Bits and Bytes

Archive for the ‘Bridges to Learning Conference’ Category

The Peel school board has implemented a technolgy initiative.  The Teaching with Technology initiative was implemented in 31 elementary and four secondary schools. The initiative deployed a LCD projector in every classroom.  The teacher support model included the support of a technolgy coach who helped teachers integrate technology into their programs.

This presentation was enhanced by the professional quality video of classrooms and their teachers discussing how students were using ICT in their learning while they demonstrated and explained learning experiences their students had completed.

They also mentioned that the their district has a standard image and computer in all classrooms and labs and that the image on their computes gives access to assistive technology software to all who use it.  The software on the image is all approved and purchased through their provincial education authority. (Ontario).

The Peel school district is very large and they estimated that 75% of all new immigrants to Canada are settling in their school district.  This means they have a very high EAL population and that they are having to add new schools and many new teachers each year.

Presented by Christine Whelton, Mark Marshall, and Cory Sakai.

The Peel school board has implemented a technolgy initiative.  The Teaching with Technology initiative was implemented in 31 elementary and four secondary schools. The initiative deployed a LCD projector in every classroom.  The teacher support model included the support of a technolgy coach who helped teachers integrate technology into their programs.

This presentation was enhanced by the professional quality video of classrooms and their teachers discussing how students were using ICT in their learning while they demonstrated and explained learning experiences their students had completed.

They also mentioned that the their district has a standard image and computer in all classrooms and labs and that the image on their computes gives access to assistive technology software to all who use it.  The software on the image is all approved and purchased through their provincial education authority. (Ontario).

The Peel school district is very large and they estimated that 75% of all new immigrants to Canada are settling in their school district.  This means they have a very high EAL population and that they are having to add new schools and many new teachers each year.

Presented by Christine Whelton, Mark Marshall, and Cory Sakai.

This session reported on a kindergarten classroom of special needs students at Bloorview School whose classroom was very rich in text, literacy and technology. Bloorview School Authority is an educational facility that provides innovative school programs to children and youth with special needs.

Each year hundreds of children and young people from across Ontario receive individualized educational programs, which are set up in conjunction with ongoing therapeutic and medical care. Students may be clients, inpatients or day patients of Bloorview Kids Rehab.

Most of the discussion focused on Classroom Suite, an application that supports both literacy and numeracy instruction and which incorporates principles of universal design. The session demonstrated that the application has been used to support:
1. Early literacy development of students at a variety of literacy levels who have diverse access needs;
2. Different styles of writing and different stages of the writing process;
3. Ontario curriculum language expectations and electronic profiling of the literacy development of students and;
4. Consultation with teachers who benefit from seeing examples that illustrate the application of tools that assist with literacy instruction.
The teacher used Classroom Suite to keep a word wall of vocabulary words available for the students on the sidebar. Each student made an All About Me book which they made to help introduce themselves to the classrooms in which they would be integrated into the following year. The students used the player which came with
The teacher also put some books into Classroom Suite as she found it easier for her students to click through a book than to turn pages.
The students included their birth weight when they talked about their birth and they made correlations between their low birth weight and some of the disabilities that they were experiencing.

The students used a microphone at circle time and the microphone was passed around the circle so all children could be heard.
The teacher also assisted the students in role playing how they would handle the “too helpful” behaviors of students when they were in a regular classroom. Students practiced, through role playing and drama, how to be clear with their peers and adults about when they needed assistance and when they did not.  The teacher helped them become advocates for their own independence.
Presented by Claudia Wood and Susie Blackstien-Adler

Although this session was advertised as showing links between technology and literacy using practical examples, the main focus was a web-based reading program that two Hamilton area schools used. The program discussed was Reading Upgrade which is available on a fee per student basis on a yearly license. There is a free 7 day trial at http://www.readingupgrade.com
 
