Annie's Resource Attic is a site for teachers that offers activities and animations for download in a variety of formats including Classroom Suite, Clicker 5, My Own Bookshelf, Power Point and Test Me, Score Me. This is the "attic" of the Anne Brundige studio..
All activities are free, list suggested ability level (cause and effect and up) and have a description of the activity. The site is set up like a blog and can be subcribed to using an RSS reader like Google Reader or Bloglines.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Beyond a Voice AAC and Literacy
As I always tell parents, our students cannot communicate their own original thoughts unless they either use a language compaction program like Unity/Minspeak (which, in my personal experience, can be limiting to literacy) or unless they can read and spell.
Reading and spelling has so many other benefits, as well as being a basic human right, that it is often the way to go. If you work with people of any age who use AAC to communicate you should check out the webcast about AAC and literacy at AAC-Rerc. It is never too late to learn to read.
Many of you know PRC has been doing major work with literacy lately, now one of their competitors, Dynavox, has announced it will follow suit. The following new information was announced on Lon's podcast No Limit's to Learning "A.L.L (Accessible Language Learning) - A literacy program coming this fall (September 08) from Mayer-Johnson/Dynavox. Includes phonemic awareness, sound segmentation, etc. Provides guided and independent practice. Can be accessed on a Dynavox device, on Boardmaker plus or stand alone on a computer. The system compliments reading curriculums already in place as a supplement.
Reading and spelling has so many other benefits, as well as being a basic human right, that it is often the way to go. If you work with people of any age who use AAC to communicate you should check out the webcast about AAC and literacy at AAC-Rerc. It is never too late to learn to read.
Many of you know PRC has been doing major work with literacy lately, now one of their competitors, Dynavox, has announced it will follow suit. The following new information was announced on Lon's podcast No Limit's to Learning "A.L.L (Accessible Language Learning) - A literacy program coming this fall (September 08) from Mayer-Johnson/Dynavox. Includes phonemic awareness, sound segmentation, etc. Provides guided and independent practice. Can be accessed on a Dynavox device, on Boardmaker plus or stand alone on a computer. The system compliments reading curriculums already in place as a supplement.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sites of the Day
Here are two sites to check out for back to school. I recommend getting a mini portable external hard drive or a very high capacity flash drive and filling them up with the worksheets and activities from these sites and others, all the boards from the Yahoo Boardmaker Group and anything else you may you from year to year, setting to setting.
- Kidz Club Learning Resources has a variety of seasonal, reading, math and basic concept PDF worksheets and activity ideas, download to your drive for last minute lessons and time fillers
- Therasimplicity is created to be a paid online boardmaker replacement for speech and occupational therapists, however it has a variety of hand outs, worksheets and games that are useful for the special education teacher. A thirty day trial membership is plenty of time to explore the site, see if you want to sign up and download any handouts, worksheets or activities you may wish to keep on hand on your hard drive.
- SuperDuper is one of my favorite companies and they provide samples of many of their products in PDF format, i.e. this summer I didn't send my students favorite game, All About Me, All About You to ESY, but I was about to download the questions from the game from the SuperDuper site and the ESY teacher was able to use them. They also have an extensive handouts section.
- SEN Teacher if you haven't been here in awhile SEN Teacher has some new printables for downloading and printing with no need to differentiate or make age appropriate or our kids
- TSL Books This site has worksheets, activities, crafts and puzzles for grades Pre-5 all free
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Yuichi's Games
Yuichi's Games is an add-on to Boardmaker Plus and Boardmaker SDP. From what I understand it is one heck of an add on, it is completely switch (and touchscreen, and head/eye tracker) accessible games. Nine games for sixty dollars. I put in my order with my $300-500 of materials I was allowed to order with my classroom budget last May, so hopefully the disk is waiting for me on September 2nd.
Yuichi's Games is also Yuicihi's wonderful new blog. Yuichi is now an employee of Mayer-Johnson doing full time development for them. If you are a member of the Boardmaker Yahoo Group (or QIAT or someother listservs) you know Yuichi from his postings. Yuichi's blog brings some of his postings to life explaining some of the more complicated, advanced features of Boardmaker Plus or SDP with tutorials and videos. I can't wait to go install youtube videos into Boardmaker Plus Boards.
