iCan Make an iMovie

      I was recently approached by a colleague who was struggling with encouraging co-workers to incorporate technology into their Special Education classroom. In similar instances, my favorite quote to share is this, “For people without disabilities, technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, technology makes things possible” (IBM training manual, 1991). Technology can be overwhelming but the opportunities that it has to offer are limitless. This brings me in to my student’s latest accomplishment: creating an iMovie. At the end of the year, for a few months, my Instructional Director in our district, +Shannon Soger would come to our classroom once a week to help take on this challenge.We worked one on one, and sometimes two on one with each of my students to help them create their own personalized iMovie. This took time and patience but in the end it was absolutely worth it. Check out one of the iMovies that was created by a student with an Intellectual disability on his favorite movie, Lion King:  

                                                          Lion King iMovie

Below you will find a quick “How to” for creating an iMovie with students in a self-contained classroom: 

1. Shannon and I sat down and selected an iMovie topic for each student based on their interests. (Dora, Stars, Birthday parties, dinosaurs, etc). 

2. We created a table of tasks that needed to be accomplished We checked off each student's  box each time they completed a task. Here is the checklist we used: 

                                                           iMovie Checklist

3. We completed this whole activity one step at a time. Shannon would come in and her and i would sit with a student and go through step 1 of making an iMovie: having students select pictures. We googled their topic and and students chose or hand over hand selected 3-5 pictures they liked. We did this for each student 2:1 before moving on to the next step. Then we went on to the next step of importing pictures into the iMovie program. We helped students label each picture and had students who are verbal describe each picture using the voice over feature. Finally, we had the students select music for the iMovie. The results were fantastic! 

If you are still hesitant to take this challenge to your classroom, view this short video created by +Shannon Soger on the impact this student’s Lion King iMovie had on his mother.

                                                        Redefining Mobile Learning 

Guided Access on the iPad

     What is it? Guided Access is a setting that keeps the iPad locked into a single application. Guided Access also allows you to control which features in a particular app are available or disabled. 
     I am an avid user of Guided Access in my classroom. There are many reasons why I use it when teaching my students. As a Special Education teacher, I know how intelligent and at times, "sneaky" the students in my classroom can be. I assign students to particular academic apps to work on in hopes that they will remain on the app given and not slip off to a game that is more appealing or even accidentally exit the app. Often, that is not the case.  This accessibility feature can lock my students into a particular app that I have planned for that center or station and not allow them to exit the app unless they have a 4-digit code that I am able to keep from them. Guided Access prevents students from performing specific actions that are not aligned with set tasks as well as preventing them from exiting an educational app. Students are not allowed to alter settings when Guided Access is on.  
     Below I have two videos that show one of the students in my classroom using the iPad app with Guided Access turned off and the other with Guided Access turned on. 

Guided Access Off

Guided Access On

Follow the link below for a screen cast by my District’s Instructional Director, +Shannon Soger , to learn how set up and use Guided Access in your classroom!

Guided Access How to Video

App Slam!

Over the weekend I was approached by +Shannon Soger  to complete a video of my top 3 apps I use on the iPads in my classroom. You can check out my video and see some favorite apps that my students  use at school!

My App Slam Video

Skype me!

       My new favorite activity to use in the classroom is Skype! Skype is a FREE, yes I said FREE program you can download to make telephone and video calls via your computer. Your computer must have a webcam, internet connection and a microphone in order to use the program. Check out their website to learn more at http://www.skype.com/en/.
     Our Speech and Language Pathologist, +Elizabeth Arenas  has incorporated using Skype into our Speech group sessions. We have partnered with the middle school Special Education classroom in our district. This has been an extra special activity for our classroom because many of these students graduated from our elementary school last year. We have set aside Friday mornings to Skype our middle school friends.  We start our Speech group practicing introductions and saying good morning. Our students who are non verbal use communication devices such as the Big Mac or the programs on the iPad such as ProLoQuo2Go to help them communicate. Our next lesson will be sharing an activity, craft or something we learned about at school during the week. Skype-ing is a fun, motivating and easy activity to help students work on communication, listening and overall speech skills. Last week our Principal, +Jeremy Majeski  joined in our Skype session! Check out our photos below! 

The girls saying hi on Skype for the first time! 

Our Principal, +Jeremy Majeski  joined in! 

Waving hi to our friends in the middle school! 

