Reflection on Sousa Article-Writing Difficulties

I was very interested in reading this article as our PBL group decided to focus on the Task Analysis of Writing. I found that learning how to write is just as difficult and maybe even more so than learning how to read or speak.

Sousa mentions that the process of learning to write does not develop without instruction. He also discusses that writing has two components. They are the combination of the content of writing (the writing process) and the physical act of writing.  In addition, it is stated that writing involves a multiple of neural networks. Students hear a word or visually process the word, convert sounds to letters then form the letters on the page (motor output). So many other factors can be involved when teaching a student to write, such as, the experiences they have had with writing, their emotional state and whether they have an understanding of the organization of writing as well as the rules (e.g. spelling, grammar).

With all that is involved with learning to write, it does not surprise me that students have difficulty with writing in schools. I think of my classroom last year and the work that was being done to assist the students to improve their writing. So much has to be learned by the teacher in order to assist their students to help them through the writing process. As I continued to read through the Sousa article and reflected on the research with dysgraphia I can think of two students who were labelled as being lazy or unmotivated to try. I really believe, as Sousa states, that teachers need to assist students in understanding what is effective writing, they need to build their confidence and they also need to pinpoint where the struggle is for their students. Not that the teachers in my school are not practicing this but I believe gaining insight into the understanding of what the writing process entails as well as the various strategies and techniques that are available (many are present within this article which are wonderful) will have a benefit for both the teachers and students within the classroom. 

Reflection on Project Work July 18th

Our group is very excited with our project and how everything is coming together. Yesterday we had a very productive day with finalizing the outline of our presentation. We completed our three blogs that we will be sharing with the BEd students by adding another video and an additional brainstorm web through Inspiration. We reviewed all of our vidoes and decided which ones to show as well as organized our thoughts around which disabiltites to highlight.
We also had the opportunity to go to Seminary House and practice our presentation from start to finish. This was very beneficial. As we ran through the blogs and videos we realized there were a few details missing that would help the presentation run smoother. We got a really good sense of how the presentation would look so we divided responsibilities for tomorrow and practiced what we would say and share with the audience.
There is a lot of information to communicate but it is all valuable in learning how we as educators can better meet the needs of our students.
We hope you enjoy our presentation Barb! See you tomorrow.

IPod/App Exploration and other Reflections

I am getting very close to buying one of these IPods. They can do almost anything.
I spent some time at the baseball field this weekend (as I usually do in the summer) and my husband (who is a coach) and I were talking about the pitcher and how fast he was throwing the ball. I got to thinking about whether the IPod had a speedometer app to measure the speed of pitches? I did some googling yesterday and I found a great app that I shared with my husband. It is called "Baseball Coach Plus". It allows you to record videos, then compare techniques followed by a before and after clip which enables improvement. It can also measure pitch speed among many other uses. He thought it was great and also thought the kids would think it was neat if he was using an IPod to assist in coaching:)
I also did some researching on writing apps where our group is focusing on the writing task analysis for our project. I first found a website that offered creative writing prompts to download as slides to view on slideshare. The website is http://www.edgalaxy.com/. This may not have too much benefit with our project but I can see great use within my classroom to encourage student's creativity. I also found an app that would benefit our student with ASD. It is called "AbcPocketPhonics" and would assist with letter sounds, letter writing and the spelling of basic words. This student could assist in our Poster/Collage making to promote the topic of Plastics.
The following website gave a number of examples of apps I will be sharing with my group. It contains apps for organization, communication, writing and many others.
 http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/article/iphoneipad-apps-for-aac

One final reflection for today was from an episode of Dragon's Den I watched this afternoon. Two young men designed a mouse for a computer that you could fit on your hand. I thought this could benefit some students, who were not able to manipulate a mouse, to use for various programs or software. I would like to see if there is more information on this product. See the picture below to view the "AirMouse". 

