, and therefore I have a hard time showing students how to hold a pencil. Grips do help and I am anxious to share this pencil Olympics activity with other teachers and my students. The next video we watched called Low Tech Handwriting Aids showed different handwriting devices for different purposes. They were more gross motor instead of fine motor. But the video showed how you could use various items to fix different problems including hair rollers from the dollar store.

The next thing we explored were various apps that could be used to accommodate different writing issues. Below is a list.

1.      Inspiration Maps – you can start with a template and modify it with a student. Research shows great for studying, can do speech to text, great example of universal design, can also present as a list view, can insert pictures and graphics, super easy to use for all grade levels and all curriculum.

2.      Kidspiration – cross platform. Same idea but more elementary. Can put a lightbulb moment, add a voice recording.

3.      IBrainstorm – Free, can grab all sorts of graphic organizers or start from a blank screen, and you can name it.

4.      Pic Collage – So I did a web search on this app and interestingly enough, it was original designed to be an alternative to scrapbooking. It was not designed with the classroom in mind. But after discovering how teachers had used their app successfully in the classroom, the company added recent additions to it to make it more student-friendly. As well, they came up with PicCollage for Kids, which can be used by kids of any age. Below is an example of how a teacher used PicCollage with her students to create a book report.

Retrieved from https://blog.pic-collage.com/2016/08/12/teacher-talk-piccollage-in-the-classroom/

5.      Tools4Students2: This app features 25 Graphic Organizers suitable for grade 4 -12 students. It has includes new organizers for: Chapter Notes, Document Analysis, Writing Organizers, Drawing Conclusions and 7 different blank templates where students and teachers can create their own labels, titles and headings. New to this app is users can create their own text or photos to compare and contrast. Students can use this to organize their thinking while reading or preparing to write. They can save organizers to the device, google doc, dropbox, as a PDF and/or email. All organizers can be used again and again. They can project onto a whiteboard and collaborate with team members. It is good to use to organize notes while reading or watching a movie or presentation and they can make excellent pre-writes for school papers. IBelow is an example of this organizer being used in a classroom setting. It is retrieved from: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/tools-4-students-2/id645375072?mt=8

6.      Word Completion is good for: some phonics and word recognition and spelling close. Spelling phonetically will likely not predict. Need to spell close enough.

7.      Speech to Text Apps: Spelling is not so good. Students watching as the words come up and have to teach to speak properly.

8.      Co Writer – word prediction apps for IPADS. With and without topic dictionary. Create a dictionary with topic name (the book icon) and click on dictionaries. The words will come up then. Need to know how to spell, but can also swipe words at bottom to the left and it says the word. Be careful some students just tap tap tap to complete the sentence – just words on a page. Students need to be able to get the words going.

9.      Clicker Connect Clicker Sentences (higher needs kids who are emergent literacy learners) – offers graduated supports for different learners. Will read the sentence to student. Students then tap on the cells to create the sentence. Can be any subject and can graduate students. Can place the words out of order. Can take away the model sentence. Model sentence can be pop up or just spoken. Different challenges and can move with individual student to build their skills.

The last activity of the day was for us to break into groups and find as many apps as we could for writing support. We were to share our findings in a collage. Our group had the Mac. Below is a picture of our findings:

My final and summative thought of the day is:

“Don’t want writing to be a fine motor activity but an activity they demonstrate their knowledge”