Happy Birthday Tek-Ninja!

Two years ago today I was inspired for some inexplicable reason to write a blog. My first article was called "The Covenant", and it was about our responsibility as parents to stay educated and aware of the cyber-world on behalf of our children.

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Since then, I've written over 200 posts, mostly though not exclusively about technology and education. I don't think of myself as a writer. Many of my blogs are likely riddled with grammatical errors. And my level of productivity varies. Some weeks, I write several times. Some weeks I don't write at all. I enjoy seeing how many "hits" an article receives, however, there is no monetary incentive to writing. 

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So, why write? There is no money. There is no prestige or power. I write because the process helps me to think about my practice as an Assistive Technology Professional, and as an Occupational Therapist. Writing helps me organize my thinking, and scrutinize my assumptions. It also makes me reach beyond the tools that I might typically gravitate to from inertia. 

Tek-Ninja has been a great vehicle for me to develop my practice. I hope the writing has been of some use to others. Happy birthday to me, and happy therapy to you!

Thanks for reading!

New Blog to Follow!

My friend, co-worker, and sometimes guest blogger, Ashley Robinson has started her own blog! This is very exciting. Ashley's blog is called Everyday AAC. Ashley is a very thoughtful and skilled Speech Therapist. She has fresh ideas, and a tremendous amount of energy. Take a look, bookmark the blog, or follow it, as she is sure to write some very intriguing posts.

Happy Therapy!

A Rousing Success!

In approximately 36 hours Ruth Morgan was successful in funding her Donors Choose project. 
This is astonishing to me, and a testimony to the power of asking for help! Any of us could replicate such a process.
Granted, Ruth has a strong network of folks who are interested in the work she does. She posted her Donors Choose project on her Facebook page as well as on her blog. She indicated to me that the majority of folks who donated were people she knows. Here is her "Thank you" letter she posted on her Donors Choose page this morning.

I can't fully express my joy, excitement, and gratitude for your donation to my project. It is great to see that you share my vision for using technology in teaching children with autism and other developmental disabilities.
The iPad that you have funded will enable students to develop functional communication skills as well as reinforce basic concepts and academics with innovative apps. The students are highly motivated by technology, and will put this to good use. Needless to say, I am thrilled by everyone's generosity.
I can't wait until this iPad arrives, and I can share with all the teacher some of the great ways to use it effectively! Thank you so much!
With gratitude, Ms. Morgan

Congratulations Ruth!

Resources and reflections on integrating technology in education

A colleague of mine has started a new tech blog, JB-IT: Resources and reflections on integrating technology in education.

Jason Bales is a Technology Specialist with the Chapel Hill ~ Carrboro City Schools, and has a wealth of knowledge. His blog will likely be geared to the gen-ed population, however, certainly there will be cross-over interest for our special needs students. Be sure to follow!

Heres a brief excerpt from an article:

Multimedia projects can be a giant pain, which may be why some teachers avoid them altogether. Even the most tech-savvy teachers find these projects a bit daunting. Take audio recording as an example. You can use a simple site like Soundcloud, but it requires an account, and that account takes a while to set up, which can be a real issue if you are thinking of having students create their own accounts. You could use a desktop program like Audacity or Garageband, but then you have to set up some way to share or collect those recordings, which can be a time-consuming process. So, it seems like there's no happy medium, no way to do a simple one-take recording that doesn't require either an account or lots of work on the teacher's end in collecting the assignments.

Or is there? Recently, I learned about a way to do a simple recording online with no account, and you can collect all of the projects using a simple Google Form.

Happy Therapy!

Growing Children's Skills for Life...

The focus of Shinobijimbo: TechNinja is often about how technology helps children access their curriculum. But the necessary underpinnings for my interventions to work are that the child understands how to participate in their many varied communities. If you work with or have children ages 3 to 8, Acorn Dreams is a terrific website with quick and easy concepts for raising children. Their agenda is to be "a resource center and store for practical tips and research-based materials that help foster children’s positive behavior and lay the foundation for success in school and in life."  Sounds good to me!

I really like the section "In a Nutshell: Quick tips to help Grow Children's Skills".  With header tabs such as "Healthy Habits", "Self-Control", and "Social Skills", the reader can get quick tips to facilitate such skill growth.  As an Occupational Therapist, I can definitely see sharing these Quick Tips with teachers and parents of the students I work with!

