Tuesday, February 21, 2017

The "Choice Act" isn't really about "Choice".

Another day, another call to make:

Please call your representative and ask him/her to vote NO on U.S. House Bill 610 (HR 610) introduced by three Republican reps.

This bill will effectively start the school voucher system to be used by children ages 5-17, and starts the defunding process of public schools. In addition the bill will eliminate the Elementary and Education Act of 1965 (ESSA), which is the nation's educational law and provides equal opportunity in education. ESSA is a big comprehensive program that covers programs for struggling learners, AP classes, ESL classes, classes for minorities such as Native Americans, Rural Education, Education for the Homeless, School Safety (Gun-Free schools), Monitoring and Compliance and Federal Accountability Programs.

Let me be clear, I am not categorically against Charter schools, I have worked in some truely remarkable charters. But I am categorically against charter, private, and home schools replacing public education.

The Bill also abolishes the Nutritional Act of 2012 (No Hungry Kids Act) which provides nutritional standards in school breakfast and lunch.

The bill has no wording whatsoever protecting Special Needs kids, no mention of IDEA and FAPE.

Some things ESSA does for Children with Disabilities
-Ensures access to the general education curriculum.
-Ensures access to accommodations on assessments.
-Ensures concepts of Universal Design for Learning
-Includes provisions that require local education agencies to provide evidence-based
interventions in schools with consistently underperforming subgroups.
-Requires states in Title I plans to address how they will improve conditions for learning including reducing incidents of bullying and harassment in schools, overuse of discipline practices and reduce the use of aversive behavioral interventions (such as restraints and seclusion).

So as a stated above, time to make some calls! If you are uncertain who to call, you can find your Congress-person here.

Hajimé!

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Ditch the Desktop and Laptop and make Custom Boards!


Hey Tek-Ninjas! So I'm on a roll reviewing the Smarty-Ears Apps. Let me say that I get no moolah for sharing these apps with you, I've simply been very impressed by them.

Today I am blogging about  Custom Boards, an iPhone and/or iPad app which serves as a board and activity creator. Custom Boards retails for $49.99. This may seem like a lot for "an app", but take a look at the competition and you will see their prices are at least double if not more.

Some of our students require symbol support in order to experience success with transitions, jobs, ADL's, etc. Software can be very expensive, and tied to a computer. Custom Boards provides a great option to get around those issues. 

Rather than retell the features, I've simply pulled this from the creator's website. It is impressive:

• includes over 125 templates from within 6 categories
• includes over 10,000 built-in Smarty Symbols
• Choose from a total of 100 floating shapes and 7 different styles of shapes
• Ability to add images from Google search engine
• Ability to add Floating Images—place an image anywhere on the template!
• Ability to add Floating Shapes—place any of the 100 built in shapes anywhere!
• Ability to add Floating Texts— place text anywhere on the template!
• Layers — select individual floating images, text, and shapes and move them forward/back
• Add multiple pages to a template
• Lock the screen to use a static image on the iPad itself in an activity without accidentally editing it.
• Ability to lock the screen so that the iPad surface itself can be used for an activity.
• Share editable files with other Custom Boards users
• Email PDFs of your custom boards creations to anyone
• Quickly print your creations with an air ready printer
• Cloud Compatible — backup your files via the cloud
• Organize your archive of creations with folders

Also, here is a video introduction with REALLY REALLY peppy music.



The built in introduction tutorial is really well done, and helps a first-time user get up to speed.

If you are in the market for "board-making" software, Custom Boards is definitely worth a look!

Hajimè

Monday, February 13, 2017

Syntax like a ninja!

Good morning Tek-Ninjas! As a lover of all things "Ninja" I am easily engaged by things with "ninja-osity". Yes. I made that word up. But you know what I mean. 

Multiple Adjustments
One of the Smarty Ears apps that I've been so impressed with is called "Sentence Ninja". It is a very powerful education tool, which teaches sentence and grammar skills, all the while recording data.  It retails for only $19.99. 

Customizable
 Per the app designer: "Sentence Ninja is a multi-player multi-level app designed to improve sentence structure skills in children and adults. Designed by a certified speech-language pathologist." The app teaches syntax, aka, word order. 

Sentence Ninja is easily and very customizable to fit most learner's needs. Used in conjunction with a therapist's clinical reasoning, it can be a powerful teaching tool. With 39 levels ranging from simple to complex phrases, syntax teaching can be fun and effective. 