Just think I can make it so I will not have to activate a music video of Mambo No. Five or Who Let the Dogs Out as a reward, Boardmaker Plus can do it for me!
Did you Jott?
If you did you probably know it isn't as free as it used to be. Jott is a speech to text application that works over the phone. It allows you to call in your text messages, e-mails, blog entries and more. Jott still has free portions, but now is out of beta testing and cost $4 a month for 15 second Jotts and more for longer Jotts.
Some of the things Jott was being used for in special education were quickly calling in qualitative and quantitative data to e-mail, allowing students to call in assignments to their e-mail so they don't forget them, allowing students to use it as a compensatory technique for memory issues (and using it youself this way) and much more.
Here are some other, similar services you can try if you liked Jott and still need something free:
Some of the things Jott was being used for in special education were quickly calling in qualitative and quantitative data to e-mail, allowing students to call in assignments to their e-mail so they don't forget them, allowing students to use it as a compensatory technique for memory issues (and using it youself this way) and much more.
Here are some other, similar services you can try if you liked Jott and still need something free:
- Dial2Do is speech to text that is free and works with text message, twitter, jaiku, e-mail and a reminder list
- ReQall is a service very similar to Dial2Do and Jott, free speech to text with delivery to voice, instant message, text message, e-mail as well as rss and various widgits
- K7.net is unified messaging services, basically they provide you with a phone number and then e-mail you every voice mail and fax you recieve on that number, thus you could call yourself with your reminders, data, etc. and receive them via e-mail
- Grand Central is another service intended to control your phone service, it give oyu a phone number that rings the phone of your choice when you get a call it also is a visual voicemail, it converts your voicemail from speech to text and emails it to you and it has many other features, run by Google it is in Beta right now
- You Mail another service similar to above, but you use your own number
- Vlingo is a service for Blackberry users that voice enables most features on your phones including email and texts
- Evernote is a service for iPhone users, it doesn't seem to be totally free (or maybe it is? I don't have an iPhone - could someone comment?) but it does seem to be what iPhone Jott users are switching to
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Classroom Schedules and Functional Curriculums
With a new class this year, in a new building, I have spent a lot more time than usual preparing my classroom schedule and reflecting on the difficulties on addressing both the federally and state mandated academic curriculum and the absolutely necessary functional curriculum all while meeting personal care and behavioral needs (and assuring my paraprofessionals get their well deserved breaks). Below is a Slideshare of where I am right now with scheduling. (Click icon of the screen to actually be able to read it.)
It looks good on paper, but will 15 minutes really be enough to bring three girls and a boy (By the way when does that happen in intensive special needs? More girls than boys in a class? This has to be a first!) to the rest room and "freshen up" the other young man? Besides we all know the schedule will be blown to bits by a seizure, a "meltdown", a fire drill, an assembly, wheelchair clinic and/or therapy schedules many days. Still I love to think that it is possible to fit everything that is important into the (completely inadequate) 30 hours a week I am allotted.
There is a very interesting article in this month's Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities on the factors contributing to the use of a functional curriculum in a cross categorical special educational classroom. It really pushed me to reflect on whether my beliefs about the value of a functional curriculum match what I do in the classroom. It also pushed me to think about how much NCLB and mandated state assessment takes time from my instructional day and limits the time I have to actually address functional curriculum. Reading the article made me shift a few things around in the schedule and think about how to better balance what I am mandated to do by the law and what I am mandated to do by my student's needs. In a contest between teaching to a test and teaching my student the skills that will bring them better outcomes in life and a higher quality of life overall deciding what to do takes mere seconds.
Besides what good is knowing who Walt Whitman is or your state's history if you have no way to communicate it? And what good is knowing algebra or geometry if you can't count money or tell time? And what good is knowing how to write or type if you can't figure how to make a grocery list and then shop for those groceries?
