Day 4: Appropriate Individualized Technology, more AAC, Social Stories and Video modeling...

Appropriate Individualized Technology in the Classroom

Hippasus a consulting firm based out of Massachusetts, that helps transform education by bringing together technology, pedagogy and administration, founded by Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura Ph.D. There services include:

• project-oriented consultation
• intensive work seminars
• prepackages solution bundles

Dr. Puentedura's primary focus is the integration of technology in the classroom; he is an engaging speaker with very innovative ideas. He ideas a so practical about the next steps to take with technology in the classroom but there is much to consider because, it is very hard to compare classrooms within schools and to other schools, the amount of available resources schools have, and a teacher's comfort level and knowledge of technology. The first school I taught in had a very active principal who was continuously writing grants, she won one which gave all classrooms in grade 3 to 5 Smart-boards and Document Cameras. That spring we all gave up lunch hours and time after school for training only to find out that they would not be installed until summer vacation. For some this was extremely frustrating because without practice you forget what you learn, and others were moving either to new schools or in my case, out of country; making the whole process feel like wasted time and effort. In this situation, it seemed the excitement over the technology outweighed the planning of everything else and having a forward thinking, commonsense guide like Dr. Puentedura would have been helpful.

One of the things that Dr. Puentendura speaks about that I really like is "focusing" which is bringing together the work of faculty that is natural and lightweight. He talks about individual classrooms doing great but no one is sharing so the the whole institution moves forward. This is not evident in my current school, there is a split between teachers desperate for technology and those who like the traditional way. Fortunately the administration sees the value of technology in the classroom, but is limited by budget! This is so unfair for students who could benefit from the use of technology and the teachers who want to give it to them!  How can we change this situation? Students should not have to make do because of the school they attend or their teacher's lack of comfort with technology. 

I wish the board that I belong to could see what other boards are doing (for example what we saw in our last class). There are some boards that are embracing technology and finding the means to get it and allowing students to bring it from home. Seeing those students who were unsuccessful in the classroom, blossom and grow with the appropriate assistive technology should be all the incentive needed.  Working for a board with the motto: "Every student can learn. Every school will improve." Shouldn't they make opportunities for all students to have an equal fighting chance!

PECS - Picture Exchange Communication System

This is a low-tech AAC that was originally developed for use with young non-verbal children with autism and other social communication deficits. The PEC system is based on applied behaviour analysis, facilitators gradually shape the child's "impulse to reach for the desired object into the communication act of giving a picture symbol to another person. That person gives them the desired object in return" (Communication Matters, n.d.). Communication is made concrete.
PECS is taught in phases:
Phase I: "How to Communication" - goal is initiation.
Phase II: "These are your words - hunt them down and hunt down your communication partner" - goal is independence (generally the longest phase).
Phase IIIA: "Simple discrimination" between pictures of high-preferred items over non-preferred - goal is 80% correct selecting target picture over several distractors.
Phase IIIB: "Discriminating among multiple pictures of desired items" - goal is 80% correct times looking inside the binder to find desired picture.
Phase IV: "Sentence structure"  - goal is building toward spontaneous commenting.
Phase V: "Responsive requesting" - goal independently answering, what do you want?
Phase VI: "Responsive commenting" - goal spontaneously commenting on the world around them.

However using the PEC system can be cumbersome as can be seen from the image above. It is necessary for a student to carry a binder full of Velcro-backed symbols which they flip/sort through to create their intended message. Although time consuming to make, the advantage is a fairly low tech communication tool. Disadvantages include: the time to print, cut and laminate the symbol cards (provided you have the boardmaker program), the symbols are easily lost or destroyed, and there is a worry that the child may forget the intended message before all the symbols are found. I understand that it is essential to match the correct assistive technology tool to the child but wonder if there are cases where PECs could be skipped and a child could simply begin with Proloquo2go? Proloquo2 go is an electronic version of PECS.

As you may have noticed in the video Charlotte is still learning to associate the symbol cards with the item that she desires, and her mother is patiently offering her trays full of items. They also have to occasionally take a break because Charlotte stops looking at the symbols. Watching her work and seeing how long she is able to sit still, I wonder if instead of PECS she should be learning to use Proloquo2go!

I work in a school that has many students with varying degrees of autism for most of these students communication is an issue. There are also two students that physical disabilities which have effected how their mouths/jaws developed making speech difficult. There are many frustrating days for these students when the messages are not coming across as quickly as they need to be. Finding out about Proloquo2go was amazing! I shared this with the learning center and she was able to get it installed on one of the iPads, and like you mentioned the planning and layering continues to be ongoing.
Some other cool apps such as My Choice Board and Aeir Talk which are great options and less time consuming than create the PECS binder with boardmker!

