Overview - Course Reflection

This course has provided me with so much, it will be difficult to capture this in a final blog entry!  However, I will do my best!

Most importantly, what I have learned from being a part of this class cannot be measured in any way.  There has been a change in me on an emotional level.  I have always wanted to be in education to make a difference in children's lives.  However, as an adult in a class as a student, I realized that we all influence and inspire one another!  I have been so inspired by this class from the beginning with our introduction to Susie Rubin, who has changed my life forever!  From the use of iPod touches, iPod Nanos, Boardmaker, video editing software as well as switches.....the possibilities are endless!!

Never again will I say that I can't do something!  We have viewed so many videos from the professor as well as our own searches on google and YouTube to information shared on classmates logs, that it is inspiring what people can do when faced with challenges.  I have never really considered this before, quite honestly because I never had to.  I have not had to face a disability - with learning, physical or otherwise, so I did not have this in my frame of reference.  However, since attending this course, I have been so inspired by the individuals we have seen - whether it be a person with a learning disability such as autism, physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy or a person who has had to have a limb removed.  I have seen them doing extraordinary things that I have not even attempted.  There was the man with cerebral palsy who did the wall climbing; the people who had a leg amputated who were surfing and downhill skiing; the person with muscular dystrophy and using assistive technology to swim; the Australian lay, Kelly McCann (I remember her name as she is so inspirational) who does not have mobility of any of her extremities (she is a quadrapalegic) and yet there she was on a surf board experience this feeling of "flying" as she stated.  I have never been on a surf board!

However, my attitude is changing...never again will I say I can't....I can and will try!  I foster this with students in my school as well and tell them that I don't accept that they can't do something.  There is always a way, a means of getting something done or ways to adapt our environment so that we can be successful.  We have seen the gamet in this course from using video social stories to persons who need to use switches on a wheelchair or other device as they have extremely limited motor control.  Truly inspirational, motivating and with endless possibilities! 

The world is at our fingertips when we enter into the realm of assistive technology!  We have just touched the surface and my plan is to continue in my endeavours with what I have learned from this course and take to my professional experiences!

Thank you to Barbara Welsford, my classmates and all the individuals we were permitted to enter into their lives as they shared their stories for us!

Trachoma Disease

This is absolutely an amazing video on what a blind person can do by using mouth clicks (echolocation) in order to manipulate and function in his environment.  Truly inspirational and motivating!  Makes you wonder about the potential we don't access each and every day!  Please make sure you also view the videos that are at the bottom of the main one - there is one entitled in Loving Memory - a must watch! 

Food for thought!

Ben - His Legacy

Trachoma is an infectious eye disease and is caused by a bacterial infection.  It has become the world's leading cause of infectious blindness.  It is a preventable disease, however it is highly prevalent in Ethiopia due to the conditions there and the lack of clean water.  This disease has led to approximately 8 million people worldwide being visually impaired.  This is a considerable disability.  There are also approximately 84 million people in the world who have some form of active infection.

This disease can be spread in the following ways:

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  Direct contact such as touching infected eye secretions
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  Other forms of direct contact such as touching infected nasal or throat secretions
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  Indirect contact such as touching contaminated items – example, towels, sheets, blankets or clothing
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  Flies that seek out the eyes.

This video is one person's story of their experience with Trachoma as well as documents the disability this causes.  This story happens to be in Ethiopia, which is where most of this disease seems to occur.  The reasons are that there is not clean water for hygiene purposes and this leads to infections such as trachoma. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsnGfjiYXYM

Worldwide, there are organizations that are assisting the people of Ethiopia and attempting to lessen the number of people infected with this disease.  One such example of these efforts can be viewed in this link from YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHksOgjt3zo&feature=related

Trachoma is commonly caused from poor hygiene, crowded housing and poverty.  It can also be referred to as Sandy Blight.

One of the world organizations dealing with Trachoma prevention is an organization working in Kenya.  Their goal is to minimize the incidents of Trachoma in this country.  Some of their strategies are found on their website at http://sightsaversusa.org/our_work/where_we_work/east_africa/11470.html

A brief synopsis of their work is as follows:

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  66 itinerant and contact teachers were trained in Braille and low vision. This will hopefully improve services to children and minimize over-reliance on itinerant services at district level.
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  Our partner the Kenya Union of the Blind has successfully produced 16 textbook editions in talking book format, as part of the assistive technology programme. This will boost the accessibility of learning materials among visually impaired students in secondary schools.
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  The last phase of the Trachoma Control Programme took place, with a phase mass antibiotic treatment targeting 500,000 people in the Kajiado District.
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  Two ophthalmologists were posted to district hospitals in two Sight Savers supported programmes, which is a great improvement given that in the past ophthalmologists have only been rendering services in provincial hospitals.

