Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Computer Brain Interface

Monday, November 3, 2008

Everyone is doing it -- writing about and downloading Access Aps

Access Aps is a free set of open source software, like Open Office, and assistive technology softwares.

Here are some of the applications on Access Aps:

You can choose from a full download, a lite download or "pick and choose" to get only what you/your learners need. The Access Aps need to be downloaded, unzipped and then installed on a flash drive to make it portable and usable on any computer. You will need a 2G or bigger flash drive.

30 Days to Being a Better Blogger - Day 3

Today's challenge to be a better blogger is to write a thank you note. Established bloggers are to write a thank you note to someone who has linked to their blog. New bloggers are to write a thank you note to some one who inspired them to blog. I am thinking I qualify as an established blogger, thus I am posting here an open e-mail to the writers of the following blogs:

Patrick Black at Teaching All Students
Alicia at SMD Teacher

Dear Patrick and Alicia,

First of all a belated welcome to the small, but growing, world of special education blogging. I am writing my thank you note to you because you are joining me in using the power of the internet to provide resources to teachers, therapists and families of learners with special education needs. The speducation blogesphere is small, but it is mighty, and it is great to have you are new voices out there. Also thanks for linking to me.

Sincerely,

Kate

30 Days to Being a Better Blogger - Day 2

Day 2's theme is "play in traffic". This is pretty easy for me because although I have only been writing this site for two years I have been blogging for six or seven years and have always used a site statistic analyzer on my blogs. In order to make this a true challenge I will use a new statistic service, Google Analytics. I have been signed up with them for some time, but don't use it. Here are my October stats from them:

9,475

Visits

6,677

Absolute Unique Visitors

22,489

Pageviews

2.37

Average Pageviews

00:02:41

Time on Site

60.99%

Bounce Rate

66.09%

New Visits

Not bad. More visitors that last month, 1/3 of visitors are returning visitors, 39% look at more than one page (that is what the 61% bounce rate is) and the average visitor stays about three minutes. I haven't really learned anything I didn't already know, so let me dig a little deeper into the stats.

The browser stats tell me 65% of my visitors use Internet Explorer (come on people, time to switch to Firefox!), 25% use Firefox and the rest use one of nine other browsers (I didn't know there were nine other browsers! This tells me I need to be sure to periodically checkout how my blog looks in Internet Explorer so I can maximize the experience of those visitors.

Meanwhile 85% of my visitors use some flavor of Windows, 14% use a Mac and the rest use one of eight other browsers (flavors of Linux, iPod and iPhone and Blackberry to name a few). Thus I need to check in with some of my Mac users and make sure the site is working for them the way it should (feel free to comment and let me know).

Nearly all of my visitors have their browsers set up in English, but I have visitors with browsers set to six other languages as well. Additionally my visitors come from 103 countries and territories, but most are from the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia (no surprise there, given I write in English). Perhaps I need to spent more time writing about special education in other countries to make my blog as well rounded as my visitors.

Vistors to the site came from 306 different sources. Most visitors 60% come to the site after using a search engine, but quite a few come directly by typing in the address or using a bookmark. The rest come through other blogs, chat groups, listservs, social bookmarking and e-mail sites. (I have noticed a huge spike in visitors everytime someone posts my site to a listserv like QIAT or the Boardmaker Group.) One interesting fact - more visitors come through an image search than a text search. I guess I better keep posting lots of images.

So there you have it, I have playe din traffic!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Introduction of a New AAC Color Coding System

Aac Color Coding

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: aac augmentative)

We Love Our Wireless Doorbell!

We have been using a wireless doorbell for different purposes in my classroom for nearly a decade. Our most common use is a way for staff to summon other staff to give assistance, for example we keep a wireless doorbell in the changing area so that when a student who requires two staff members for a transfer is being changed only one staff has to stay during the change and then she can ring the doorbell to call for someone to help with the transfer back to the wheelchair.

We also use a wireless doorbell as a way for students to call for assistance, placing the "ringer" on the tray of a special needs toilet seat and allowing a student privacy with the ability to ring the bell when finished. Another way we use battery operated wireless doorbells is for students to summon staff in the community, again with the ringer (adapted or unadapted) on the tray the student can "ring the bell" to let us know that he or she needs help. In a smaller store the receiver can be kept with the student and the staff can track down the student by listening for where the ringing comes from. In a larger store the student can use a code to indicate location. One ring is the front of the store, two the back, three by the restroom, etc.

Wireless doorbells will run you $12.00-$30.00 depending on features at your local hardware store and eBay and other websites sell a wide variety of novelty doorbells if you are looking to lighten things up. The "ringer" can easily be adapted by someone with basic soldering skills or Enabling Devices sells a pre-adapted wireless doorbell.

30 Days to Being a Better Blogger - Day 1

Based on Teach42's suggestions for taking a month to improve your blogging I am starting off the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger challenge.

Day 1, Question 1 - Who am I?
Well, my name is Kate Ahern. I am a veteran teacher of learners with significant special needs. I live in New England and how a M.S. in intensive special education. I started this blog without putting my name or anything else about me on it (I was a bit gun shy from some negative blogging experience before this). Eventually I added my first name, later my picture and still later my last name. My address is only listed as New England. My place of employment is not listed anywhere (as this site is not sponsored, endorsed or in other way involved with my employers). I do have a list of my web 2.0 contacts from instant message and email addresses to microblogging and photosites. However, contrary to Teach42 suggestions I do not have a link to my "About Me" Blogger page and I don't plan to add one (one last shred of privacy, I guess.) Teach42 suggests a paragraph about yourself and perhaps you resume, but I will decline on that, two years of posting and I am fairly certain that it is obvious I am a special needs teacher.

Day 1, Question 2 - What is your blog about?
Suggested things to think about one this on include what are you trying to accomplish with your blog? Who are you writing it for? What kinds of articles do you try to post about and how is your perspective different than everybody else’s? Also suggested is looking back on your first dozen or so posts. I started this blog while out on worker's comp for a leg injury, at the time I was feeling very much disliked by most of my colleagues. It might have been some minor paranoia and it might have been true, but I think it is a little bit of both. My perception was that folks thought I was a nerd and know-it-all (a reputation I have had my entire life) so I decided if I blogged about what I knew it would let people come to me to find out what I know instead of me pushing it on people. Overall I think the blog as a way for me to "nerd-out" about intensive special education without being annoying has worked well, especially since some 9,000 people a month seem to come find out about something I know. So on a personal level this blog was for me to share what I know about teaching learners with intensive special needs.

First and foremost, I write this blog for other special education teachers, but I know I have all sorts of general and ESOL teachers who follow along, in addition to parents of learners with disabilities, those in teacher education and those in assisitive technology. I am thrilled that all these people find value in what I write, but my goal is always to help teachers of students with low incidence disabilities better do their jobs. People who know me well would say that, on occassion, I also use this blog to vent, but I hope even when I do that I back up my arguement with research and critical thinking so that it is benefical to others!

I post about everything that comes into play in a teacher of learners with multiple special needs day, from curriculum to scheduling to assisitive technology and more. I hope that my perspectives are different from others in that I research what I write in order to ensure that what I put out their is indeed best practice and that I focus on what is best for students, not what is cool, popular or new out there in the world.

So that is day one, look forward to 29 more days.