The other segment of interest is the Acorn Dreams blog which is fairly new, but already filled with some interesting topics.  The first few blogs consider the use of praise and also weight issues. These articles are succinct, and evidence based. I'm looking forward to reading the next blog articles.

Acorn Dreams is really designed with the typically developing youngster in mind. However, so many of the ideas are generalizable for our students with special needs.  Take a look at it!

Happy parenting!

A Case Study #2

Some of this is a rehash of recent blog articles. But this time it's in action. I hope to report any stumbling blocks we encounter as well as our success.


We have an eighth grade student who we will refer to as Joe.  Joe was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, and Autism. Both are relatively mild, but still hinder his ability to write quickly and effectively.  He is a fairly bright young man, and wants to do well.  Joe is mainstreamed throughout his day, and receives some resource services, and Occupational Therapy services.

As a middle schooler he is asked to record his homework from the board, as well as take notes of the board.  His mother has expressed frustration that he often comes home and neither he nor she can read his notes. They are non-functional.  Despite this, (and to her credit) she wants him to be responsible for gathering this information, and not to rely on others to do it for him. 

The plan is to set Joe up with a blog, which will serve as the repository for all his notes.  He will use an iTouch to take pictures of his homework, and any board notes. Joe will publish the snapshots onto the blog.  Refer to this blog for a quick look at the app Blogger. 

Lets break this down. 

Week 1: Joe's Occupational Therapist and I introduced the iTouch to him. We taught him how to take snapshots with his iTouch camera. We specifically taught him how to stabilize his elbows on his desk to keep the camera from shaking.  We have asked his classroom teachers to put up a "tape boarder" on their white boards to give Joe a target to aim around.  We also taught him how to email the photos to his personal email address. Refer to this blog for more on this process.  In addition, we taught Joe how to use Dragon Dictate on his iTouch and email that to himself, incase there are any short notes he wants to record.

None of you will be surprised to hear that a middle-schooler was quite comfortable using an iTouch!  Joe will use the camera and Dragon Dictate in this capacity for a week. He will photograph his homework and notes only. We've discussed privacy issues, and he understand that he should not photograph peers.  

Week 2: Assuming that Joe has had success using the camera and emailing photos and dictation to himself, we will teach him how to use the app Blogger.  This involves opening Blogger, clicking on the camera icon in the bottom, taking a picture, and than clicking the "Publish" icon.  Similiarly, we will have him copy from Dragon Dictate and paste into Blogger any dictated content, and then click "Publish".  

I have already setup a Blogger blog. I used this blog service for a number of reasons. 1. I'm already familiar with it... it's what I use for Shinobijimbo, 2. The Blogger app is really simple and free! 3.  Other blogs undoubtedly offer this, but I can lock down who the blog is available to. We wanted only Joe, his family, and select teachers to be able to access the blog.  You may be more comfortable with another program.

Ideally, Joe will be able to publish all his homework for each class. Each will have a date. If you look at my blog, on the right you see hyperlinks for articles by date and name. If Joe titles each entry it can be really easy to reference. He won't have to store dozens of photos on an iTouch, or emails on his account. He will have a running record for the year.  Joe will be able to access this information from any internet-connected computer.

Things to consider:

1. I made an email account and a blog account for Joe. It felt important to get permission from the family to do this. I gave them the passwords, and encourage them to take ownership of both accounts. They can change passwords if they choose. 
2. Students need to know that they cannot photograph other students without written permission from those student's parents.  Best to just avoid.
3. I locked down the blog account. It does not appear in google searches, and the only way someone can access it is with an email invite. 
4. Teachers need to be onboard with Joe taking his iTouch out in the middle of class, and snapping photos. With the knowledge that this is an academic tool for him, all our teachers were supportive. 
5. It helps to have someone who will work with the student periodically to make sure they are learning the necessary skills to make the whole program work. 
6. Don't just dump the whole idea on him/her at once. Build the component skills one at a time: learn to take the photos. Learn to email them, learn to use the Blogger App. 
7. Tweak as necessary.

When it all comes together, the student should have a really elegant and easy to use plan in place to get his home-works assignments home.  I'll report back after we have some experience.

Happy Therapy!

Getting Homework Assignments to the Home!

Blogger in Action

What if you're a classroom teacher. 


What if you're supposed to have a website for your classroom, you know, for homework, and class notes, and "stuff".

But what if you HATE keeping up your website. Or you just feel too busy!