My Choice Board - $9.99. An audio-visual display of choices for iPhone and iPod touch with camera. Fully customizable pictures and voice options.

Aeir Talk - free. Also an audio-visual display of choices but for the iPad. Fully customizable pictures and voice options.

Video Modeling and Social Stories

As teachers, there are certain things that we want are students to learn to do or learn to undo. This often involves class discussions, negotiations and role playing, it also includes: social stories and modeling in the classroom. Providing social stories and video modeling of is most useful for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who rely on visual aids/cues.

Students with ASD have 3 main areas of difficulty: social communication, imagination and interaction (O'Brien, 2012). Because of this video modeling is an excellent way to teaching new behaviours and reinforce acquired ones. Ideally modelling a correct behaviour replaces a previous incorrect behaviour. Video modeling involves demonstrating a correct behaviour that has been recorded, and this can be played over and over again. Some apps that support video modeling (and social stories) include:

1. Toontastic - A free iPad app that is great for preschool and early elementary children. Using a cartoon template, a digital storyline can be created. The user can record their own characters or characters within the app, and add their own music. Stories may be shared online.

2. Strip Designer - $2.99. This iPad, iPhone and iPod app can be use to create non-animated comics for storytelling. Personal and web photos maybe used, the app also offers templates with advanced customizing options.

3. FlipBook - $4.99. The animation iPad, iPhone and iPod app allows the user to create animations from still drawings. Once the series of drawings is complete they can be pieced together as a movie and played back.  Like Toontastic, FlipBook movies may be shared online.

4. This is My Story (and I'm sticking to it!) - $1.99. The iPad, iPhone and iPod app offers several story writing activities including a "Make Up Your Own Story" option with bold colours and engaging sticker-like graphics.

5. Book Creator - $4.99. An iPad app that is creative, easy and fun way to make your own book. It provides a simple layout system to integrate pictures, text and sounds.

6. TherAd app - $14.99. An iPad, iPhone and iPod app that allows the user to video self-modeling behaviours. The app is fully customizable so it can be tailored to the unique individual needs of the user.

Social Stories are a tool used to teach social skills to children. They are useful to anyone who has difficulty reading social situations. Social stories give children accurate information about situations that a child may find difficult or confusing; they are designed to described a specific situation in detail, focusing on the important social cues, the event and the reactions that a child might expect to occur. The goal of social stories is to increase the children's understanding of, comfort level and appropriate response in specific situation therefore reducing anxiety and undesirable outbursts (Wallin, 2004). To be effective they should be practiced and reviewed on a regular basis.

Social stores generally contain 4 types of sentences:

1. Descriptive (who, what, why and where) 
2. Perspective (details about the emotions and thoughts of others) 
3. Directive (the desired response)
4. Control (for remembering the story and details)

The above apps are also fantastic to use to create social stories for children. Below is a great social story about getting angry in the classroom. It meets all elements that define a social story and its purpose, I believe that it clearly and concisely tells the student what they should do in this situation although it is a little long.

As always Barb gives us an opportunity to explore and creative useful and high engaging activities for our classroom.

We got to use Pic Collage. It is another iPad, iPhone and iPod app that could be used to create social stories and video modeling, but we had been talking about visual schedule. Visual schedules are ideal for students with autism, strong visual learners or students who are off task, inattentive or unfocused or require structure. We were given the opportunity to come up with 5 ways each to use Pic Collage.

Here are my 5:

1. Studying habitats is a component of the NS grade 4 science curriculum. In this activity the student sorts and places animals in their natural habitat. This can be used as an exit ticket at an end of a class or as a center activity or an informal assessment for a student

2. As part of healthy living, students select healthy breakfast foods. This pic collage activity requires students to view the drink and food options, and make choices to build three healthy breakfasts.

3. A students is able to move the balls around to how the answer to 10 divided by 2. A fun way for a student to demonstrate a specific curriculum outcome. A series of similar questions would make a great center activity.

4. This is a language arts activity which asks the student to sort the pictures by their initial sound. A great activity for lower elementary, for students with language disabilities, for students learning English, and an activity the SLP might use.

5. A not quite complete language arts or social studies activity. A student could use the graphic organizer to share information about Canadian scientist Frederick Banting as opposed to reading and writing about him. An alternative way to share knowledge and information.






Communication Matters. n.d. PECS (Pictures Exchange Communication System). Retrieved March 11, 2013 from: http://www.communicationmatters.org.uk/page/pecs

O'Brien, R. (2010). A case study investigating the potential impact of video modelling on the teaching of a student with autism. University of Limerick.

Wallin, J.M. (2004). Teaching children with autism. Retrieved March 14, 2013 from http://www.polyxo.com/socialstories/