Click to Read - Aimee Solutions #spedchat #spedtech

I have written before about Aimee Solutions and love all the products they have offered.  While they continue to offer their Take and Teach Language kits, they are adding more to their catalog.  These ladies who are a technology facilitator, speech therapists and an occupational therapist in a Chicagoland special education cooperative have outdone themselves with their new offering - Click to Read!


The Click to Read series is a set of early literacy programs available for use on your computer.  Each CD contains 4 stories centered around a topic.  These stories can be read, interacted with, retold, and expanded upon with games and other materials.  They also include printable materials for you to use off-line.  The programs are written to be used with students from pre-K to high school and beyond.  They have tons of options for switch access (both automatic and step scanning), P.A.C.T. highlighting, feedback for switch access, and much more.



The programs also include several different levels for retelling from simple fill in the blank to recreating the story page by page.  The games can be set to different levels like picture matching, word to picture matching or reading words.  All games include audio prompts and corrective feedback when needed.



There are 3 different Click to Read programs to choose from:



Animal Habitats

• The Desert - Animals, birds and plants that live in the Southwest Desert
• A Home in the Forest - Animals that live in the forest and where they make their homes
• Pond Life - Animals, insects and plants found in the pond habitat; focus on prepositions "in, on, around"
• Ocean Creatures - Familiar ocean inhabitants; 1:1 correspondence through 5

All About Me

• I am Me - all about self awareness & qualities that make us unique
• How Do You Feel - Real life examples of activities & interactions that make us happy, sad, mad & excited
• Using my 5 Senses - Making Kool-Aid is used to teach students about the 5 senses
• Looking Good - personal grooming and hygiene

Life Skills

• Ben Goes Shopping - Help Ben find what store to buy items at
• Community Signs - Signs found in the community and what they mean
• What Time is it? - Time of day and common activities associated with each
• How Much is it Worth? - Introduction to money values, saving and spending

I have to say that I have used both All About Me and Life Skills with my students, and they love them. The stories have predictable phrases and engage the students from the start.  They especially enjoy retelling them.  The programs can be used on any computer, but excel on a SMART Board, Promethean, or other touch screen.  They become so much more interactive and the students really get into the stories and activities.  I highly recommend these programs!

Check out all the Take and Teach Language Kits & Click to Read programs at Aimee Solutions.

-  Patrick

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Wednesdays with Sam (@SFecich) #spedtech #assistivetech #spedchat

Hello! I am Samantha Fecich, I am currently a Ph.D. student in the Instructional Systems program at Penn State University. This is such a great opportunity to learn, share, research, and collaborate with others in the field.
I was a former special education teacher for four years. I taught at a school for students diagnosed with disabilities. During my first two years of teaching, I taught students diagnosed with Multiple Disabilities. I really enjoyed this class, I learned a lot from my students about assistive technology, augmentative and alternative communication, and accessibility. My last two years I taught technology integration, I would go into each classroom and “push in” technology. With the help of my colleagues, we created a technology rich school, which utilized: several interactive whiteboards, laptop cart, Ipod cart, flip video cameras, and more!
I believe that it is very important to have a repository of resources and links to use in the classroom. Some tried and true sites that you can link to during a class presentation. It is also important to give parents and caregivers access to sites and tools to use in the home to reinforce concepts which are being taught in the classroom.

Wednesdays with Sam does just that. Wednesdays with Sam is a resource for teachers, students, speech therapists, parents and other professionals in the educational field. This site is full of interactive tools, resources, sites, and games to reinforce many different topics. The website  has a countless number of resources separated by subject area on the left hand side. Wednesdays with Sam covers the following subject areas:

• Alphabet concepts
• Animals
• Art
• Assistive Technology (vendors)
• Calendar
• Colors
• Community helpers
• Consumer science
• Health
• Matching
• Math
• Literacy
• Music
• Numbers
• Safety
• Science
• Seasonal sites
• Speech resources

… and so much more!

The site is updated weekly as I obtain new information and resources. I find great resources from Twitter, RSS feeds, Diigo, and some of my own digging around on the net. I try to make sure I cite the original finder of a tool or site and provide a link within my Google site.  This site was as a tribute to one of my late students, Michael. He loved working on the computer at school and at home. He used a single switch to access the computer so he could play educational games, read books, listen to music, and watch videos. I want Michael’s legacy to live on within this site. To learn more about Michael click here.  It is important to have a resources of links and tools to use in the classroom. It is also critical that parents and caregivers have access to these sites to use at home to reinforce concepts. Wednesdays with Sam does just this. I hope that you enjoy the site, utilize it within your classroom, and share with others.
Special thanks goes out to Jeremy and Patrick for letting me contribute a guest post to your awesome blog!

Please feel free to contact me anytime with any questions or comments:

Email: SFecich@gmail.com
Twitter: @SFecich
Google + ID: Samantha Fecich
Blog: Sam's Cool Tools for the Classroom  - I created this blog as a resource for educators, parents, and other professionals in the field of education. The blog will review apps for the IPod Touch, tools for IWB, laptops, and more. Join it and follow it on you RSS!

