Summer Fun

With summer finally here it's time to stop and smell the roses!  Of course, those of us who are technology junkies simply bring up a photo of flowers on our iPad, take a whiff, and move on.  Join me for summer trainings to jump start your new school year.  The Assistive Technology For Struggling Students Summer trainings will be great - I've wrangled several of my outstanding colleagues into sharing their knowledge with us.  We still have spots open so it's not too late to register. Also, I will be running a social group for anyone who wants to learn more about using their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad - it is called 'Appy Hour - and it will be Tuesdays in June from 5-6 PM at Kona Jacks, 96th and Meridian Street, Indpls.  Learn new ways to use your iDevices while having fun with friends.  For additional information and fees, email me at beth@bethwaitetech.com

Now, I'm off to plant a virtual garden on my iPad.......

Pixon Project

Pixons are symbols representing a variety of language concepts for creating manual communication boards for nonverbal students.  I recently saw Gail Vantatenhove explain this kit and the way that her group of developers came up with the symbols.  By combining "old school" augmentative communication techniques, including color-coding backgrounds of symbols based on language function (verbs-green, nouns-orange, etc.) and organizing pictures in order to create sentences ( it used to be called the Fiitzgerald Key but no one knows that anymore) she reminds us of the importance of language first.  I love all the communication apps that are out there for iPad/iPod Touch........but it is so important to look at the language structure our students need and not just providing basic choice-making.    Using manual Pixon symbols can provide core words for teaching a wide range of communication functions and  help prepare  students for eventual speech generating device use or serve as a bridge to learning language.  I've put Minspeak symbols on low tech devices (Go Talk - Super Talker) to teach multi-meaning icons to students but am loving the Pixon symbols for this purpose - either as a manual board or on speech generating devices.    Her kit comes with two pre-made boards - one designed as a mobile board with pages in a customized portable pouch - and the other one a one-page board with core and extended vocabulary.  You also got 4 CD's that contain numerous pre-made boards and symbols that can be used independently or imported into Boardmaker.
All set to give it a go!

For more information, go to the AAC Institute website Pixon Project informatoin at  http://www.aacinstitute.org/Resources/ProductsandServices/Pixons/PixonSheet.pdf

Lights, Camera, WAIT!!!

Video modeling is an effective, research based strategy for teaching students with autism and other developmental disabilities.  But often people try to put too much stuff into the videos and make them too long.  By trying to address too many behaviors in one video, we confuse the learner and dilute the main skills we are trying to teach. Besides video modeling and self-modeling, I've seen students benefit from video prompting (teaching a skill step-by-step) and video feedback (watching a scenerio play out and evaluating self or others).  Consider what you want the learner to learn from the video and decide which strategy meets your goal.

Video modeling and video self-modeling works best when you keep these tips in mind:

• target 1-2 specific behaviors to address per video
• keep the video clips short
• overall project should be no more than 2 minutes
• storyboard each scene and shoot them separately
• use simple narration to explain activity

There are lots of ways to capture video - cell phones, Flip cameras, video features of digital still cameras, and digital video cameras.  Free editing programs often come with your camera or can be found in in Mac and Windows operating systems.  Tanslating the video format file to put on an iPod  Touch or iPad can be tricky.  My favorite conversion software is called "Free iPod Video Convertor" at http://www.koyote.com/.  You need a program that will convert video to .mp4 - the format used in iPods - if you want to make the video portable.  Of course, it can be burned to a CD and viewed on a DVD player (some kids watch them in their parents' van on the way to outings).

To learn more about creativing videos to use with students with disabilites, check out the all day workshop that I'll be presenting with Liz Farmer, Behavior Consultant, this summer in Indianapolis.  Details coming soon!

So many apps....so little time....

Here's a question I get asked a lot:

With tens of thousands of apps for iPod/iPads out there, how do I choose which one you want? It is very overwhelming. And it takes time to find the best fit for your needs. I use the same strategy that I use when considering assistive technology for students with disabilities.

*Determine the need or desired outcome - say "notetaking"

*List the features you want - handwriting recognition, audio recording, online organization, importing from Google docs, etc.

*Search in iTunes for "notetaking" and narrow down the ones that have your features

*Read the reviews and look at the screen shots - go to the app developer's website *Download the "lite" version if there is one

*If you like it and it meets your needs but you need more storage or features - buy it!

Of course...check with others you know or read online reviews as well. Don't just click on the first app that comes along.

Happy app-ing!

Addicted to my iPod

Hello, My name is Beth Waite and I have an iPod Touch Addiction. I spend hours on iTunes looking for apps that will meet needs of students with disabilities - and there are so many amazing ones out there! My new favorite is called "Look2Learn" and it is simple communication app for a nonspeaking person. Priced under $25.00, it allows you to load your own symbols and photos representing desired activities and record your own voice. What is so great about this app is that is simple and straightforward - perfect for beginning communicators. Don't forget, with an iPad or iPod Touch you need an external mic - I found a great mic cord on Amazon that plugs into the ear buds you get with your iPod so that you have a mic and earphones all in one - for about $8.00!

You can come to my next iPod University workshop August 3rd for more tips and tricks for using ipod touch, iphone, ipad as assistive technology for people with disabilities.

I wanna iPad!

They call geeks who stay up hours before a product comes out, waiting in the rain and crowds, just to be among the first to get their hands on a new tech gadget "early adopters". I'm a middle adopter - I usually wait until those early adopters figure out the bugs, write indepth reviews and posts, then a revised version comes out, and I grab that one. With Apple, its a given that even the first run item is golden. I want to see how the iPad looks with augmentative communication apps - see how our students with special needs can access the larger screen. Every day, I'm hearing amazing stories about students of all abilities using iPod apps for communication, learning, and more. The demand for this kind of training continues to be out there - as evidenced by the great response to my two upcoming iPod trainings later this month. Someone needs to make a big enclosed speaker case for the iPad to protect it and increase the volume. Just the other day I got two more of these cases for 15 bucks for the iPod Touch.

It's too late to be an early adopter....but maybe I'll speed up my usual techno pace and grab the next iPad I see.

All In A Day's Work

As an Assistive Technology Coordinator for 5 school corporations, I get around. Recently when I stopped to look back at the end of a school day I realized that I had:

*been in 5 different schools
*worked with 8 different students/teachers using speech generating devices
*watched as a student with severe physical disabilities seemed to really get how to use auditory and visual scanning on his communication system
*witnessed a student with severe behavior and communication challenges due to Autism use an iPod Touch for the first time to play games.

We all have busy days. When I looked back at the end of this day, I didn't stop and think about how busy I'd been or how tired I was: as corny as it sounds, I thought about how lucky I am to be able to see the progress that these students are making with their communcation. Though their challenges are great - at the end of the day -these kids are kids who want to play and learn and grow. Thankfully, we have the technology,interventions, dedicated teachers, therapists and parents to make it possible.