Assistive Tech 5173 - Final Day - Summer Session

Last day! Woot!

To start off our last class, we were given the task of finding an assistive tech video to share with the class. I was given the topic of Assistive Tech in Sports. I immediately wanted to share a video of my friend Laura, who has metachromatic leukodystrophy. She was diagnosed with MLD in her late-teens and it has effected every aspect of her life. One thing that continues to grow is her love for life. She enjoys taking part in all activities. One that has alluded her over the years has been skiing. Unfortunately, I'm not able to share the video on my blog due to it being on Facebook, but it shows Laura in a modified wheelchair that can be used to ski. It's amazing to watch her ski while being assisted by an aid! It brings her so much happiness!

Chrome Music Lab - a really cool website for students with autism, that allows you to pair up sounds with visual images. 

Main Takeaways
Our iMovie that Christine, Jill, Chelsea & I created sums up some of our main takeaways from our course this summer.
1) Collaboration - collaboration is key in instances of assistive tech. We have so many people that we can consult when we have a student in need of assistive tech. Working collaboratively is critical in a student finding success & gaining the most out of their time in school.

2) iPads - we've heard it before & we'll hear it again...iPad's are by far the most accessible devices on the market. While more expensive than its competitors, the constant updates and the drive Apple has to adapt to different circumstances make iPads well-worth the extra money. As I mentioned previously, my goal for September is to acquire iPads for my classroom...fingers crossed!

3) Thinking outside the box - we didn't mention this in the video, but the Dollar Store activity was a great reminder that we have so many devices available to us that can be used to assist students in-need. All students do not need an iPad or a laptop to get by, but can use items that can be found for a dollar or two. Just have to get a little creative!

I appreciate having the opportunity to participate in this class. It's nice to partake in a worthwhile experience that will benefit me come September & the years that follow. 

Thanks for reading, time for summer to start! Cheers!

Assistive Tech 5173 - Day 11 - Summer Session

2nd last day!! Today was filled with all the presentations on Book Creator. There were a ton of great ideas presented today. I think we all discovered how useful of a program Book Creator can be. Now, my goal is to get the iPads for my school so that we can use it...a project for another day!!

I jotted down a few quick notes on the presentations.

Joy & Nike -  they created a welcome book for new staff, students, parents. They put their audio explanations on burgundy circles on each page. Very nice way to draw your attention to the explanation, cool format!

John & Laurianne - I liked their matching activities, along with their activity on creating a family album. We had a similar idea for our book as well...great minds, right guys?? I also loved the Daily Prophet idea, as in Harry Potter. I love being able to connect activities to relevant literature for the children. Well done!

Alecia & Holly - created a book on the journey through primary. They would use their book to create a memoir of their grade primary year. I really liked the table of contents that you made! You both had many creative ideas. In particular, I enjoyed the "Learn to Listen" idea, as I find "listening" is one of the hardest outcomes to assess.

Tracy & Joanne - what a cool idea to create a book on interview skills & etiquette. Resumes & interview skills are so hard to fine tune, and I think that your book is a real practical book that could be useful to a lot of people currently looking for work. Great thinking!

Suzanne & Dave - I liked your innovative ideas, especially using book creator rather than research posters...they really do get boring and are so limited with whom they can be shared with. I feel like the social stories book is also something that could be used very easily in class, and would make going through them with our kids a little more interesting.

Christine & Chelsea - awesome use of different apps and combining them with book creator. Really helps draw in the audience. The autobiography project was really cool. It's something that we do so often in class, but it's nice to have new platforms to present our ideas in a more engaging way.

Terry & Rachel - I really liked how you were able to take book creator & make it usable for post-secondary students. When we think of creativity, we so often think of younger students. I think it's important to continue to foster that creativity as we get older...it keeps a level of humor and fun in life!

Sherri & Michelle - Cool idea on the interactive cook book. Regular cookbooks are so inaccessible, using book creator makes them accessible for all. I like the idea of creating a class book...makes for a fun keepsake from the year!