If you have an iTouch, iPhone, or an iPad with a camera, this could make your life easier! Download Blogger from the app store, which is FREE. The work is setting up a Blogspot.  It will take you 15-30 minutes, and a gmail account, which is also FREE. Than make certain your student's families have the address.

Now, any time there is homework written on the board, or classroom notes, open up the Blogger app. 1. Tap the camera icon in the bottom left corner. Take a picture of your board, and 2. hit "Publish" in the top right corner. Your photo will be published to your blog, with the date, and your students and their families can access it easily!  In addition, you can easily take pictures of class projects.

If any of you try this please let me know. If you try it and run into glitches, let me know that to, and I'll try to help if I can.


This blog got Smithkin Kinders and I discussing what kind of success teachers have had using technology in this way... I didn't have the answer, but it certainly seemed like a great idea.

Good luck, and thanks Smithkin Kinders!

Thanks to the Public School Foundation!

Guest Blogger: Ashley Robinson

Hello again. Jim has been gracious enough to let me guest blog once again. Back in the fall, I appliedfor a grant on behalf of the Assistive Technology team. This grantwas awarded by the Public School Foundation of Chapel Hill CarrboroCity Schools (http://www.publicschoolfoundation.org/)

My amazing supervisor, Ruth Morgan(http://chapelhillsnippets.blogspot.com/), walked me through thegrant process and got me through my first grant application. Thegrant was titled, “It's Never Too Late: Targeting Literacy inMiddle and High School Students with Disabilities.”

Our aim in this grant is to providemiddle and high school students with disabilities easy access to ageappropriate material at their reading level. Jim found an app calledScribblePress, which allows students to write and illustrate theirown books. There are several ready made templates, so students whohave trouble generating novel text can have more structure. Authorshave the opportunity to share their material for others to read. Staytuned for more blog postings about ScribblePress and all of the coolthings it can do...

Today, I want to take the time to thankthe Public School Foundation for their generous funding towards thisgrant. With this funding, Jim and I hope to put one iPad loaded withthe ScribblePress app, and other apps to support literacydevelopment, in each middle and high school. Exceptional Educationteachers will be able to make use of this technology in theirclassrooms and with many different students. We have so many greateducators in this district, that it will be a real pleasure toprovide them with technology to support what they are already doingin their classrooms to target literacy.

On behalf of the secondary ExceptionalEducation teachers and the Assistive Technology team, we would liketo send a huge THANK YOU to the Public School Foundation!  

The Covenant

Raising children… The single most challenging and rewarding task put before us. If it is done well, it is both of those things. Children change so often. Just when we think we have a handle on what’s needed, what’s needed changes. 

 

Today’s adolescents look like adults. They are adult sized, which I suppose we were as well at their ages. But there is more to it than that. Teens today present with a greater world sophistication than we did. They dress like adults. My children go to school with children from Mexico, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. There is no question they cannot get an answer for via the internet, yet I’m fairly confident that they don’t ask for moral advice or guidance, and frankly I’d be leery of Internet based advice! Thanks in no small part to the internet, teens today are exposed to much more sexuality and information about sex than my peers and I were. Despite this, I worry about the emotional depth of their knowledge, because once again, they look like adults, but they are still children.

On occasion I hear parents lament how quickly children grow up. We lament the huge and negative impact technology has played on our adolescents, sometimes resulting in premature adultification. I am cogent that if my son got his first Facebook page at too young of an age, the responsibility lies only with me. In my excitement to embrace technology, perhaps I should have set better limits for him. As a parent, I think it is of utmost importance that we understand the technologies that our children are using. To ignore Facebook, twitter, or tumbler, just to name a few, means that we are making a choice to not be informed about most of the major ways that our teens are socializing and communicating with each other.  I believe it is imperative that we be our children’s Facebook “friend”. I believe it is imperative that we follow our children’s twitters, and give them feedback when appropriate, not necessarily feedback on their digital post, where we will likely embarrass them, but face to face. Children need to learn to be good cyber citizens, and as we guide them in their social interactions in the community, we also need to guide them in their interactions in the cyber world.

These are some of the topics I think about often.  I am not an expert by any means. I am a dad who is engaged in parenting, and probably making more mistakes than I wish. Time will tell… as will my children, but hopefully not in a memoir! I am writing about these things mostly just to think out loud, and possibly to get some thoughtful feedback.