Class 4

I really enjoyed watching the video that Barb had made and showed us. It is always nice to see real teachers and their experiences of having technology in the classroom and how it has helped their students. Made me realize how lucky I am at the school where I work because we have SO many iPads and different technologies and I don't really use them as much as I could. I use the iPads to do little activities and lessons with my learning centre kids... but I really could be incorporating it into my resource caseload. I almost want to show a few of my non teacher friends who think that having such access to computers and our pocket technology is replacing the way that we teach.

PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) is a form of augumentative communication. It has been used in our school system, especially at the elementary level for quite some time. When you go to schools and have students who use this system, it is clear exactly how long they have been using it- the pictures are old and ratty!! During a conversation about PEC's and how long it would take and how much money it would cost to make a communication system for a child, I was reminded of myself last year, getting TONS of boardmaker symbols printed off and laminated... and the system never really working.  If I had of really known how well Proloquo2go worked, I would have set that up for this kid and not have done ALL of that work!! I still have tons of these symbols in my desk at home. Lots of them are of my face and the other teachers in the school... what a waste of paper!

We had the opportunity to play with Pic Collage, which is an awesome app that I had already gotten to know a little bit... but not as well as I could have! I did not think out of the box previous to this class and did not realize exactly what else I could do with it! The first picture is the way that I HAD used pic collage with my Daily Living Skills class. We are learning about feelings and getting to know ourselves and loving the good qualities that we possess, so the assignment was to use Pic Collage to represent 3 of those qualities and to find pictures on the internet (unless using their own device where they had access to their own photos) that related to those qualities. I showed them mine as an example.

 

 

 

Here are some of the other lessons that I created using Pic Collage:

 

 

 

As part of my DLS (Daily Living Skills) we are going to be encorporating the Zones of Regulation. So, I thought this would be a neat way to put the different feelings into the zones.

I did a lot of matching and sorting with my elementary learning centre students, Pic Collage is a really neat way to make my own. I could take pictures of actual things that students would see in their daily lives at school and then have them match the pictures or sort as needed.

 

 

 

Another part of DLS is going to focus on keeping a house clean and things like that. One thing that my students need to learn how to do is wash dishes. Most of them get the concept, but they do not know how to properly do it, and the order that the dishes should be washed in, cleanest to dirtiest. This would be a cool activity that shows the dishes and you can move them into the picture of the sink.

 

 

 

This is something that I actually used this week with my student. There have been issues happening at the end of the day when his EPA has to say "do this, do that" and its on repeat, repeat, repeat! This schedule is good for both the student and other others in the room that may get annoyed at the constant re-direction! He thinks it is cool because its on the iPad and it really has made a difference!

WAY TO GO PIC COLLAGE!!!

 

 

Another app that we got to explore with today was Book Creator. This was super neat and only cost $4.99! I can totally see myself using this with so many students! I had made a few books last year with a student who was just learning how to read, we used paper and pencil (YUCK) and it took FOREVER!!! If I had of known about this app I would have used it... it would have saved time and would have been much cooler. We could have added video clips and had photos that would be more meaninful that the ones that he drew (his hand paper skills were not very good). It is also great for myself to create books that students can read, would be perfect for creating social stories.  I just loved it!!