My Crazy Idea - Feature Article on Adapted Learning

I've used Boardmaker for years and have talked about their products quite a lot on this blog.  I'm excited to say that I've was asked to write a Feature Article for their board sharing site AdaptedLearning.com.  You can check it out here - My Crazy Idea....  If you haven't checked out Adapted Learning for all the free boards for Boardmaker you need to!  It's a great way to get ideas!

Patrick

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#ATIA2010 - Orlando, Saturday

Saturday was a short day, but I was able to find some good sessions.  It seemed to be a day for Twitter as I was able to attend sessions by @briandowd & @assistivetek.

Brian Dowd, @briandowd, shared his experiences as Assistive Technologist for Alton School district (in Southern Illinois), as well as Region I & III in the same area.  One difficulty of his position is how large an area he has to service in a given week!  His solution, a Wiki, it allows teachers to get resources and ask questions.

Brian Friedlander, AssistiveTek, shared some technology supports for writing.  Now, I was unable to stay for the entire session (due to having to get ready for my presentation), but I did hear some very interesting points!  He spent some time talking about some of the new features of Inspiration - Drag & Drop editing, mind mapping, presentation mode, and more.  He also showed some of the ways that other programs, like Solo Suite 6, could integrate in to provide word prediction and such.

The last presentation I attended, well that would be my own!  I was very excited to again present at ATIA.  For those of you new to the blog it's about my idea to help my students with SCD research and present on a topic (for example desert animals).  You can see the presentation here - My Crazy Idea....

I'd like to take a moment to thank several folks for coming to the presentation (and not heckling) - Jeanette, Chris, Brian & especially Lisa, along with all the others who stayed around to the very end for my session.  It was a blast to present, and I can't wait to do it again.


Patrick


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#ATIA2010 - Orlando, Friday

I had intended to write each evening before going to sleep about the day I had had....as you can see that clearly did not happen!  As I got back to my room last evening, I need to get a few things finished with my own presentation - My Crazy Idea..., pack, and get a good night rest.  So I never got around to talking about Friday's presentations.  So here's what I thought.

I attended a great session Friday morning by Penny Reed & Gayl Bowser (both very active QIAT Leadership type people!).  They presented a great session about ways to work smarter, not harder by using web tools like - Blogs, Nings, & Wikis (hmmm...seem familiar!).  Some of the blogs they mention were Teaching Every Student, No Limits to Learning, & TLWMSN.  They also talked about the AT Help Desk they created to help teams diagnose the best way to fix problems - AT Help Desk.

I went to a great session by Libby Rush on how to teach writing!  While she had way to much material for a 1 hour session, she was thoroughly engaging and fun to watch!  There was a lot discussed and most of it is in my notes (but she talks really fast, and I can't type that fast!).  I'll do my best to try and put up a post soon about her ideas.

My favorite sessions were by last two.  First I saw Marie Duggan, a Mom-NOS (not otherwise specifed), of 6 kids, one with Autism!  She had filled her sons life with symbols, schedules, and communication.  I'm amazed at all the solutions she came up with.  When a problem arose they found a way to to help him.  I think what I was most impressed by was that she didn't just work on the problem, she worked on the WHY!  Then she worked on a way to help him understand!  An utterly amazing woman.  I wish she had had more time because we never got to hear about the new software she is working on.

Last, but certainly not least, was SMART Inclusion in the 21st Century:  Integrating SMARTBoards with AT.  A long title, but worth every second!  A SLP, Alexandra Dunn at a small school board in Ottawa, Canada decided that the best way to integrate their students with SCD in the general ed classrooms was through SMARTBoards!  The results were profound and AMAZING!  All students increased participation and showed skills they never had before.  Each SMARTBoard was used with BM, Classroom Suite, Notebook Software and they used it with all the students (not just the ones with IEP's!).  They had Airliners (think portable mouse), Intellikeys, and switches so that there was a lot of alternative access, just depending on what the student needed.  They even let some kids use their Bluetooth enabled devices to interact directly with the SMARTBoard!!!!!!  They have some research, and as soon as it is posted I will let you know.  This was some exciting stuff!


As you can see, I'm quite excited by my experience at ATIA.  It's always amazing to me how much it helps to go to conferences and meet with other professionals, it's just an electric atmosphere.  I have some information about today's sessions to post, and it will have to wait (I should be boarding momentarily).  Again, if you are interested in reading my notes from the sessions please feel free to check them out here - ATIA Notes.


