Technology 

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly!

 by 

Al Stacey

 

The Ugly 

Recent News Headlines:  • 15 year old boy dies after running away from  home

following a dispute with his parents over his obsession with online gaming.

 • "News of the boys disappearance brought to light the

secret fears many parents harbour over their children's video gaming habits."

                     Winnipeg Free Press, Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Bad • cyberbullying• cyberstalking• online gambling• online gaming• child obesity• unsupervised children• plagarism• pornography• identity theft• inappropriate advertisements• ...just to name a few...

 

Elementary Teacher's Role: 

• introduce, demonstrate and use appropriate computer applications (photostory, powerpoint, webquest)

• model ethics and responsibility• discuss and model with our students "Acceptable Uses

for technology" and "Divisional Acceptable Use Policy" • inform and educate parents about technology.

A Continuum Model for Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum  

How Do We Get There?

The Good 

Augmentative Alternative Communication:    • An area of clinical practice that attempts to compensate either

temporarily or permanently for the impairment and disability patterns of individuals with servere and expressive communication disorders.

  

International Society for Augmentative & Alternative Communication (ISAAC)

AAC benefits the following students:  • students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Aspergers Syndrome• students with cerebral palsy• students lacking verbal communication skills• blind and visually impaired• deaf and hard of hearing• students with cognitive disabilities

   

    One Example of AAC:  

Pix Writer 

• a picture-assisted writing tool that would benefit the following students:o beginning writerso students with fine motor difficultieso students with limited writing vocabularyo students with memory difficultieso students with communication difficulties o students who require visual scheduleso students who require communication books

Science Sample

Science Sample

Note: Each words matches a symbol

Student sample for Communication Book

Note: Symbol matches a phrase

Visual Student Schedule

Helps prepare students for transitions

Student or teacher can modify symbols

Other Examples of Augmentative Alternative Communication 

  • Writing with Symbols

 Program includes many different graphics for frequently use vocabulary 

o teacher creates experiential stories with pictures for students to read to themselves or with an adult

o social stories for autistic children to help them process concepts (i.e. identifying and understanding emotions)

  

Writing with Symbols

Symbols are made using different styles so students have images that meet their understanding

mayer-johnson.com

Other examples of Augmentative Alternative Communication

• Co-Writero word predicting programo students have some spelling skillso  program predicts upcoming wordso e.g. student types "th" and the following words may appear:

the, these, there, those...and the student chooses the correct word.

o appropriate for students with fine motor difficulties

 Challenges Facing Educators 

• Cost of Technology  • Training teachers to use the technology

 • Access to the best technology to meet student needs

 • Resources - Lack of Speech and Language Clinicians,

Occupational Therapists and Computer Augmentative Specialists

  

   

Conclusion:

 • Technology has greatly improved the lives of students with

disabilities allowing programs to be designed to meet specific learning needs.

 • Technology has allowed indivuals to move forward in

education and to develop independent living skills