Friday July 11, 2014

This morning I set up my study station at the Irving building to watch the webinars and take notes.  It was  great experience for learning that can happen anywhere.  I took copious amounts of notes the old fashion way (lol) and was able to stop, start and repeat things I missed.  It was terrific!

My greatest take away from the first webinar was the discussion around Executive Function disorder. They made with a great analogy of the prefrontal lobe being the CEO of the brain or the train conductor and when there are psychiatric issues (ADD/HD, ODD, CD, Autism) it’s like the CEO/Conductor is drunk.   It was also interesting when they explained that students with EF can’t process the outcome before it happens and that they have difficulties with self-regulation, self-awareness, self-analysis and self-determination. 

My three favorite APPs in the first webinar were Take a Chill-Stressed Teens, Self-monitoring and Let Panic Go.

Take a Chill-Stressed Teens ($.99 great price) is a grounding, thought stopping, and visualizing app.  It was great for all ages but students need reading abilities to be guided through the activities.  I really like how it tracks the users progress and they were able to take an inventory that indicated how stressed they were and gave strategies related to what the user was going through. I think it’s very important to pre-teach this app when the student is in the green zone so that when they find themselves in the yellow or red they know what to do. 

Self-Monitoring iRewards ($3.99) is a great app that would be handy on the iPad, iPod or iPhone.  You are able to develop behavior plans right on the device customized to the student.  I love the fact that it collects the data right there and that you’re able to email and share the data.  This would be very handy to have for students in school and at home.  Very valuable tool.

Let Panic Go ($2.99) is a great app available for iPads and iPods but the students must be high achieving.  It has very helpful exercises that students can use when they are in the yellow and red zones and they need guided exercises to help them calm down.  It incorporates audio and visual cues that help the student calm.  The student uses to touch as well to feel connected.  I love the aspect of this being accessible and easy to use in all environments.  

My greatest takeaway from the second webinar was the introduction to the settings.  I have never spent much time getting to know what my iPad mini can do and it was nice to be walked through some of the settings to make the iPad more accessible for all. 

My three favorite apps were Enhanced Textbook, Read Iris and Paper Helper.  It seemed that these apps were more suited for middle school and high school students.  This is great because we tend to focus mostly on the early years. 

The Enhanced Textbook app ($3.99) looked great for high school students.  A lot of the publishing companies have been getting on board and we are able to purchase textbooks through ibook.  There’s lots of extras with the app like read-alouds, voice over, highlighting, and able to make notes in the margins.  I like the part that the textbooks are always being updated. 

Read Iris  ($37.99) is a bit pricy but a very valuable app that scans documents and the user is able to edit, import images and export to pdf file.  Very helpful for making paperwork sheets accessible to all learners. 

I really liked Paper Helper ($1.99) because the user is able to split the screen and have two documents or a site and document open at the same time on the same screen.  When I’m working on my computer I get annoyed and often distracted when I have to flip from window to window.  I think this app will be handy for all ages but mainly for academic level students. 

Notes notes and more notes! I took my notes using the old fashion tools of pen and paper.  Boy did it make me appreciate my computer and typing skills. 

Ipads as Instructional Tools to Enhance Learning Opportunities for Students with Developmental Disabilities:An Action Research Project was an honest and very realistic research project on the work that is being done in Sydney Australia and Assistive Technology.  The results of the study were very positive and I enjoyed hearing the feedback from the teachers implementing the programming with the students.  I liked the point about giving teachers the opportunities and training with the iPad before the students using them.  Often times the great new thing is dropped on the teacher and they are left to learn on their own and rushed into implementing the tool.  This can be a frustrating process and often leaves a bad impression with the teachers.  Luckily there was lots of help and opportunity for support and feedback during this study.