Patrick


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ATIA - Orlando

I'm excited to announce that I will be presenting at the upcoming ATIA conference in Orlando. In Chicago I was excited to meet Chris Bugaj (@ATTipscast), Karen Janowski (@KarenJan) and several others. I hope that I have the opportunity to meet more of my PLN in Orlando, and I invite all of you to view my presentation on Saturday, Jan 30 at 11:45 in Boca II - My Crazy Idea...Web2.0 and Student Centered Learning for Students with SCD.

Patrick

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My Crazy Idea...Presentation

It's feels like it's been a long time getting to this point, but today is my presentation at ATIA. I'm so excited and honored that they chose me to present. I'd like to offer everyone a chance to view it too! So here it is!!!

My Crazy Idea...-Web2.0 and Student-Centered Learning for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities



Patrick

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My Crazy Idea...I'm not the only one!

So as I read through my CEC SmartBrief today I noticed this little article:

LA County Science Fair Survives Dip in Donations

I was so excited to see that other teachers had found a way to include their students in their learning. It's just a little blurb, near the end of the article, but it means that there are others out there, "crazy ideas"! Let's make sure more of them get heard!

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My Crazy Idea...Reflections

From Teaching All Students

So the project is done, kids have presented, parents are pleased...so what do I do now? Like any good teacher I guess I should reflect on it, and see what worked and what didn't. Overall the project was a huge success, but when I do it again (not IF, when!) I'll probably make a few changes.

Voicethread - such a great resources, easy to use, easy to share. Some problems - 4 kids recording at the same time is a little hard to do. Probably should have sent some kids out of the room to keep the background noise down. Also, I'd like to have some more training time for my staff, since I'm not the only one doing it. Not that I actually have more time in the day to do training, but it's something I'm working on!

Research - So now my thoughts are turning to other ways this type of project could be completed. I can see social science topics that could be used (history topics, or community workers...), but I'd like to use it for many more things. It's just something I'm going to have to keep thinking about.

Learning - I know my students learned! I gave them a simple worksheet and they had to pick the facts out about their animal, and they did amazingly well!! Now, did they learn about the animals the other students studied...that I can't be sure about. I was so focused on having the kids do their own project, it didn't occur that I should be looking at that. Maybe I shouldn't admit it, but I was focused on other parts. We also were learning about the desert, and I again I didn't look into what they retained there either.

Technology - All the technology pieces worked pretty well - Diigo was a great way to share sites with information. Tar Heel Reader allowed the kids to create talking books, and use great photos, and worked without a hitch. Voicethread I covered above, and using a switch adapter it was easy to allow the students to stand at the front of the class and "present" by pushing the switch to advance the slide. One area I wish I could have included the kids in more was picking/saving/cropping the photos. That was something I did for them. Not sure if there is a way around that, but something to look into for next time. One other piece I'd like to look into was using Glogster to create a virtual poster, again that's something for the next project.

So as of this moment I don't have any more "crazy ideas", but if I do, I'm sure you'll be the first to know! Please feel free to share any crazy ideas you have, and your success!

Patrick

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My Crazy Idea...Projects

From Teaching All Students

I said I would share the projects with you, so here we go. The first set is actually what the students created using Voicethread. Thanks goes to Christine Southard of Christine Southard's Blogspot for the idea to create a guessing game! The kids presented these projects to their parents and it was a great hit.

Presentation 1
Presentation 2
Presentation 3
Presentation 4

As a class we also created several books about the desert. You can see these books here:

How Do They Move?

The Desert

Desert Animals

If you haven't tried out Tar Heel Reader, now's the time to do it. It's so easy to create a book, and share with others! You can even download in Powerpoint, Flash, and Apple Impress formats.

Patrick


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My Crazy Idea...done

The projects are done (I think). Today we created our Voicethreads and it's looks like we are ready to present our projects to our parents. Let me go into a little more detail about the past week and what we've been doing.

As stated in my previous post - My Crazy Idea...Project Update I reconfigured the worksheet I had my students completing in effect simplifying it. The students worked to complete this worksheet. Once they completed the worksheets, I turned those answers into sentences. I allowed the students to place these sentences in any order. The sentences were used to create a Voicethread which they will present to their peers and parents.

This has been a great experience for me. The kids have really enjoyed having a say in their learning, and to see the looks on their faces when they heard their own voice come out of the computer was priceless! I will be doing some reflection on what we have accomplished, and areas that need to be tweaked, but that's a post for another day!

Patrick

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ATIA 2009 - Chicago

ATIA 2009 - Chicago is set to be held at the Renaissance Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL about 5 min from where I live. I'm especially excited to attend in October because I've been unable to attend any conferences since last year.

