EduBlogger Survey

I saw this post on Hack Education this week and thought I'd take a moment to participate.  It's a survey about blogging for education.

Blog URL: http://teachingall.blogspot.com

What do you blog about?  Special Education with a focus on using technology to reach all learners.

Are you paid to blog? No, but there are ads on my feed and blog site.

What do you do professionally (other than blog)?  I'm a special education teacher in a small school district in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago.  I also do trainings and presentations about technology, special education and iDevices.

How long have you been blogging at this site? since July of 2008

Do you write in other platforms? (e.g. in a print magazine?) No

Can you remember why you started blogging? I felt like I had things to share and no other way to get it out.  I just wanted to share my perspective and ideas on teaching leaners with more significant needs and didn't see many others doing that.  I also have found it a great place to reflect on what I'm doing in the classroom.

What keeps you blogging?  The connections I've made, just a small comment is enough to keep me going, but I've made some many connections with other educators and teachers that have enriched my teaching.

Do you have any idea of the size or character if your audience? How?  According to Google Feedburner I have 1124 subscribers to my blog, and about 4400 pageviews a month.  I also have about 1500 followers on Twitter (although that's the first time in over 4 years I've actually looked that number).

What’s your attitude to/ relationship with people who comment on your blog?  Positive so far.  I don't think I typically write anything to controversial, but it could happen.  I have not had the occasion to have to censor comments (unless they are obviously spam), I hope that continues.

Do you feel as if you fit into any particular community, network or genre of blogging? (e.g. schools, science, education, museums, technology) - Assistive Technology

If so, what does that community give you?  Ideas and encouragement!

What do you think are the advantages of blogging? What are its disadvantages/ limitations?  Not sure I have an answer for this question.

Do you tell people you know offline that you’re a blogger? (e.g. your grandmother, your boss) Yes, I have no issue letting people know that I do this on the side.

Is there anything else you want to tell me about I haven’t asked? nope!

Probably nothing too surprising in this post, but it was an interesting reflection for me!

Patrick

Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons - Saad.Akhtar

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"Babies, start your engines" #a11y #disability #udel #assistivetech #spedchat #OTpeeps #PTpeeps

Toy ride-on cars provide mobility and sociability to kids with disabilities!  Cole Galloway, an associate professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at my alma-mater, the University of Delaware, is adapting off-the-shelf ride-on cars to enable children with limited mobility to explore their world and make friends.

Galloway's research focuses on determining if mobility can drive children's socialization.  He is known for his "babies driving robots" research.  However, he recently switched gears and is exploring the use of off-the-shelf, ride-on toys.  Galloway explains, “Using these cars in our project helps to normalize the therapeutic experience for children with limited mobility."

Galloway points out that the low-tech isn’t replacing the high-tech but complementing it.  While these ride-on toys are the real deal that you could go out and buy at your local Toys "R" Us, each car is adapted to meet the needs of the child who is riding it.  Added features, or simple modifications, include roll bars made out of PVC pipe, sling seats made from soft fabric, harnesses fashioned from mesh and plastic, and a specialized console over the steering wheel.  Future ideas for improvement include the use of GPS and webcam technologies.

The untold secret is that the low-tech aspects of this might not stay very low-tech very long.  We are still going to work on the high-tech, but in parallel we are also going to work on lower-tech solutions.

One of the larger goals for this project is to take what the research team is learning and create a toolkit for others who want to adapt the cars for kids with special needs. Galloway emphasizes the importance of doing this right. “We make sure to stay within the manufacturers’ intent, which is to use these cars as toys,” he says. “We don’t alter their use, and we don’t alter the safety factors built into the cars.”

“Fun is the key here—it unlocks brain development,” Galloway says. “When your main goal is providing socialization for infants and toddlers, you can’t ask for better collaborators than Barbie and Mater.”

Read more about this research project on UDaily.

-  Jeremy

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"In the End It's All About the Little Things" by @W3iGHTLESS #edchat #sped #spedchat #ABA

Matthew Vannice (@W3iGHTLESS) recently posted a brief literature review (including a video!) on instructional approaches, or strategies, for addressing problem behaviors.  Mr. Vannice is a special educator and intervionist at Lucile Erwin Middle School in Loveland, CO.  Since I thought this information has great value for everyone in the field of special education, I have copied his original post below.