Nick & Sue - Neat idea for the personal classroom yearbook. I love all the class projects that I did as a student that I got to keep, so I really like the idea of doing more of those in my classroom. Cool idea for making the patterns, as well.

Assistive Tech 5173 - Day 10 - Summer Session

Book creator day! Jill & I spent the day working away on our 20 creative ideas for using book creator in the classroom. I love using book creator and really enjoy how versatile an app it is. It's the best $7.00 I've spent this year, by far.

We spent the entire three hours putting our book together and I'm really pleased with the final results. I found that book creator could be as simple or complex as you wanted it to be, as were the tasks that we were creating for its use.

I'm looking forward to presenting tomorrow & showing a few of our favorite activities. In the meantime, I've put a couple samples below from our book.

EDUC 5843 - Design Thinking Process Reflection

Reflection on the Design Thinking Process

By Chris Heisler

I found that the design thinking process was a well-organized process that kept our group on task as we worked through the steps towards finding a solution for our problem. We began by following the discovery steps and all expressed, via brainstorm, different problems that we have experienced in our individual careers. Fortunately (or unfortunately), we were all able to identify with the problem of the divide between staff in a school, with three groups of newbies, fundamentalists & believers being prevalent in most schools.

Using the design thinking process allowed us to follow the process, knowing that we would come to a solution eventually. We so typically jump directly from discovery to prototyping, trying to solve the problem directly after discovering it, before understanding the reasons behind the issue.

I could use the design thinking process in many different methods in my experiences at school, both in the classroom with my students, as well in my school along with my coworkers. I feel as though it would be interesting to go through the process with my class, as I think they would really enjoy the step-by-step approach. It would allow them to look at how their thinking progresses as we move through the phases, and I think they would love the step in the interpretation phase where they can provide any suggestions they can think of, no matter how illogical or out of the box. I love being able to facilitate discussions with my students where they do not have to feel confined when thinking of solutions to a problem. I think using the design thinking process would show them that it is not just okay to think outside the box & throw out any ideas they can think of, but it is, in fact, encouraged.

EDUC 5843 - Creative Design - Spaces

I created my space video in my home, in my living room. My living room has been the place, over the past 16 months, where I have learned the most as a teacher, as well as a student. As a father to my son William, whose laughter you hear throughout the video, I have learned more than can be described in a blog post. He has taught me more about patience, creativity and love of life than I knew I could experience. I chose to use my living room as the physical space for my video, as it has been the most amazing classroom I've set foot in.

The character you see moving around is William's favorite toy. He's making his journey through our living room, going from toy to toy as William does each day. I enjoy how quick the video moves as this really does replicate William coming into the living room each morning and going from item to item, being so happy to see each one as he finds it.

It's hard to describe the joy that comes to this room each day. As we discussed on our hike last week when it comes to experiencing an environment, you can take a picture of a beautiful piece of scenery, but how can you describe how the wind felt? Same goes for my video...you can hear the laughter, but you can't truly appreciate it until you've seen the face that goes along with it.

I think this project is relevant to my class as it shows that creative spark can be found in the simplest, everyday objects.

As frustrating as I found this project to be, the end result made me happy.

Assistive Tech 5173 - Accessibility Options

Android - android devices offer many accessibility options, including access to bluetooth, ability to adjust the brightness, different font sizes, many different languages, speech-to-text and the talkback teacher to name a few.

Chromebook - as we've heard for quite some time, the Chromebook does not offer nearly as many accessibility options as other platforms. They do offer, though, alternate backgrounds, different touchpad & keypad series, incredibly limited language options, easy access to shared drive folders, large mouse feature, spoken feedback, along with others.

iPad - iPad's are by far the most universally designed device. Just a few of the options would be Siri, voice-to-text, incredible language options, ability to magnify text, mobile home buttons, voiceover options, adjustable brightness, along with many others.

MacBook - inverted colors, increase contrast, adjustable cursor size, zoom options from the keyboard, many voiceover options, captions, subtitles, sticky keys & keyboard sounds, along with many others.

PC - PC accessibility options are a little more tricky to find. You need to go into the control panel, followed by Ease of Access. When there, you can find some options such as: different mouse options, many keyboard options, speech recognition, audio descriptions.

