Learning...Sharing...Creating

Share a Success!

This forum provides an opportunity to share a success story that can help all of us learn about successful integration. Did something positive happen recently? We all want to know about it, so please let us know!

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Permalink Reply by Samuel Charles Sennott on September 27, 2007 at 9:29am: One success I had was making really nice Yes and No cards in bright colors. They ended up helping two students be able to make eye gaze choices using the yes and no response. Then they shifted into no being the stepper switch and yes being the chooser. Simple, but a great success!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by KarenJanowski on September 27, 2007 at 11:11am: One success that I had this week involved working with a student on the autism spectrum who also has a significant reading disability. He has a paraprofessional assigned to him. I was able to attend the weekly team consultation time that is set up for him and we talked about ways we can help him to become more independent as he is currently dependent upon the para to read everything to him including directions on work sheets.
I showed the paraprofessional how to use the speak text (brought the red lips to the toolbar) feature in AppleWorks, and showed him the text-to-speech feature in Word 2004 for the Mac. Also, in Notebook view, you can input audio. So now the student has a few choices about how to hear the directions read to him and now he can dictate his answers INDEPENDENTLY.
And these solutions are FREE because the software is already installed in the computer!!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Samuel Charles Sennott on September 27, 2007 at 11:34am: Karen, that is awesome! What a great step for that student!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Samuel Charles Sennott on September 29, 2007 at 6:42pm: Thanks for always sharing the FREE! It is so important!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Christi Fant on September 29, 2007 at 8:47pm: In the first three years of my teaching I had a student on the autism spectrum who was non-lingual and would become violent when we did not understand what he needed and when he did not understand what we were asking of him. He was only able to stay in a general ed classroom for 15 min. max. on a good day. I learned what Gestault language was when he began cartooning (using cartoon script in an attempt to communicate) and finally jumped into using the right scripts at the right times to express ideas. I learned that one of the reasons for his violence was to receive deep touch as we tried to restrict his rampages, we taught him to accept bear hugs and then to request bear hugs when the stress levels went up. The last half of the year I had with him he was able to tolerate the gen.ed. classroom for 1-2 hours, staying with his classmates for four hours during the last day of school and even then not wanting to leave. Today he has moved on into another classroom and does not become violent, uses language appropriately and in cartoon interspersed, is two grade levels behind his peers in math but reads three grade levels ahead of his peers. We did learn that reading out loud is two operations for him and he can read a passage and do cut and paste activities to prove comprehension but not put it into words verbally. I can not express the joy and pride I experienced when I was at a conference late last year and my cell went off to hear my student on the other end saying, "Mrs. Fant do you know what I did?" I would never have been able to accomplish any of this with out Lori Chambers our Speech Path. constantly brainstorming with me, making suggestions and the incredible paraeducators who were willing to try all the hair-brained ideas we came up with.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Samuel Charles Sennott on September 29, 2007 at 10:22pm: Christi, that is so encouraging. Right on! I just bought the software Comic Life and possibly this student may be interested in using it for writing. http://plasq.com/comiclife Thanks for sharing this awesome success!

Also, I just saw this free ware for viewing cartoons/comics: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/imaging_3d/simplecomic.html; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Christi Fant on September 29, 2007 at 11:11pm: Sam,
I see the simple comic was released two days ago? You are on the cutting edge. I can not use either one of these however as i am not Appleable. I have used http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ in the past. Not nearly so sophisticated looking but my students loved it.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Samuel Charles Sennott on September 30, 2007 at 4:36pm: Too bad. There are heavy rumors kicking around that before too long you will be able to boot OS X much easier than it is now on a normally Windows based machine. We'll see. Sometimes those rumors kick around for years!

That comic site is cool. Amazing how many flash and flash type sites are out there! Nice find.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jim Sprialis on October 1, 2007 at 9:06pm

Video Stories with Web Cams

When considering which web cam to purchase, you may like to investigate the few Logitech models which support Video Effects. Video Effects compatible web cams can utilize Avatars and Face Effects.
The software bundled with these models utilizes face tracking technology to calibrate the facial features of the user and the result is a synchronized recording of the selected Avatar. Free Avatars can be downloaded from the Logitech web site.
I've attached a screenshot showing three of the approximately 50 Avatars available.

The use of Avatars has lots of applications but I'd like to share two examples with you....
1. I have worked with an educator in utilizing the web cam to make social stories for a student with Asperger's. He loves cartoons so she thought she might try these web cams .He kept running away in Physical Education lessons and she utilized the GingerBread Man avatar to construct stories about not running away.
2. I have worked with a student who used an Avatar to create videos as a narrator of an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure story in Clicker. Very little text in his story but lots of videos and sound files outlining the hidden stories of his settings and help videos to assist the viewer of his interactive story navigate through the hidden hyperlinks. I will be posting information about this example in greater detail in a future posting.

More details about which models support this Video Effects feature can be found on the Logitech web site http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/video_softw...

regards
Jim

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avatar_samples.jpg, 17 KB

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Permalink Reply by KarenJanowski on October 1, 2007 at 9:17pm: Jim,
Thanks for sharing this success - this is creative thinking outside the box with many applications!. Sounds very cool and worth exploring and it's even more enticing because you have shared two success stories with how you have used it with your students.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Samuel Charles Sennott on October 8, 2007 at 12:24am: Jim, that is soooo cool. Right on.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jim Sprialis on October 8, 2007 at 12:39am

It is really cool.... I noticed the link I put in my previous post is incomplete.
Hopefully this will work - http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/video_softw...

I've also uploaded a little video a student made to go with his interactive Adventure Quest.

In my courses, I have a set of these web cams for participants to use.. I always leave it until last because once they start using them you never can get teachers back on task again!!!!!

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