Reflection July 15th

Our group is feeling more confident today about our project and presentation. We will be meeting early next week to run through it and sort out any details. I am looking forward to sharing this information with the BEd students. I wish I was able to have this experience when I was taking my BEd.
Today our group completed the Assistive Technology blog by finishing the research on AT for our Class Profile, and posting the link to our AT blog onto our main blog. It took collaboration and compromise when it came to making decisions about appropriate AT for specific students. We wanted to make sure that what AT we were suggesting would benefit the students in completing writing requirements for the project. We embedded YouTube videos to demonstrate a few examples of AT as well as posted pics to illustrate some of the software we chose. Some of the apps we included were downloaded onto our IPods so we could become more familiar with their use. We are hoping these apps can be demonstrated for our presentation.
We feel we have a wealth of information to share and are excited that it is all coming together.
Thanks for your support through this Barb!

Class Reflection July 14th

Today I really feel that our Project Based Learning presentation is coming together. We did a lot of research on possible assistive technology (AT) for students within our Class Profile. Each student provided our group the opportunity to communicate around the description of the disability,  decide what AT is best for that student to achieve the writing requirements based on the task analysis for our project as well as create a brief description of the actual activity they will be completing. In researching the AT, I found it amazing how much is available and the extent of assistance to which these programs, gadgets and software provide for students. Some examples included Clicker 5, Track Ball, Smartboard, a Wiggle Seat and Skype.  We found many apps as well to assist the students in our profile. These included Proloquo2Go, iReward, Fluid, BubbleWrap and ListsFree just to name a few.
We will continue to work on our Class Profile and find beneficial AT for the students. We will also move forward and research videos and website links that would help visualize and demonstrate the AT we are focusing on for our presentation to the BEd students.
Today I also had the opportunity to download Skype and create contacts. With my Project Based Learning Group we created a group within Skype so we are now able to talk with one another at the same time. 
Great experiences today!

IPod App Exploration

As part of our group project, is an in depth look at possible Assistive Technology (AT) that would assist students with disabilities in acheiving a product, in our case a blog. One area I am researching is students with Operational Defiant Disorder (ODD). It has been found that a source of ODD comes from experiencing anxiety in some form (e.g. trauma,stress). In order to assist students with ODD in the classroom would be to create a structured behaviour plan with reward system as well as possible opportunities for relaxation or time away. I have found some IPod apps (see below) that would assist in these areas.

1) An app for organization of tasks or assignments is called "RoundToIt"
2) Apps for tracking rewards and behaviour are called "iRewardChart" & "Golden Ticket"

http://a4cwsn.com/?p=873 (to view video of "Golden Ticket" app)

3) Apps for relaxation are called "Relax", "iBonsai" & "Gratitude Journal"

An app I used on my IPod for personal use today was the camera app. Please forgive me if this is TMI (too much information) but I thought it was a neat experience. I made a video of my pregnant belly for approx. 10 minutes to watch as the baby kicked. In addition to that, I recorded the times within my notes app that the baby kicked. When I download the video to my laptop I will be able to show the grandparents and we can specifically watch for the babies movements. It actually was pretty exciting.

Class Reflection July 13th

Today's work session started to become a little overwhelming however by the end our group got back on track. Project Based Learning is both a challenging but rewarding experience. I am glad we decided to explore this project because I feel that by "doing" and diving into the process, the learning is that much more valuable.
Our group did some work on our task analysis in creating a blog. We will choose to take the focus of the Writing aspects that are involved with a creation of this product. We posted an inspiration web in our blog to show the break down of the task analysis and will expand on the writing component in our presentation to the BEd students. We had a great conversation with Barb (thanks Barb) today about what is involved in both the reading and writing process. Beyond the teaching of reading and writing, there are experential, emotional and even nutritional  factors that come into play for the student.
We wanted to gain more insight into our Class Profile so we researched videos on YouTube to demonstrate a further understanding about each disability. We have created a second blog page to highlight our Class Profile which will include these videos as well as the websites that had been previously added.
Our main focus now will be to research the Assistive Technology that will be required for our Class Profile to achieve the Writing requirements in creating a blog. We have created a third blog to post this information pertaining to the Assistive Technology as it is an essential part in helping the students achieve the outcomes through Project Based Learning. I have posted on my blog, as a start to this research, a YouTube video (see below) on how stress and/or trauma can be a factor in ODD (one student in class profile). This will assist me in searching for possible Iphone apps that could be used to help relax a student with ODD. As well, apps that could be helpful in creating a behaviour management plan for students with this disorder.