Dear St. Joseph Consolidated School Teachers, Aides and Principal,
I was one of over 250 people who attended the iLearn conference Saturday at Raymond Walters College. I apologize for the length of this e-mail but I want to share everything I learned. Please don't feel the need to read this e-mail all at once.
The attendees at today's conference were a cross-section of parents, teachers, therapists, and school administrators. Cincinnati Children's had several people in attendance including the speech therapist Mike saw for several years. Some of you may remember Kelly Flynn the academic coach from Princeton City Schools who came to St Joe's last spring and gave a presentation on manipulatives; she was also in attendance at today's event. While the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Cincinnati organized this conference, the presenters stressed that the iPad technology, and the apps presented, could be used with typical developing kids and those with different learning disabilities.
How the Presentation Started:
The first speaker was Latasha Lampkin a rehabilitation engineer at Redwood in Kentucky. Ms. Lampkin began the day by showing photos and explaining the basic differences between an iPhone, IPod Touch, and iPad as well as other similar but certainly different electronic devices on the market. Ms. Lampkin also set the stage for the three learning tracks: preschool, elementary, and teens/adults by showing videos of iPad technology in action. The videos were very motivating.
The preschool video showed a child singing to an electronic version of Wheels on the Bus and matching colors. A second video showed an early elementary child practicing site words and writing using interactive applications. A third video showed a young adult going grocery shopping with the help of his iPad. The young man's grocery list was a picture list; he matched items on the store shelves to the pictures. Another video showed a child with severe mobility issues using an iPad to play a piano. The child could do this independently - probably one of the few things in her life she could do by herself. Finally the last video showed an older gentleman who had a stroke. He lost most of his speech ability. Staff at a rehabilitation center taught him how to use an iPad as an augmentative communication device to express his needs, wants, and feelings.
Session 1
I followed the Elementary Track for the day. The first presenter was Melanie Broxterman an Intervention Specialist at Evendale Elementary. Ms. Broxterman has been part of the Princeton districts iPad experiment I will mention later. Ms. Broxterman said it is amazing how the kids are interacting with the iPad software, are staying engaged, and are learning. Ms. Broxterman has her own blog about how she has learned about the technology and incorporated it into learning. Her blog: http://broxtermansblog.blogspot.com/.
Here are the apps that were covered in the first session today. They're categorized by subject.
1A - Reading and Writing
Sight Words by Phototouch
****Sarah these are your sight word flash cards from the Dolch word lists in an app form! This was the first thing I added at home. Mike loves it!
ABC Alphabet phonics - great for kindergarten letter identification
Kid Genius which has 13 different math, reading, concept games in one app
Build it up math for sorting, sizing, categorizing, concept like top to bottom, before and after (Tim load this for Mike)
Wordmagic for spelling
Sentence Builder gives the student a picture and a variety of sentence word choices
Magnet alphabet - just fun magnetic letters like the refrigerator ones that can move around on the screen - video in action below
1B - Speech and Language
Ms. Broxterman recommends a blog website by a speech therapist who uses lots of speech apps.
www.proloquo2go.com was discussed in several sessions. It is not a free app. It costs 189.00 but is an interactive version of the PECS picture communication system.
Choiceboardmaker is an app Ms. Broxterman just started learning. This app allows you to import pictures into a simple question and answer choice board. When the correct answer is selected a reinforcing sound plays. She could make her own questions to target specific learning skills.
Kinderspell reminded me of the Elkoin cards(?spelling?) that Kelly Flynn left last year
Ms. Broxterman also demonstrated "Little Speller", a Typing Bee
1C - Fine Motor Apps
A & R Entertainment has simple online versions of the old wooden puzzles
There are many tracing apps for writing such as ABC trace and big number trace.
Ms. Broxterman stated the "Just for fun as a break for her kids - first we do this work then we will play this: TicTacFree (a tick tack toe game), 4 in a row like the old Connect 4 game, and DRAWFREE."
Ms. Broxterman has a student with limited mobility who, like the girl in the video, loves to play the piano, Virtual Piano, Air Guitar, and PaperJamz Drums.
Some Reading A-Z books are available.
A parent from the class uses Storybuddy and Pictello to make social stories for her son or small electronic books about his weekend to share with his teachers and friends. The output is an electronic book similar to the Where is Grace book my husband Tim made using Power point and a printer.
Session 2
Session 2 in the Elementary Track was taught by a first grade teacher from Monticello, Ky. She teaches in a regular classroom with 5 kids in her class on IEPs of some kind. Her school district decided to purchase (4) iPod touches and (1) iPad for each classroom (kindergarten through grade 4). One of the things she really stressed is that the technology is for everyone. The typical kids love it, the kids on IEP's love it and everyone gets to use it. She tends to use the devices as directed center time instruction. Her school has purchased a cart that all the iPod touches dock into. The cart then plugs into the computer so they can load the same apps all at once.
She has one non-verbal child who uses Tap to Talk. Suddenly he has control to say when he wants a snack, to go to the playground, etc.
She has used model me going places with all her students to help children learn to navigate in the community with appropriate behavior such as what happens when you go to the doctor or the dentist.
Locabulary Lite is another useful but fun augmentative communication device bases on your location with your GPS. She pulled up nearby locations, restaurants, McDonalds and used the device to tap "I want" and then the entire McDonald's menu was listed for her to choose from. The voice was easy to understand. I want a cheeseburger.
She also loved the Starfall app set up similar to the website.
Even though she teaches first grade, a parent asked about apps for teaching multiplication. She was familiar with Math Drills Lite. The feature she liked the most was besides the multiplication problem such as 3 x 6 a number line appears at the bottom of the screen as a visual cue to count by 3's to get the answer. It will probably be coming to Grace's life soon.
She has also found some great electronic books including Dr. Seuss, Clifford and Berenstain Bears that read the book and highlight the word being spoken. These were not free but most were $5.99 or less.
Session 3
Session 3 was divided into 3 parts. Speaker 1 was Tim Dugan, Director of School Improvement and Technology for Princeton City Schools. In October of this year, as an experiment, the Princeton School District deployed 50 iPads to various teachers, grades, and buildings throughout the district. They used Title II non competitive funds for technology for the purchase. Since deployment, there have been no service requests or problems other than 1 power cord. The entire Princeton experiment is online including how they set up initial training, an email list of all participants, and a blog for shared conversation by users. It is worth checking out.
The district has been pleased with durability, app interface, and price point. The school purchased the basic iPad ($499, 16 gb, wi-fi access).
Also on there website is a sortable spreadsheet of apps. So one could select third grade, math, and search the spreadsheet for apps with a short description.
The second to last presenter talked about accessories - cases, film, safety devices to find your iPod touch or iPad if lost.
The final speaker talked about potential sources of funding primarily for individual users with disabilites.
All of the PowerPoint's from all tracks will be posted online by April 6th
Obviously I feel like I saw and learned alot today. I also feel like it was a great place to be with the cross-sectional audience of parents, educators, therapists, and administrators. Everyone seems to be at the same early (exploratory) phase of the iPad technology. They're all trying to figure out the best ways to improve learning for all students in the classroom. It seems likely that the iPad/ Android touchscreen technology revolution will continue to become more a part of our everyday life. It may seam overwhelming because it's new but I'm here to tell you that it is so easy to use once you do it!
I hope the information abovr is useful to some of you. As I mentioned in an earlier e-mail, our family owns an iPad and a couple iPods. We plan to begin using the iPad daily with our son Mike soon. We hope to use the iPad both in and out of school. We'll keep you in touch of our progress.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this long e-mail.
Kim Meehan
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