I've also decided to submit a proposal to speak at ATIA, and would encourage all other professionals, bloggers, parents, any person using technology in their daily life to submit a proposal. You can find the information at the ATIA site. And if you are coming to ATIA please stop by my presentation - My Crazy Idea...-Web2.0 and student-centered learning for Students with SCD (if it's accepted). If it's not accepted, I look forward to meeting many of you!

Patrick

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My Crazy Idea...-Project Update

I feel as thought it's been so long since I've blogged, and it's really only been a week. I'm glad to have taken the break, and have enjoyed the time off from school. It's really time to get back to work and finish this year on a high note!

I wanted to take a moment to update some progress I've made on the research project the kids are working on. Just before break I made some discoveries that have changed the project slightly. I had been discussing my project with a 1st grade teacher, who had recently done a similar project with her students, and I realized I didn't know what the standards were for 1st and 2nd grade. In talking with this teacher I discovered that I may have become a little ambitious in the amount of work I wanted my students to complete. This was an important realization for myself, one I realized how disconnected I am from "General Education" as a whole. Even though I trained in both Special Education and General Education, I have never worked in a Gen Ed classroom, which leads me to my second realization - you always need a Gen Ed partner!!!! I realized that the majority of First grade students are required to write 4 sentences, 4 facts, in a research project. I had planned on my students learning several more than that, as evidenced by the Desert Animals Fact Worksheet I posted on Adapted Learning. This really made me sit back and take a look at my project, and reassess what I was asking students to learn, and make sure it was appropriate for their age level.

As I said this is a learning process for me, so the plan is to scale back a little. I will have the students fill out the worksheet, but then will use that worksheet to have them find the answer to 4 questions:

1. What does their animal look like?
2. Where do they live?
3. What do they eat?
4. Can you give 1 interesting fact?

This will form the base for our presentations that we will be sharing in the near future. I will keep you updated as the process continues. I hope those of you who had a recent break have a good week back, and for those of you getting ready for break enjoy your time off!

Patrick

Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: CJ Sorg

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My Crazy Idea...-Project Status

So we've started our project. The students have picked their animals and the research has been stated! I started by creating an educator account (which is free!) Diigo.com and added a group to collect links about desert animals and the desert. These collection of links will be used to do the majority of the research, with help.

The students started reading through the facts and we wrote down what they liked. While this research is unfocused, I plan on changing that when we start the next part of our project. The next part of the project will have the students looking through the facts they've found (and we've written) to fill out a worksheet about the animal. If they don't have the information, they will go back and find it.

You can download a copy of the Desert Animal Fact Worksheet at Adapted Learning (make sure you log in first).

This part of the project may take a while, and we are heading out on spring break tomorrow. I will continue this idea when we get back into the project!

Patrick

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My Crazy Idea... - Where do I start?

It took me quite a while to figure out how to make this project a success for my students. As I stated before my students are mostly receptive learners, and over the years I've become really good at taking a topic, and breaking it down into the simplest terms. I've created many, many books that share this information with students, and allows for easy questioning, and information retrieval.

While there is nothing wrong with this, I've always wanted to include my students more in their learning, which is where the idea came for this project. So I decided to start with a topic that the students are more interested in - animals, specifically desert animals.

So here's my plan, the students will pick an desert animal that interests them. Once they have picked an animal, the will use the internet and books to collect information about both the desert and their animal.

This was my first snag, when trying to plan for this project. I knew my students would not be able to read at such a level to complete the research. I knew myself and my assistants would need to read the research to the students, but do I give them ownership of this research. I decided to use this by having students pick and choose what they liked and don't like. Here's a picture of the response boards the students will be using.

This board will allow the students to answer simple questions, "Is that a fact about a coyote?", "Do you like it?", etc... This is the ownership, this is the way students get to express themselves.

So the first part of the project will be completely student driven. They can pick and choose pictures, facts, and other such things that they like, they are in charge. With that being said, I feel there needs to be a little direction in this area, but that's a post for another day.

Patrick

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My crazy idea....

Have you ever had an idea that you just couldn't get out of your head, lately that's been me. I've always been an advocate for teaching students with significant disabilities as much as possible, and have wondered how I could include more student driven content in my classroom. The challenge is that students with significant cognitive disabilities are most certainly receptive learners, and student driven content is an expressive process, so how to bridge that gap?

So here comes my crazy idea, my students will be creating a presentation about the desert biome and an animal that resides in the desert. They will be creating this presentation from information they collect from books and the internet. This project will be student driven with help from myself and my assistants.

So join me on my journey. It will be interesting, but I think it will end with both students and teachers extremely happy!

Patrick

Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Cayusa

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