Assistive Technology and Universal Design for Learning: Two Sides of the Same Coin

         Assistive Technology and Universal Design for Learning: Two Sides of the Same Coin, was written by, David H. Rose, Ted S. Hasselbring, Skip Stahl, and Joy Zabala. It is about the similarities and differences of AT and UDL.  These two terms are not the same.  Yet the authors argue that they are quite compatible.
          Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a method of planning to optimize learning for all students.  Using UDL teachers start with what they want the students to know and then carefully plan the assessments that may be used to demonstrate this knowledge or skill with all of their students' needs in mind.  That way each lesson will be differentiated, and our mindset will be flexible, in pacing, materials, grouping and presentation of information. Rose, et. al argues that Assistive Technology (AT) is individualized, in that it targets the barriers in inividuals.  UDL is general, in that it is designed to reduce barriers to learning for all students.
             Designing for the individual, will mean excluding a lot of other people, "creating a need for AT that is prohibitively and extensive and expensive." Yet, building for everyone, will not make sufficient adaptations for individuals. "Assistive Technologies make Universal Designs more effective." The AT solution to learning disabilities are to remediate or compensate for individual needs. The UDL approach is that there are inadequacies in our curriculum. "Imagine a multimedia curriculum, that provides digital, universally designed media that offer diverse options for viewing and manipulating content and expressing knowledge." I found it very interesting to learn that copyright laws have made it difficult for many students to access textbooks. "...only students with qualifying print disabilities may be provided with accessible braille,  audio, or digital text versions of print materials..." I know that Apple has many apps that can be used to change text to speech(such as Claro), and vice versa (such as Dragon Dictation).
             The National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) set to work on making texts more accessible. They succeeded in getting students access to textbooks at the same time as the publisher put the books out. So now we have many options for the PC and iPad devices, such as Ibooks.
               Let's take a look at UDL.

http://barbarabray.net/2012/01/20/udl-and-personalized-learning/

A Breakthrough For Josh

          In A Breakthrough for Josh, Barbara McClanahan notes that there were very few studies that gave any evidence about the effects of Technology on students with ADHD.  After McClanahan was given the opportunity to see what the iPad could do at a PD, she was convinced that it would have significant impact on Education.  iPads present learning tasks in multiple modalities, they chunk tasks into more manageable pieces, and give repeated trials with immediate feedback.  It presents learning like a game, which promotes engagement and attention.  Even comfort is enhanced by iPads.
             McClanahan began her study, but she noticed a problem. There was one fifth grade boy with ADHD, who had adaptations, but his adaptations were not being adequately implemented.  Teachers' view of students with ADHD has affected the way that they are treated in the classroom. They do not get the help that is required for them.
              I thought it was interesting that they had planned to use the iPad for a reward, and decided that it could be used in the tutoring sessions. Traditional flash cards were not working, so she let him use the iPad and he stayed still for ten minutes, totally focused on his task. She began to search for a flashcard app and she began using the iPad to actually tutor Josh.  In many cases, using a computer can really help to focus students' attention, especially students with ADHD. The study showed that Josh improved more when he recorded his own voice, while reading, then when someone read to him.She introduced the INSERT strategy, in which he marks unknown words in his readings. He was very quick to internalize this strategy and used it consistently without prompting.  They did a great job of teaching Josh self monitoring strategies.  She noted that the results of the findings showed improvement in numbers, but it was the anecdotal notes that gave the best evidence of whether this plan was working. He asked to re-read a sentence to make it make sense, which, "strongly suggests that Josh understands that reading should be done to construct meaning."
           iPads help students with ADHD because of the higher levels of sensory stimulation. "The touch screen promotes the use of several modalities (Raggi &Chronis,2006), especially visual and tactile/kinesthetic more readily and effectively."
            I wonder if the higher levels of stimulation may help students other than students with ADHD.  For instance, I know that a lot of teachers have experimented with playing music during a free-write and it has helped with students' creativity.  During the Virtual Classroom, I suggested that a student who had trouble with fine motor skills, may in fact benefit from music.  I realize that this is not a matter of creativity, and yet I thought that perhaps stimulating one part of the brain, may allow for new networks of neurological connections. I was shooting for out of the box thinking.
           I think that iPads are becoming mainstream. We will see them in more classrooms very soon.

            Here is an interesting video about the prevalence of iPads. Tell me your thoughts.

Here is the link in case it doesn't play. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8267408/Singapore-school-uses-iPads-in-the-classroom.html
         

The Big take-away and Complexity of Writing Imovies

           Yesterday, we did iMovie Trailers to present the big take-aways from the course. It was a great way to tap into the creative side of people.  I think that most students would love this type of assignment.  It could be used for introducing a new topic.  Instead of drawing a title page for the topic, you could present the topic on iMovie Trailers. For example, if you were looking at magnets, you could ask student to look for information and images about magnets.  This is a good way to find out what a student knows ahead of time and it may help to spark an interest that may not have been there before.  You also could make great book reviews, using iMovie Trailers.  It gives good oral presentation practice, as well.
          Kathy Schrock reviewed iMovie Trailers and this is what she had to say. http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2013/08/01/imovie_trailers/ She also included
another good example. Take a look!
           I think that finding solutions in technology before trying other things is the most important thing that I learned from this course.  I just loved what these apps could do!  I look forward to reading your blogs, to see what you thought.