Every platform has a select number of different accessibility options. Youtube is a great resource for finding out more information about them!

Assistive Tech 5173 - Day 9 - Summer Session

Today's class was all about Book Creator. This was, by far, my favorite app that I was introduced to in our last tech course, 5163. Book Creator is an innovative, creative app that can be used in so many ways. Our task today was to begin our final project of creating an e-book of 20 different ways that we can use Book Creator in our class. Jill & I were both really excited to get started on the project and came up with some great ideas right away. I'm glad that we have some time to work on this project next week, so we can narrow down our ideas into the best 20, to then show our class!

EDUC 5843 - Creative Design - Day 9

Mark Rothko (orange & yellow) 

I enjoyed our discussion around Mark Rothko's painting, orange & yellow. His painting is a great expression of creativity. Rothko purposefully does not include bold edges or lines to the rectangles in his paintings. I think this can be translated to our current classrooms. We, as educators, should be providing the framework for learning, but without limitations. We need to impose students sense of freedom & risk, and let them go beyond the borders. Only after this, will we have students reaching their full potential.

EDUC 5843 - Creative Design - Day 8

Luckily, I felt as though I had been creative yesterday! We were fortunate enough to get to present our Design Thinking Process yesterday, where we discussed our thoughts on the divide often found in our schools between our staff. Namely, how they're divided up into 3 groups: the newbies, the fundamentalists & the believers. I won't go into great detail on how these groups tend to mix as we went over it in detail in-class, but I was very happy with how creative our group was with our potential solutions that we provided to the class. I think the very nature of problem solving is intertwined with creativity.

I also loved the opportunity to get outside and play today! Double dutch, bubbles, sidewalk chalk...kids love to play and they need to do more of it (without their devices), and so do adults! I think we sometimes get so caught up with daily life and all the crap that comes with it, that we forget how liberating it can be to just get outside and play games.

Assistive Tech 5173 - Day 8 - Summer Session

Today was an awesome day in class. We got to visit 7 different stations and use all sorts of cool AT that I had only heard about up until now. I've been wanting to try eyegaze ever since Barb showed us Aiden's video at the start of our previous AT course, back in April. It didn't disappoint...eyegaze is amazing!

Station 1 - Powerlink & Switches

At this station, we got to experience using different types of switches in conjunction with a powerlink. We brainstormed 10 different activities that could be done using these types of switches:

1) Turn lights on/off

2) Turn on the TV

3) Respond to questions

4) Communicate greetings

5) Drive using a joystick

6) Play video games

7) Use computer using sip/puff

8) Drive a wheelchair using a joystick

9)  Play games with peers

10 Communicate wants/needs

Station 2
Onscreen Keyboard PC
Two of the methods of using the onscreen keyboard are having to click the actual letters or just having the option to hover over the letters. Another option is the scanner keyboard, where a program highlights an on-screen keyboard & allows you to go through row-by-row to select your letters. It would be a very slow, tiring process using this to type out a message. However, it would work if that is your only option.

Station 3
Ipad & Switch Access via bluetooth
This station had us playing curling via with switch access & the iPad. We also had to find 10 other switch acessible iPad apps. The curling game was a ton of fun, but my thows need some practice!

1) Adapted PlayBook EIEIO
2) Adapted Playbook - Hurry Hurry!
3) Big Bang Patterns
4) Big Trucks
5) Bumper Cars
6) Koppy Katz
7) Little Lost Penguins
8) Matching Cards - Snap
9) Memory Pairs
10) Mini Mystery Readers

Station 4
Eyegaze - eyegaze is an amazing program that allows you to access the computer only using your eyes, via retina scan. This is a game changer for anyone who is not able to control their limbs. It could be used with someone who is paralyzed or not able to direct select. It takes an otherwise secluded person and allows them to do just about anything using the internet. It can allow a person to communicate & stay social with friends and family. It can allow a person to develop intellectually and professionally.

Station 5
Alternate Keyboard
The alternate keyboard would be helpful for people with visual impairments, due to the contrast on the keyboard. The large keys would also make it helpful for people with direct select difficulties.