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Meet Mrs. Rega & her cvstechtime site #spedtech #spedchat #lifeskills

I would like to introduce a new member of my ever-growing PLN, Marissa Rega.  Marissa is a Technology Integration Teacher at a center-based school for students with special needs.   She teaches technology, life skills, as well as music.  She has taught in learning support and life skills classrooms for the past ten years and is now transitioning to the Technology Integration Teacher position.  Some of her favorite technologies to use in the classroom include SMART Board, iPods, and web 2.0 tools.  Marissa's site, cvstechtime, is currently under construction.  Her site features resources for teaching consumer and life skills (i.e., cooking), interactive/web 2.0 tools, and teacher tutorials.

-  Jeremy

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Skills Workshop (@skillsworkshop) - functional life skills, literacy, math, ESOL resources #spedchat #spedtech #assistivetech

skills workshop is one of my recent Twitter discoveries.  Although this site has existed since 2001, it was redesigned and relaunched in February 2011.  It features over 1,500 FREE functional life skills resources contributed by 400+ registered users.  Resources are categorized under one or more subject area(s):  literacy, numeracy, ESOL, ICT, and contextual.  Then resources are further organized by subject(s) and level(s).  Also, there is a powerful site-wide search engine with extensive filters as well as tag clouds.   ALL of the resources are FREE and you don't need to register in order to view, download, or print.  However, optional registration has a number of other benefits.

Benefits of optional registration:

• upload & catalog your resources to an approval queue
• suggest external links to an approval queue
• edit the descriptions or upload updated versions of your contributed resources
• leave comments on resources or links
• contact other site contributors
• vote on your favorite links
  

-  Jeremy

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Boxmeup

Boxmeup is a new website and app for Android that has some interesting applications in a classroom.  The basic idea of Boxemeup is that it allows you to create virtual "containers" and "lists" of items.  You can then assign the items to the containers.  While this is all done on the computer, but what makes it cool is that those virtual containers, can be real containers in your house, classroom or office.  Boxmeup creates a QR code to put on the physical container.  When you scan the code (using an Android app only at this time) it will tell you what is in the container.  You can also search for your items on the website and it will tell you what container they are inside.

I could see this app/website being used in a functional work environment.  It could help a student find items that they need to complete a job, giving them some independence.  You can also use in a school setting to help students remember where items are in the school, linking a location to the item.

Patrick

Thanks to Lifehacker for this information.


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Your Special Chef

Your Special Chef is a great site for cooking recipes for all ability levels.  Created as a senior & Girl Scout project the creator says:

Your Special Chef is my Girl Scout Gold Award project and my Senior project. I am passionate about helping those with special needs after helping my brother Sam, who has Down Syndrome, and volunteering in a life skills room. This project is especially dear to me as it combines my love for design, cooking, and helping those with special needs.

The recipes share are visual, downloadable, and rated by difficulty.  Lesson guides are provided for all the recipes too.  There are quite a few great recipes that can be done in a school setting.  Take a few moments and check out this site!


- Patrick

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#AppMondayTAS - iDress for Weather

I was reading a great list of apps - Jeremy Brown's App Recommendations for Students with Autism Part 1 - and while there are quite a lot of great apps on the list, one especially stood out.  iDress for Weather is a simple app that tells you the weather, and suggest the best clothes to wear.  It has some great customization options and is very easy to use.

To start, the app asks to use your location, it will then display the temperature (wind & humidity too, if you'd like).  If you swipe the screen to the right, you get a closet with suggested clothes to wear.  To check the options, touch the "i" in the bottom left corner.  You can change between Fahrenheit or Celsius, select from the last 10 locations, change the temperature levels and turn on the extended information.  The custom temperature levels are quite interesting, allowing you to set what you consider Hot, Warm, Cool, Cold & Really Cold.

When you swipe to the right, you get to see a closet with suggested clothing.  When you click the "i" in the bottom left corner you can upload your own photos and create your own closet!  It even includes a closet for a rainy day.

What I really like about this app is the educational value it has for life skills.  Using this app you can start to define the temperature words, and pairing that with appropriate clothing for the type of weather.  You could easily use this as an activity to guess the best clothing based on the temperature.  I can also see this app helping students who might show resistance to wearing certain clothes, by seeing what the app suggests it could help with that issue.  There are quite a few uses for this app.

This app is $1.99 and well worth the price! - iDress for Weather  If you like this app, please also follow and Like it on Facebook - iDress for Weather Facebook.

The developer of iDress has provided me with 3 codes to give away!  As always, you can register to win one of them, using the methods below:

1.  comment on this post

2.  Like Teaching All Students on the Facebook Fan Page, then leave a comment on the wall

3.  Tweet about this post using the Hashtag -  #appmondaytas

I will put your name in for each method you choose, randomize them, and pick the winners.  Please have all your entries in by Thursday, Jan 27 and I'll post the winners on Friday.  Good Luck!