The schools used the program with 50 students in Grades 3-6 split between two schools.The students spent  four periods of 40 minutes  going through the program.  Three of the periods were led by a learning resource teacher and one  by the classroom teacher. The schools gave access to the students for home use during the summer months so students could review.   Although they reported that DRA scores went way up there were several concerns noted.
-Some content was very American in focus and some content might be unfamiliar to some populations like EAL learners.
-Although students found the accompanying music catchy and engaging at first, over time many found the music became distracting.
-The school had to buy yearly licenses although the program was only used during a six month period.
-Inflexible format
-Too much print
-No written responses, it was all multiple choice so does not address the writing process

Parents were kept up to date on student progress through a Parent Good News Letter.
One book mentioned during the session sounded intriguing.  It is apparently being released in June and it is called Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Education Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton M. Christensen. The first chapter is titled “Why Schools Struggle to Teach Differently When Each Child Learns Differently”.

Presented by Jane Piling-Cormick, Ph.D. (focus on self-directed Learning), John Laverty-Superintendent and Marilyn Legault-Teacher
Hamilton Wentworth School District

At this session I learned about a number of free tools found on the Internet that relate to assistive technologies. The first site is called Readplease. It a reading program that will read a text file to a student. They provided a link to a small collection of txt files of a variety of books called e-library.

A number of sites that the school division currently uses were: Starfall, National Library of Virtual Math Manipulatives (this is a slow but useful site) and Gutenberg Library.

Print technology present barriers to students because of their “one size fits all” quality. Digital media decreases these barriers because the media used is customizable and flexible and can better meet the challenges that different learners present. By providing differentiated access to text we increase the probability that students will remain engaged in literacy learning. Universal design brings accessible books to the forefront for many students who have “perceptual disabilities”.

Kerry Randle sessions looked at making books more accessible to students by using various technologies. She discussed what accessible books are, how they are created, where you can get them, and copyright issues related to this creation process.

1) What are Accessible Books?

Accessible books are an alternate format (usually digital) of print books (i.e. e-text, e-books, podcasts, blogcasts, scanned text with/without picture, mp3s, wav or audiobooks, pdfs, txt files, doc files ). They are exact or modified versions of the original books. A variety of technologies and software can be used.

2) How Are They Created?

For early readers, picture books can be created using either Clicker 5 or Powerpoint. For text-based readers (intermediate/secondary students), Kurzweil 3000 can be used.

Powerpoint is a Microsoft tool for creating linear and non linear multi-media presentation. Here are some links to show you how to create an accessible book using Powerpoint: Making Accessible Books Tutorial (this is a PDF), Making Accessible Books using Powerpoint and a digital camera (this is a zipped PPS file).

Clicker 5 is a powerful yet easy-to-use talking word processor and multimedia authoring tool that supports student reading and writing. It is customizable for all areas of the curriculum and can also support communication. Check out how to create an accessible book… Create a Clicker 5 book (this is a PDF file).

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Kurzweil 3000 can access virtually any information, whether it is printed, electronic, or on the Web. It then reads the words aloud to the student in clear, humanlike, synthetic speech, while a patented dual highlighting feature adds visual reinforcement. For students who have difficulty physically accessing curriculum materials, Kurzweil 3000 provides a digital means of engaging with text and can support students who use alternative methods for accessing the computer. Check out how to create an accessible book… Create a Kurzweil 3000 book (this is a PDF file).

The process for creating a books is as follows:

• Decide on a format….What format would the student need to access the book easily? What software is available for use?
• Decide how and where you will store the book.
• Check to see if the book is already available else where.
• Get Started…

3) Where Can You Get Them?

You can get many books for the visually impaired through the National Library, CNIB and large local libraries. Public Domain titles are available through a number of online libraries (i.e. Gutenberg, Freebooks, Librivox, Tumblebooks, SetBC). Some formats are available commercially. Some authors allow access to their books online. For some links to books online check out Karen’s link page for accessible books and e-texts. Check the freebooks at the SETBC site.

4) What About Copyright?