In the End It's All About the Little Things...

Sometimes it's about dropping our intensity, anxiety, etc. over pacing guides, assessment, and academic growth. Sometimes its about the simpler things. Those things that make instruction accessible to all kids. Here are some tools from a brief lit review on instructional approaches to address problem behavior. Enjoy. 

Pre-Correction- pre-correction. With an instructional approach, the teacher proactively provides lessons on compliant behavior using demonstrations, explanations, positive and negative examples, and role plays (Colvin & Sugai,1988).  

De-Briefing- One strategy that is used following a negative consequence for a problem behavior is designed to prevent chronic non-compliance, is debriefing. This activity should provide feedback and planning at a time somewhat later than the initial response to the offense (Sugai & Colvin,1997).  

Behavior Rehearsal- Behavior rehearsal (Cartledge, 2005) or role-plays, are opportunities to practice and to be positively reinforced for complying with behavioral expectations. Pre-correction is an instructional strategy that is used in situations where non-compliance is likely, but before the non-compliance occurs. 

Friendly Rapport- Walker and Walker (1991) include making an effort to establish a friendly rapport by speaking informally with students outside of class, for example, before or after school, or during the lunch break, as a means of preventingnon-compliance in class. 

Behavioral Momentum- Compliance also can be increased by using a sequence of commands that begin with several easy to follow directions that have a high probability of eliciting compliance (Belfiore, Basile, & Lee, 2008). 

CICO- CICO involves rating how well a student has succeeded in meeting his or her behavioral goals during a class period and providing feedback and encouragement (Crone, Hawken, & Horner, 2010). 

Opportunity to Respond- Non-compliance in the classroom can be reduced or prevented by matching the instructional demands and the opportunities to respond accurately to the students’ ability levels (Gunter & Conroy, 1998).  

Controlled Choice- An important way to defuse the anger and aggression that often accompany disobedience is to calmly offer choices rather than to engage in the direct confrontations we know as “power struggles” (Colvin, 1999). 

Instructional Selectivity- Select high-interest of functional learning activities. Kids are far more motivated to learn when their instructional activities are linked to an area of high personal interest (Kern et. al., 2002).

Source:  http://e1ementa1.posterous.com/in-the-end-its-all-about-the-little-things


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Samuel Sennott's New Research on Writing & AAC

I am very excited to share about research that is being conducted on writing experiences of individuals with communication disorders by a good friend of mine, Samuel Sennott. For more details, see the project description and blog post by Samuel below.


- Jeremy

Come find out about Samuel Sennottʼs latest Penn State research project: You can help discover about the writing experience of individuals with complex communication needs.

http://www.alltogetherwecan.com/writingexperience

Samuel Sennott, PhD candidate at The Pennsylvania State University and co-creator of the original Proloquo2Go for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, is the principal investigator of an exciting new research study focused on the writing experience.

Wall Street Journal: Using Multitouch Therapy To Reach Autistic Kids

Wow!! "Multitouch therapy" was featured on the Wall Street Journal yesterday. The fact that such technology for children with autism is being featured by the Wall Street Journal is amazing. Even more impressive, is the fact that it is both research-based and open source (FREE)!

Download the software activities here. Requires a Windows 7 tablet supporting multitouch and OpenGL 2.0.

- Jeremy


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Google Squared

Google Squared is a web2.0 tool that's been out for a little while. I never really checked it out until reading this post at Web2.0 Classroom.

Google Squared is a simple concept. Take all the information on the internet about a specific topic, tease out the facts, and place it into a nice, neat, little chart. It's not perfect, but it does a pretty good job with simple searches. There are several examples on the Google Squared homepage.

I actually tried one for Dinosaurs. Here are my results: Dinosaur Square. Google put in names, pictures, descriptions, class, phylum, kingdom & genus. I added height, weight, how they walked, the list goes on. This could really be a powerful research tool for any classroom. I know it's not perfect, but Google Squared pulls together a lot of information into one place!

Patrick


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