Patrick

**The developer provided a review copy of this app**


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PenFriend

A very interesting device that I was introduced to at ATIA was the PenFriend.  The PenFriend is basically a voice labeling device.  When you touch the PenFriend to a specific place it will vocalize.  The spots come with the PenFriend and can be programed to say whatever you want.  So you could place them in a book and when a child touches the pen to the spot it would read the page!  The Pen friend can hold up to 70 HOURS of audio!!!  and there is no limit to how much audio can be programmed for each dot.  This could be a very useful tool in classroom settings to help kids be more independent in reading books, and definitely meets the multiple means of representation that UDL recommends.


- Patrick

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341 Catering

Based on the classroom where they work from, 341 Catering offer's students with disabilities at Mt. Lebanon High School the opportunity to practice real world skills. I read about this classroom on the CEC SmartBrief. You can read about the classroom here: 341 Catering

This article caught my eye, because of it's simplicity. Teaching work skills, real world, life skills are an important part of any curriculum for kids with SCD. This idea of providing baked goods and coffee on a daily basis for meetings and staff is a wonderful to get kids involved. By using technology you can even include students with more significant disabilities - switches for mixing, taking orders, transcribing orders, the list goes on.

In the past I've had students take orders for the Ellison Machine and cut out the letters. I also have students complete jobs around the classroom like putting away books, cleaning desks, and taking notes to the office. What other novel ideas do you have for teaching work skills to students?


Patrick


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Vital Information for Students to know!

A while ago (I'm ashamed to admit at least 2 months ago) a reader forwarded me a link to this article: 50 Things Your Child Should Never Know. I'll admit the title kinda turned me off, but I decided that I would get a chance to read it and offer my opinions, and I'm glad I did! It was an insightful and useful post and I suggest that you read it. I do admit that I don't agree with all the statements (The Holocaust is something all children should be taught about), I do think it brings some very interesting points to consider.

It got me thinking about what information children should know. Especially for students with more significant cognitive disabilities that raises a very interesting question. I personally can remember learning my address, phone number, police & fire phone numbers (I lived in a small town, and we didn't get 911 until I was in middle school) in Kindergarten. Now, as a teacher I teach these items to my students - name, address, phone number, school, age, birthday, etc... I even encourage parents to get dog tags, bracelets, or something to help the children remember these items. Students with disabilities must be able to effectively communicate this information in case of emergency.

Even as I write this, I know that there are problems with teaching them this information. I know that by making it easy for my students to give the information, it makes them easy victims! I know my students will trust just about any adult that comes up to them, and give them the information freely. I do my best to teach them safe persons to talk with, talk to them about strangers, but I don't know if it works. Even with all this, I still do it...mostly because I am hopeful that good people are out there! I can't send them out into the world without knowing their vital information, so I have to hope that nothing bad will come of it.

It's not perfect, I'm curious if anyone else has faced this problem? Have you had any solutions that have worked?


Patrick

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LIfe Skills

Here's a great website for teaching Everyday Life Skills - GCFLearnfree.org. The lessons are video based and allow the students to make mistakes, and it will gently correct them. The lessons are geared toward older students. They include:

Everyday Life - cooking, grill safety, maps, work, money, etc...

Math & Money - basic lessons on math

Computer Training - internet, basic computer use, Microsoft Office, etc...

Online Classes - Free classes for all users

Living with HIV - interactive and printable workbooks about HIV

The Everyday life section is very usable and is great for kids who learn with pictures, and like to explore a little. The website requires registration.

Just One Club Card

So how about an adaptation for adults. We all use assistive technology to do things, we just might not think about it all the time. How many of us use different size pens, or maybe we just need a stool to get that one item off the top shelf. Here's a great one - how many club cards do you have right now? I mean here in Chicago we have Jewel-Osco, Dominick's, & CVS. Don't forget Petco & Petsmart, and do you go to Staples, Office Depot or Office max? They all have cards, that's 9 cards to carry around, sure you can put one on your key chain, but what happens when it breaks? I have the solution - Just One Club Card. Here's an example of what you can do:



Just take all your cards, select the store from the drop down menu, then put in the number from your card. Click "create your card", it will create a card for you, then just select print! That's it, all done! You now have 1 card with up to 8 different store cards on 1 small little card. I would suggest that you print out on a laser printer, as the ink is more precise and also has less chance of smudging. Laminate and stick in your wallet. You are ready to go! Happy Shopping!

Patrick

Remember the Milk

I have been trying out a new service called Remember the Milk. This is a way to help organize your life. You can set up tasks to complete that are personal, study, work and any other category you might like. it's a typical task list in this regard, but it's the interactive features that set this apart. You are able to integrate Remember the milk with your e-mail, Twitter, outlook, Gmail, & Ical so you have multiple ways to access the site.

You can send in your tasks by e-mail or in a direct message from Twitter. The site will e-mail, update Twitter, or text you your todo list. If you put in a specific time it will text you before your appointment, at a predetermined interval.

Another feature is the ability to set up locations, you can tag your task with a specific location. Google mapping is integrated with this feature so you can see where your task it. If you have a Mac you can download a Dashboard Widget - Remember the Moof or a application for windows - Remember the Milk Tool

I know I will be trying this site out and helping myself stay more organized!


-  Patrick