Some questions to ponder;
          How can we ensure that students are getting the technology that they need?
          When is technology a bad thing?
          What do you tell students/parents who feel that one child is given an advantage over another, when we give assistive technology to one student and not the others?
           Are iPads, accessible to everyone yet?  If not, who is left out?
Also, don't forget, It is Nelson Mandela Day.  So I leave you with this quote;

Blackboard Collaborate (virtual classroom)

            Today's class was very interesting.  I had never thought about how we know if a student's abdominal muscles are strong enough for writing.  The Occupational therapist in the video described some of the signs of weak abs. Such as, students who hook their feet around a chair leg may be compensating for weak core muscles, and students who lay on their desks, or hold their pencils too high or press down too hard. There are many devices, and exercises that can help to give students more control over their pencils. Pencil Olympics is a very useful exercise that I would recommend for all students.
            We also got to play with some very useful apps.  I loved the Clicker Sentences app. because you can reach students at so many levels. Then you can import learninggrids.com into Clicker Sentences and then you can have books broken into scrambled sentences. ClickerConnect even has pictures to help younger students and developmentally delayed students with forming sentences.  
           CoWriter can predict words by recognizing the words that children have tried to write, but are spelling incorrectly. It gives students a list of spelling suggestions. I was told that CoWriter now searches the internet to recognize the words, so you don't have to make a word bank. I think this app would be useful for so many students. Students struggle very much with Spelling.
            I was wondering if Spelling will be a lost skill. If the school has technology that allows us to speak into a program and it spells all words for you, then students may lose the skill of learning to spell..
         We had a rich discussion.  Lyndsey, Kate, Simon and I all talked about what the world will be like in the future. Lyndsey made the good point that, "it is not how students read or write, but how they access information that is important." We do need to use technology to optimize student learning. CoWriter can do amazing things to help students rid themselves of the barriers that once existed!  As long as we are prepared for long power outages, then we should be fine.

               Here is a video that just scratches the surface of how to motivate reluctant writers.  I agree with everything said, but I think to do this topic justice, I would have to give you a much longer video.

Gaining an appreciation of technology!

        Our iTunes U project is coming together nicely now. I have found a lot of apps that are very useful.  
        This course above all has engaged me in a desire to become more technologically inclined! I have been getting more and more interested in an iPad.  I think that there are apps that can help with so many things for students, teachers, parents, and the general public. I bet you will be interested in this, although you will find that we have already seen a lot of these apps, or at least the uses that they suggest. 


Guess how many uses there are to the iPad.  At least as many as you will find in this link;
            https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UJnqyK52X26az5zN5kr1ISTNPwbdUbxfG6M-9WMW4Do/present#slide=id.i0



       

I-tunesu Course Management Project

       Today, in class, we reviewed some more web apps, such as Read Iris, and Claro.  These apps go very well together.  Read Iris allows you to take a picture of text, while Claro allows for you to change the text to speech, so that it will read to you. Then we looked at the Settings for the I-pad, under General Settings---Accessibility. This is where you can opt to enlarge the do voiceover, which allows students to select text to have it read to them. It allows the zoom option for students who have trouble to see, or process small writing. It can have large text and bold text. I like the option that you have to control what students have access to.  It is called Guided Access.  It is essentially a parental control, to restrict access to unwanted websites, from students, so that they can use the I-pad independently. The I-pad offers subtitles and Captioning for the deaf.
         One of the apps that we looked at today, allows us to cut out part of the screen to help keep the students from leaving an app.  Some Autistic students obsess over a particular website, and may try not to stay on the assigned site. This helps to eliminate that option.
          We began our I-tunesu course Management Project. I wrote about the complexity of the Reading Process.  I feel like I am becoming quite familiar with the topic, and yet I still don't think that I have all of the steps memorized yet.  I will have to look for some good images or videos to go with my account.
            We began inputting some of the web apps that would help to remediate or compensate for various learning disabilities that affect students, particularly in the area of reading.  I did this for homework, and it was very fun. I found a web page, by a technology expert in the Halifax Regional School Board, and she had a set of apps, divided into the categories of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/121271/bloomin/bloominipad.jpg

More about our task analysis of reading, and exploring apps. for Reading remediation

         Today we reviewed our Task Analysis of the Reading Process.  There is a lot involved.  It starts with student engagement (a reason to read). Then the student must find a comfortable, safe place to read.  The student also must be free of distractions both externally and internally. He or she must have proprioception (the awareness of her or his body space, such as posture and how to hold the book). The student must know to look at the top left corner to start decoding the text.  He or she must use short term memory to recognize letters and understand the relationship between the letter and its corresponding sound, which engages another part of the brain, because this incorporates auditory sensory processing. It is also important to know the word is broken up into components of the sounds we hear. She or he must know that the space at the end of the word tells where a word ends, and must use this knowledge, along with any prior knowledge and phonics to make meaning of the very first word.  If the word is not instantly clear, the student will then use strategies to decode the unknown word, including using picture cues, and context cues, syntactic cues and predictions (which requires knowing to skip ahead and then try to use the additional information to uncover the meaning of the unknown word).  All of which must be done quickly enough to keep the attention and interest of the child.  This is the very beginning of the reading process, so it requires a lot of patience and perseverance to remain ready to read.
           Many students struggle, so we have Assistive Technology to help us to remediate or compensate for the area of difficulty.  We just took a quick peek at a bunch of apps. and they are exciting. I found Bitsboard, 60 Story Starters, Raz kids, Jigsaw Puzzle, Bugs and Buttons, and the Crack the Books Series very exciting.  I can't wait to explore them further!