AUTISM AWARENESS

Happy Autism Awareness Day!! 

"Nearly a quarter century ago, the Autism Society launched a nationwide effort to promote autism awareness, inclusion and self-determination for all, and assure that each person with ASD is provided the opportunity to achieve the highest possible quality of life. This year we want to go beyond simply promoting autism awareness to encouraging friends and collaborators to become partners in movement toward acceptance and appreciation." (Autism Society)

Be sure to check out tons of FREE and discounted apps today!
http://www.smartappsforkids.com/2015/03/autism-awareness-month-day-1-1.html

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/02/apple-promotes-world-autism-awareness-day/

http://atmac.org/waad-2015

#ATchat

I'm new to the Twitter world, but I often hear that its a great place for PD. I've made it a goal to try to use Twitter more often now that I'm in this field. Karen Janowski is a well respected professional in our field, and I've learned a lot from her through classes, meetings, conferences, and various professional development opportunities. Karen leads an #ATchat on Twitter every Wednesday evening from 8-9, and I finally had a chance to attend last night! The discussion was on "AT, EdTech and UDL" and I thought it was awesome! People from all around the United States participated, and I felt that there were some great conversations, questions, and ideas. It was interesting to see how everyone runs into similar problems no matter what state they are from, but it was great to hear the different ways people educate and provide PD to assist with these problems. I'm looking forward to attending more #ATchat discussions in the future.

Video Modeling

What is it? “a visual teaching method that occurs by watching a video of someone modeling a targeted behavior or skill and then imitating the behavior/skill watched.” (Watch Me Learn)

What can you use it for?

•       Motor behaviors

•       Social skills

•       Communication

•       Self-monitoring

•       Functional life skills

•       Vocational skills

•       Athletic performance

•       Emotional regulation

This is a great tool to use for a variety of skills. Luckily we are often surrounded by many different types of technology; lets take advantage of the built in features, such as cameras and videos! At my school, we did a presentation with all of the speech and language therapists to show staff how they can use the cameras on their iPads for video modeling! This could benefit many students in special education that are struggling with a skill.

Links:

http://ericsailers.com/blog_files/Summary_of_a_video_modeling_tutorial.html

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/5634.html

http://www.watchmelearn.com/video-modeling/what-is-video-modeling

https://www.pinterest.com/dowerassociates/video-modeling/

Favorite UDL resource

One of my favorite Universal Design for Learning (UDL) resources is called the "UDL Tech Tool Kit." This Wiki is broken down by categories, such as: graphic organizers, literacy, story telling, math, writing, etc. and lists numerous resources, including lots of FREE tools! This is one of my "go to" tools, and should be yours too! You can find the link here.

Resources for Apps!

Besides scrolling through the iTunes store, googling, and Pinterest, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite resources to help you find apps!

Here is a link that gives you alerts when there are apps that are temporarily FREE for kids!  It is also a great reference page: http://www.smartappsforkids.com/

Here are some other great references when you are trying to find apps:

Apps in Education

Appy Mall

Best Austism Apps

Apps for Children with Special Needs

Geek SLP

Jane Farrall - AAC and switch accessible apps

Positively Autism

Speech Techie


Some Favorite Scheduling Apps

Two of my favorite scheduling apps that I often recommend are: Choiceworks and First Then Visual Schdule (FTVS). Both do similar things, but they also have some different features that are important.  I really like that both apps include a library of pictures, and ways to import pictures through your built-in camera or pictures saved on your camera roll. In addition, both apps allow you to create quick and easy schedules with the ability to record voices and incorporate text-to-speech for non readers or students that require multimodal support. Choiceworks and FTVS also have a nice visual to show the individual the completion of each task.

Differences:

Choiceworks

•  Three boards: Schedule, Waiting, and Feelings
•  3 social story (Companion) books for each board

FTVS

• variety of layouts to present visuals
• can incorporate videos
• can incorporate choice boards

Choiceworks - $6.99

For more information, click here 

For a video tutorial, click here

FTVS HD - $14.99

For manuals and a video tutorial, please visit this website and scroll down to the bottom

Curation Tools

What is a curation tool? In "Plain English", it is social bookmarking! "Digital curation is the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection, and archiving of digital assets. Digital curation establishes, maintains and adds value to repositories of digital data for present and future use." 

What are some uses for curation tools?

• Organize and disseminate new content
• Collect and share professional materials
• Foster discussion and current events
• Connect with others
• Critique information found on the web
• Create reading lists

• "collective intelligence"

Some examples of curation tools used in education are: Live Binders, Pinterest, Pearltrees, Symbaloo, Twitter, Diingo, and Scoop.it! My favorite curation tool is Pinterest.  I started using it for personal use, but thought it would be a great idea to create a professional Pinterest page. This past January, I had the opportunity to go to ATiA in Orlando Florida.  One of the sessions I went to was called "Leveraging Social Media for Career Development, Networking, and Lifelong Learning" by Lauren Enders.  Lauren is an SLP that specializes in assistive technology and is well known for her amazing Pinterest page. After attending her session, I was inspired to create my own.  I wasn't able to see the true benefit of using Pinterest as a curation tool (besides a way for me to organize some of my resources for myself) until last week.  I met with our OTs because we are doing a presentation on using the iPad to support writing.  The OTs claimed that they hardly used their iPads, and the only "good apps" cost money.  I made it my mission that day to find apps that were free AND beneficial.  I created a folder on my Pinterest board entitled "OT apps" and sent the link to the therapists.  After I did this, their entire attitude changed! I was completely amazed and grateful that they changed their minds.  It was almost as though I needed to start their research of apps, and why not do that through Pinterest?!! I'm thrilled that they looked at my board, and they are excited and researching their own apps.

Take a look at the upper right hand side of my blog to get a link to my Pinterest page!


Resources: 
Google slides, presentations, and assignments by Brenda Doucette