Station 6

Android - work through accessibility options on the android device

The android device had many accessibility features (but not as many as an iPad!). However, for the price, it is a great device for someone with a disability.

Some of the accessibility features we found were:

Talkback (provides spoken feedback to help blind& low vision users), Switch Access (lets you scan and select items using one or more switches), Captions, Magnification Gestures (you can zoom in and out), Large Text (increasing text size) & High Contrast Text, Accessibility Shortcut (you can press & hold down the home button and it will bring you to the accessibility options at any time), Text-to-speech output, Color inversion (helpful for people with dyslexia)

The GooglePlay store had some apps that might enhance performance of a person using an Android:

1. Assistive Touch for Android - puts a home button anywhere on the screen
2. Google BrailleBack - give a combined braille/speech experience
3. @Voice app - Read Aloud App

Station 7

For this station, we needed to find 3 youtube videos on students with severe physical disabilities using power links, switches or other alternative devices

1) Meet Ellen - we chose this video because Ellen successfully uses the switch access programs to communicate in her everyday life.

 

2) Meet Jared - Jared uses sip/puff technology to access his computer, where he builds websites & communicates with the world. 

3) Meet Sam - Sam uses his iPad to connect with the world & to take notes. It's eliminated his need for an aide. 

 

AT Video 
Before all of these stations got started, we watched a video on 4 students who used assistive technology in their everyday lives. Below are a couple quick notes on the video:

Joy - 14 - uses switch access to communicate. She could be using Eyegaze or AAC currently.

Justin - Grade 10 - electives offer opportunities to participate

Todd - has CP; interacts in a purposeful way w/ people in the school

Michael - down syndrome - uses switch technology to interact with others

I appreciated seeing all of the team members come together to meet the needs of these students. Through teamwork and collaboration, the challenge of integration can be met.

That being said, I thought that some of the statements the video made about disability were a little concerning. As we've said numerous times throughout this course, and specifically in the disability studies course I took earlier this year, presuming competency should be at the forefront of our focus. When one of the aides in the video said, "Todd isn't actually learning Math, but he is helping others learn.", that immediately jumped into my head. If we're aware that a student isn't learning Math, but is able to use various technology, could we not be making his time a bit more purposeful? I think the language we use can determine as to whether we're approaching disability with the correct mindset or not. I may be off base, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Cheers!

EDUC 5843 - Creative Design - Nature Hike

 “These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.” 
―Anton Chekhov, “A Day in the Country”

Assistive Tech 5173 - Day 7 - Summer Session

Today we all presented our favorite low-tech items that we found from our trip to the dollar store.

Some of the highlights as we went along:
1) Alecia & Tracy - what a nice chart, very well organized. They showed us stretch bands - they can be used for students with ADHD as a sensory device & as a way to relieve stress/anxiety.
2) Joy & Nike - Soap dispenser - can be used to help distribute the proper amount of TP for someone who only has use of one arm...very creative!
3) Holly & Joanne - Fuzzy Wuzzy is a cool sensory item that kids would love to use. It can also be used for fine motor skill development.
4) Nick - Pool noodle - can be used in phys ed class for various mobility impairments. Can be used to tag others so they can participate in games.
5) Sue & Terry - Elastic band with decorations could be used as zipper pulls & sandpaper that could be used to make storyboards. Really great ideas, especially the bands for the zipper pulls. I could think of a number of students right off the bat that would use that regularly.
6) Sherri - showed us tennis balls. Great for noise control in the classroom.
7) Dave - bicycle bell - used for nonverbal students to get attention or participate in classroom conversations.
8) John & Laurianne - scarf holder can be used as a sorting activity, work on patterns & help develop fine motor skills.
9) Michelle - pool noodle wrapped in duct tape that can help a student with fine motor issues cut food safely
10) Chelsea & Christine - pool noodle can be used as a grip for utensils, card holders & a foot fidgit
11) Suzanne & Rachel - Bug looker-at-er - has a magnifying glass attached to a bucket, would be very helpful to help with someone with a visual impairment to read smaller texts or to focus on specific words.