One type of Assistive Technology that can be used for individuals affected by blindness, whether from glaucoma, trachoma or other eye diseases (infectious or otherwise) would be echolocation as was used by Ben in the video above.  They can use tongue clicks to hear the differences in sound (much like dolphins do) to orient themselves.  Ben obviously was a pro with this, however I am sure that others could develop these skills as well in order to get around in their environment and have control over their lives.  Ben definitely was the inspiration for this.  You could also adapt this by using an electronic clicking device or manual clicking device to distinguish different sounds in your environment.  You could use a low tech clicking device which would not cost a great deal of money or a high tech device from a supplier that will likely cost more.  It depends on the needs of the person and what their preference would be, as per the MPTTT framework.  The milieu would be to assist them with functioning in their environment; their personality would determine what type of device they would use - they may be comfortable using tongue clicks or they may want a portable device (high or low tech).  In terms of the time, task and technology, that speaks for itself when determining that they will need to have time to become familiar with using clicking devices and for given functions, depending on the device they use.

Boardmaker

As this graphic from Boardmaker indicates a range of emotions, I too have been going through the range since we began working on our Boardmaker assignments.  I have been working frantically in class on creating an interactive book in class as this is our assignment.  Not being familiar with Boardmaker at all, I was excited (can you find that emotion above!!!) knowing that I would now have the opportunity and time needed to explore this program.  The program is widely used by Resource and Learning Centre teachers and I was curious to find out more about how the program is used to support curriculum for students with unique needs and abilities.

However, after our professor walking us through the first portion of our trial run at Boardmaker, I began to feel a little uneasy.  We had created a board with four quadrants and then had to link and create additional boards with text and voice speech to match all the original four quadrants.  As an example, we had a quadrant titled "I want" and then we had to link this to another board and list 4 wants that a child might need to communicate.  We created these and then matched this with visual images, text and voice.  This was a great experience, but didn't last nearly long enough and soon we were on our own!  I was a little intimidated, but knowing in my mind that I would not hurt the operation of the program, I forged ahead....undaunted!!!!

Eventually, the practice Boardmaker project was completed and I was happy with the result. 

Our next assignment was a little more challenging, which automatically created more stress....unnecessary as I soon discovered!  The more you use this program, the easier it becomes.  This is like anything associated with technology.  I have learned that I was at first intimidated a little by all that technology has to offer from the simplest of technology to more complex.  However, like most things that I do, I learn best when doing things on my own and learning from my mistakes.  This held true for my work with Boardmaker.

Although the Book Project in Boardmaker on Egypt is by no means a work of Michelangelo, it certainly is a work of art for us!  We are very proud that when we designed this book, we created it for a student in Grade 7 who is an emergent reader.  He is interested in Social Studies and enjoys working on various countries and learning about different parts of the world.  Part of his IPP states that he is to become more proficient with expressive language skills and to improve his abilities in Social Studies.  This, we decided, can be combined in our book.  We can increase his ability in Social Studies by providing a book about Egypt made with Boardmaker.  We can also improve his expressive language skills by having text printed in Boardmaker to match the pictures that we imported from the Internet as well as our own voices recorded to match the text.  This is something I investigated a bit with the Boardmaker program and we are excited that we were able to record our own voices on the book.  This would be a great tool for a teacher or Educational Program Assistant to use with the child.  They could record their own voice to match the text and this would be a voice that is familiar to the child.

In reference to the MPTTT framework, the considerations for this project were as follows:

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  M - Milieu - this would be in the classroom for Social Studies and the child would be working with Boardmaker software and access the book with the simple button switch which is mounted on the arm of his wheelchair.  He has cerebral palsy and has some controlled movement of his right elbow.
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  Personality - personality considerations for this child are that he is very social and therefore needs to attend to task - this can be accomplished in having the book created with pictures from the Internet which are more appropriate to his age and appealing; having the text so he can follow along as it is scanned as well as having the text read by a familiar voice; he has many head movements due to his cerebral palsy, but he does have controlled movement of his right elbow, therefore a simple switch which can be activated by his right elbow will be mounted on the right arm of his wheelchair for access
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  T - Task - the task we would want this child to accomplish is to hit the elbow button switch when he wants to turn the pages of the book as well as in response to answers to questions at the end of the book (this will provide information on his expressive language skills even though he is nonverbal)
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  Time - the time consideration for this task is that we will expect the child to have a 3 second delay between each block on the Boardmaker program as well as 3 second delay between the questions and answers; this will allow him to review the board with his EPA or teacher and provide time for the visual scanner to scan the boards so that he can answer or review as required
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  Technology - the technology used for this design is a simple, one step button switch which will be mounted on the right arm of the child's wheelchair so he can access is effectively and accurately; we will also be using Boardmaker software to create the book for this child for his Social Studies unit - country will be Egypt.

In addition to the anxiety I suffered for this project, the one proactive thing I did do was research Boardmaker on YouTube.  I found some very interesting tutorials in case you all want to have a look.  As well, I found a few lessons on how to create books with Boardmaker to meet some specific curriculum needs.  Have a look....I hope you enjoy them as well and can find a use for them or variation of uses!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrcTjP2YXR8  This is an overall use tutorial for Boardmaker V. 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suYrwoHXOF8  This is a book tutorial for Boardmaker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu5PCBidBZk  This is one specific for Autism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVNP5tUXE5w  This is a sample book on how our body works and how we can use our hands, feet, legs, eyes, etc.  It is FANTASTIC!!!!  I love it!!!