Parent University

     Before we left for winter break, my co-teacher and I hosted a Parent Professional Development event on technology in our Special Education classroom. The students we teach have moderate to severe disabilities. One of our challenges is that our students struggle with communicating the various lessons and activities, including technology programs and social media sites that we use and implement in the classroom. With the help from one of our District Technology iCoaches +Shannon Soger , we were able to plan for the event and provide many resources for our parents to help participate in their child’s learning.
  A month before hosting the event we sent out a flyer, in both English and Spanish, to invite the families to join us. Find flyer here: Parent Tech Flyer.
Our principal donated a Target gift card to our event as an incentive to families to participate, which we raffled off at the end of our event. We created handouts, some in both English and Spanish, that would provide them support at home for what we taught at the event. The handouts included instructions for setting up Gmail, Twitter and Facebook account. Find instructions here:Gmail and FB Instructions, Twitter Instructions. Our classroom is on social media to keep parents and families up to date with what is happening in both our classroom, school and district (you can “like” us on Facebook: Komensky DLP or follow us on Twitter: @KomenskyDLP-SM). We created charts for each parent to take home that included their child's username and passwords for the technology programs we use in the classroom including IXL Math, Lexia and myOn. During the event we traveled through each program showing parents how to login and how we hoped our students could practice various content at home. Our Speech and Language Pathologist, +Elizabeth Arenas joined us to help translate our event in Spanish to families who attended. We also introduced an accessibility setting, Guided Access that our parents could also use to lock their child into a program or application on the iPad at home. Guided Access will be my next blog! 

Teaching parents how to use Guided Access with our SLP!

Our Parent Tech Event was a huge success! The parents feedback we received was extremely positive and motivating. We plan on hosting these events throughout the rest of the school year as well as years to come. This is one more way to continue to involve parents in the classroom!  

The parents eager to take home what they learned at our event! 

Speak it!

     Earlier today I received an email from a colleague that was searching for a way to display text on the computer screen by simply speaking to the computer. Enter the Dictation&Speech feature under system preferences! Before trying out the feature, make sure your computer is updated to 10.8-Mountain Lion, a newer version of Mac OSX in order to access the Dictation&Speech features.
Speech to Text can be used in the classroom for a variety of ways! Students can retell a story without having to struggle with finding the letters and spelling words on a keyboard. They can simply focus on the goal of the lesson and details they remembered from the story. They can respond to questions on a particular text, produce answers for a quiz or test and simply produce more legible assignments. In math, students can also practice math facts by reciting a math sentence and watching it appear on the screen!  
Check out my "What's Up Dude?" video to see Dictation in action! Note that in order to include punctuation when dictating a sentence, you specifically need to say the name of the punctuation mark you want to use-to produce a question mark, simply say “question mark” at the end of the sentence for it to appear! 

What's Up Dude?

Follow these steps to launch the Speech to Text feature:

Open System Preferences > Double Click Dictation&Speech (under System) > Set Dictation to the On button > Select the shortcut to enable Dictation > Set Language > Open up Pages or Microsoft word > Press shortcut key > Say your word/sentence/paragraph > Watch as the computer types the words. If you want your computer to read back the sentence, simply press Opt+ESC and voila, the computer is speaking to you! 

OR

Visit this youtube clip for a detailed explanation on how to turn on Dictation on your MacBook computer.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHlZ9DTnC70

Priceless.

     I attended my very first Apple Education seminar last week
https://edseminars.apple.com/seminars/). The seminar was geared towards using iPads and Mac computers with students in Special Education. THANK YOU to all of the presenters who shared their stories and information on apps and various features that the iPads and Mac’s have to offer!  

                                                                                 

One feature that I have tapped into and utilized since seeing the benefits at the training is the Photo Booth application on the Mac Computer.  I use it as both a reward and learning tool in my classroom.  Photo booth produces photos and videos using image effects that make silly faces such as “Space Alien” and “Bug Out” as well as back drops that virtually place you riding on a roller-coaster or swimming in an aquarium. A great way to utilize Photo Booth in the classroom is by having the students complete a task, respond to questions or simply interact with the teacher or another peer while being recorded using one of the backdrops or image photo effects. Once recorded you can play it back for the student and teacher to watch together and enjoy! An increase in interest, motivation and overall performance can be shown just by using this simple tool. 

And finally, one presenter, Bill Ziegler, an Apple Distinguished Educator from Bucks County, PA, shared a story of a young man named Bern. Bern is a Guidance Counselor for the Bristol Township Schools, hockey coach, college football announcer and motivational speaker. I would like to end this blog by sharing with you a message from Bern on the “Priceless” impact technology can have and has had on all people with disabilities. Trust me when I say this is worthing watching: 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/to0rfwcsy6tu4a2/Bern%20%26%20iPad.mov