I really enjoyed our class today! It was awesome to see everyone's creative ideas. I find many of us can be hard on ourselves & think that we're not creative, but today 20+ of us demonstrated that we can find a variety of low tech items, at a cheap cost, that can help our students & benefit their learning!

Assistive Tech 5173 - Summer Course - 20 Low-Tech Dollar Store Items

20 Low Tech Items - Dollar Store

By Chris Heisler & Jill Martin

Today's activity brought Jill & I to the dollar store to find some low-tech items that could be used to enhance performance of an individual with a disability. It was amazing how many options there were once we got a little creative with the items we found. I'm really pleased with the letter/cookie sheet activity, as I feel as though this is something that I can bring in on day one of the school year and use!

1) Magnetic Letters - these magnetic letters could be used in tandem with any metal surface to identify letters, letter sounds and to make words. They would be helpful for students with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia.

2) Floormat Blocks - these blocks could be used as a puzzle and could be useful with developing fine motor skills.

3) Magnifying Glass - could be helpful for anyone with a visual impairment in reading smaller texts.

4) Foam Pool Noodle Connector - this could be a great sensory object for a child with autism, to help relieve tension or stress when feeling overwhelmed. Children could put their hands/arms in the pool noodle.

5) Sippy/Snack Cup - this sippy/snack cup would be appropriate to use for anyone with motor skill difficulties. Its large, easy-to-grip handle would be easier to hold onto & its rubber base would help keep it in one place, along with making it a durable container.

6) Large Bath Brush - this brush could be used to paint with, if someone had trouble gripping a regular paintbrush due to fine motor skill difficulties or any other physical disability. It would allow them to participate in in-class art activities, as well as extra-curricular painting.

7) Blue Document Holder - this document holder (found in multiple colors) could be used to assist a person with dyslexia with reading. Colored transparencies, put over texts on white backgrounds, can help stabilize letters, making it easier for the individual to focus & gain meaning from text.                                 

8) Medicine Bottle Magnifier - this item would be very helpful for anyone with visual impairments. It helps magnify the texts on medicine bottles in order to prevent confusion.

9) Play-Doh - Play-Doh could be used for a variety of different reasons: it could be sensory for children with autism, it could be used as a fun way to build letters/words for people with learning disabilities, it could be used to build shapes for children learning them who may have low-retention.

10) Jar - this item would be great for making a little sensory jar for children with autism. It’s small enough that they could fill it with their favorite items & keep it within hands reach, in order to use it whenever they see fit to help ease anxiety or stressful situations.

   11) Toothbrush Holder- Add rocks or beads to this item and it could be used as a noise maker for students. It is easy to hold for most and has ribbing which adds sensory details.

 
 





  








12) Caterpillar Toy- This item is prickly and squishy and would be great for children who enjoy sensory activities for entertainment or calming.

13) Hands free binoculars- This item could be used for students who don’t have the use of their hands or have low vision. The binoculars strap around your head and magnify what you are looking at.

14) Frisbee- This giant frisbee is soft in texture and is larger and easier to hold than a regular frisbee. This can allow everyone to particpate.

15) Enlarged Badminton racket and Shuttle- This item would be good for students with low vision or slower hand eye coordination.

16) Jumbo calculator- This item would be good for students with low vision or for students who want to learn numbers.

17) Fishing Tackle Box- This item could be used for a sorting activity. Students could sort, letters, numbers, shapes etc. into the number of compartments in the tackle box.









18) Foam Building Blocks- This item could be used to build, stack or sort. They are made out of foam so it could be used to squeeze when a child feels stressed. This item could also be dipped in paint or glue and used for a crafting activity.

19) Positive saying Pilons- This item could be used as a stacking or sorting activity. They are large in size so would be good for any student who has difficulty with fine motor skills. They have a rubbery, smooth texture.

20) Dish Scrubber- This item could be used to clean surfaces or dishes. Students could use this for painting or as a tool for scratching an itch. This item has a rough texture so would be good for students who like sensory details.