Using the Smarty Ears Therapy Report Center app, which I blogged about awhile back, the clinician or teacher can easily and quickly "dump" students into Sentence Ninja quickly. Data can be collected and shared as needed. 

So, if you are working on Syntax, be sure to take a closer look at Sentence Ninja!

Hajimé!

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Support Good Works


Hey Tek-Ninjas! Now for something completely different.

Over the last few years I have been involved with an organization called Wilderness Trail. Every hike has been transformative for me and both of my sons. So much so that I agreed to become a Board Member a year ago. 
I have always believed that amazing things happen when you take people out of their comfort zone and place them in the beauty of God's creation. Wilderness Trail agrees. The main programming takes place in the summer when groups of youth go on 5-day backpacking journeys on the Appalachian Trail. Central themes of servant leadership and being the body of Christ are lived out on the hike and at the "base camp" during each 7-day event.

Wilderness Trail is looking to grow, but carefully. They have maxed out how many students they can serve in a given summer based on Park Service Guidelines, unless they open a second location. I would like for more students to be able to have similarly powerful experiences.

Please consider donating any amount to Wilderness Trail in order to help fund other hikers. 
DONATE
If not donating, a share on your Social Media would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jim

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Reporting on your Therapy!



Hey Tek-Ninjas! Last blog I mentioned that I was excited by several of the offerings from Smarty Ears. Today, I'm blogging about their app Therapy Report Center (TRC). 

TRC seems to have been designed specifically with SLP's in mind, but I think it easily can be utilized by Occupational and Physical Therapists. If you are a clinician looking for a way to document your treatment and service delivery, this app may be the answer. TRC is compatible on your iPad. Incidentally, it's free. 

With TRC you can individually add each student you work with. You can include a photo of the student, and input the individualized goals into their profile.


The app is specifically designed to integrate with and collate data from other Smarty Ears apps, but I believe it could be used easily for tracking service delivery, and generating reports easily.  The interface is intuitive, and elegant.  Sending data via email and Airdrop is seamless. 





Per the Smarty Ears website: TRC is the perfect accompaniment for data collection in Response to Intervention (RTI). By allowing the professional to input all students (not just those on IEPs), the actual number of student’s being seen is tracked. In addition, each student’s goals are unique and individualized. Because data is tracked as often as the professional desires, TRC allows the professional to monitor interventions and the student’s progress over time. Data collection has never been easier!

So take a look at Therapy Report Center, it may simplify your work for you.

Hajimè! 

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

AT Eval Support

Good day Tek-Ninjas! Today I would like to highlight an app from Smarty Ears. I plan to look at a
few other standouts in the coming days and weeks. This company is prolific, and while I've only used a few of their products so far, every one of them has been excellent. On top of that, when I've emailed thoughts or questions I have received a very quick and courteous email back either answering my questions or thanking me for my input.

So, for this blog, I want to show you the first I saw from them: ATEval2Go is an app designed for any professional responsible for putting technology into the hands of students. It can be used in any environment, but I especially like it's application here in a school setting.

ATEval2Go was created by SLP/Assistive Technology Specialist Christopher Bugaj.  It was designed to help you document all observations and considerations essential to an assistive technology evaluation. It retails for $39.99, which in the world of apps may seem step, but I assure you, it's worth every penny.

The evaluation tool allows you to store multiple students at once. It guides you in your acquisition of data, serving as a robust framework to creating thorough AT/AAC evals.  There are five categories the tool leads you through including, 1. Student/ Teacher information, 2. File Review / Background Information, 3. Observation & Assessment 4. Recommended Strategies & Tools, and 5. Important Notes

ATEval2Go provides users with the ability to build banks of previously used targeted goals, accommodations, and available technologies. The app also provides the user with banks of commonly used accommodations and recommendations organized by domains such as communication, composition, reading, vision, hearing, etc. Each bank is fully customizable, allowing users to add their own recommendations to build a personalized library of commonly suggested tools and strategies.
Report View
AtEval2Go streamlines report writing by storing fixed information such as evaluator’s information and institution information.

Finally, ATEval2Go incorporates frequently-used assistive technology evaluation tools such as Joy Zabala’s SETT Framework, the Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative Assessment (WATI) , the Council for Exceptional Children’s Assistive Technology Consideration Wheel, the Virginia Assistive Technology Resource Guide (VATRG), as well as author Christopher Bugaj’s over 12 years of experience conducting evaluations.

This is a tremendous product, and I recommend anyone "doing AT" take a look at it!

Hajimé!