It looks good on paper, but will 15 minutes really be enough to bring three girls and a boy (By the way when does that happen in intensive special needs? More girls than boys in a class? This has to be a first!) to the rest room and "freshen up" the other young man? Besides we all know the schedule will be blown to bits by a seizure, a "meltdown", a fire drill, an assembly, wheelchair clinic and/or therapy schedules many days. Still I love to think that it is possible to fit everything that is important into the (completely inadequate) 30 hours a week I am allotted.
There is a very interesting article in this month's Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities on the factors contributing to the use of a functional curriculum in a cross categorical special educational classroom. It really pushed me to reflect on whether my beliefs about the value of a functional curriculum match what I do in the classroom. It also pushed me to think about how much NCLB and mandated state assessment takes time from my instructional day and limits the time I have to actually address functional curriculum. Reading the article made me shift a few things around in the schedule and think about how to better balance what I am mandated to do by the law and what I am mandated to do by my student's needs. In a contest between teaching to a test and teaching my student the skills that will bring them better outcomes in life and a higher quality of life overall deciding what to do takes mere seconds.
Besides what good is knowing who Walt Whitman is or your state's history if you have no way to communicate it? And what good is knowing algebra or geometry if you can't count money or tell time? And what good is knowing how to write or type if you can't figure how to make a grocery list and then shop for those groceries?
Friday, August 22, 2008
Beyond the Traffic Light
Traffic Light systems for behavior management are very popular right now. Many teacher catalogs sell pocket charts designed to use this system. I myself have used this system in the classroom and found what many teachers have found, it works great... until about March.
Traffic Light Systems might seem like a positive reward system in the beginning, especially if everyone starts on "red" and earns their way to "green". However, if everyone starts on "green" and "drops a level" as a penalty for some misbehavior or misdeed then it is really a response cost system or if once students earn a level higher than "red" and then drop back down as a penalty it is a response cost system.
Some problems with response cost are that students who frequently enter into the "yellow" or "red" soon discover that this is "not so bad" and it becomes little deterrent to further negative behavior, the attention that a student receives from the act of dropping his or her level may be just enough attention to reward him or her for acting up (and ensure he or she does it again) and the "traffic light" system does little to teach or reward appropriate behavior, especially for the 80-90% of kids who are usually doing the right thing.
Think about it this way - which is more likely to get you to drive carefully and courteously the possibility of a traffic ticket (response cost) or an officer stopping you and giving you $100 for yielding in an intersection (intermittent reinforcement).
Perhaps instead of using that traffic light system as a response cost system you could use it as a classroom wide positive reinforcement, i.e. put everyone on red, including you and all the paraprofessionals. Then anytime anyone receives a compliment (decide on the rules ahead of time is it only compliments from you? from any adult? from adults and peers?) they go to yellow and then to green. When the whole class is on green the whole class gets a reward such as a party, lunch with the teacher, no homework, a trip, bring your own money to order out (BYOMOO), etc.
Traffic Light Systems might seem like a positive reward system in the beginning, especially if everyone starts on "red" and earns their way to "green". However, if everyone starts on "green" and "drops a level" as a penalty for some misbehavior or misdeed then it is really a response cost system or if once students earn a level higher than "red" and then drop back down as a penalty it is a response cost system.
Some problems with response cost are that students who frequently enter into the "yellow" or "red" soon discover that this is "not so bad" and it becomes little deterrent to further negative behavior, the attention that a student receives from the act of dropping his or her level may be just enough attention to reward him or her for acting up (and ensure he or she does it again) and the "traffic light" system does little to teach or reward appropriate behavior, especially for the 80-90% of kids who are usually doing the right thing.
Think about it this way - which is more likely to get you to drive carefully and courteously the possibility of a traffic ticket (response cost) or an officer stopping you and giving you $100 for yielding in an intersection (intermittent reinforcement).
Perhaps instead of using that traffic light system as a response cost system you could use it as a classroom wide positive reinforcement, i.e. put everyone on red, including you and all the paraprofessionals. Then anytime anyone receives a compliment (decide on the rules ahead of time is it only compliments from you? from any adult? from adults and peers?) they go to yellow and then to green. When the whole class is on green the whole class gets a reward such as a party, lunch with the teacher, no homework, a trip, bring your own money to order out (BYOMOO), etc.
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