Canadian Copyright Law allows for the creation of non-commercially available alternate formats for individuals with perceptual disabilities. Perceptual disabilities include visual impairments, physical impairments, comprehension impairments. It should be noted that alternate versions/formats of a book can only be created if that format hasn’t already been made available commercially. Therefore, if the book is already available in MP3 or M4a or b formats (as they would be on iTunes or Amazon.com for example), then you are not allowed to recreate the book in this format. At this point you can create the book in .KES which is the file format used by the Kurzweil 3000 program, or in the Clicker 5 format.

This session highlighted three software suites that dramatically improve brain function and thus reading ability in students. The three programs are called Word Maker, Simon S.I.O (Sound It Out), and LEXIA Early/Primary/S.O.S. (Strategies for Older Students).

Current research indicates that there is markedly different brain activation patterns between poor readers and those of good readers (Sally Shaywitz, 2004). David Sousa has determined that the amount of blood flowing to the temporal lobe highly correlated with the severity of the reading problems encountered. Students were put in an fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and asked to silently read a passage. For students that have difficulty reading, there seems to be a disconnect in the brain between the occipital lobe and the temporal lobe. During an fMRI the temporal lobe doesn’t light up! The occipital lobe does activate. This essentially means that while the poor readers could “see” the words they were reading, they didn’t “hear” them. When we silently read we all “hear” a voice in our heads as we read words, phrases and sentences. This doesn’t happen with students with reading difficulties.

Over an eight week intensive remediation program using the software indicated above student brain function changed. The temporal lobe began firing at near normal rates. In addition real-word and pseudo-word decoding improved significantly! These results were corroborated in a Danish study – reading rates, reading accuracy and spelling improved significantly. There is strong evidence that reading and spelling disabilities of children with a phonological processing disorder are amenable to treatment using technology tools.

Word Maker is a digital version of the “Making Words” strategy developed by Dr. Patricia Cunningham.

It provides planned, sequential and systematic phonics, phonemic-awareness and spelling activities to build students’ core reading strategies. Students build sorting skills through repetitive activities and are challenged with new words to prove they can transfer learning.

WordMaker Video Resource.
Simon S.I.O. (Sound It Out) is a multilevel phonics instruction program that includes a “tutor” who presents skill building activities. The program allows students to work at their own pace and at a level that is comfortable for them. Emergent readers develop core word-attack skills, developing readers learn familiar sounds and word families.

LEXIA Software series helps students with many core reading skills. Lexia Early Reading deals with rhyming, recognizing initial sounds, segmenting and blending, letter knowledge, sound/symbol correspondence as well as consonants, short vowels and consonant digraphs. Lexia Primary Reading helps master basic reading skills, beginning and ending sounds, syllables and segmenting, sight words, decoding skills, vocabulary and comprehension skills. Lexia S.O.S. (Strategies for Older Students) assists in word-attack and contextual strategies that help with automatic word recognition, strategies for multi-syllable words, sentences and paragraphs, as well as strategies using prefixes and suffixes.

All together these software packages provide a balanced literacy program that addresses phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding and encoding, spelling, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. They also change the alter the brain activity of poor readers to more closely match that of good readers.

This was a hands-on session in the University of Toronto computer lab.  The trainer Lisa Kehoe led us through a tutorial on using the software.   During the tutorial we made talking books which included symbols, photos, and web links. The ability to add speech to Boardmaker symbols both computer-generated and self-generated adds great functionality to Boardmaker as a program which would assist all students in writing and reading activities.�

The keynote was given by Karen Erikson Ph.D
from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Karen’s address focused on making effective choices about assistive technology and print-based literacy instructional programs and that this would require careful consideration of individual student needs and skills. Specific information about a student’s language and literacy skills can help pinpoint the specific technologies and technology features that would be most supportive. Specific information also supports decisions regarding the adoption of assistive technologies that allow students to bypass an area of need versus those that will provide support today while continuing to build skills for tomorrow. Karen spoke to a process designed to match individual instructional needs with available assistive technology and print-based reading instructional programs.

Karen spoke to the three components that lead to Silent Reading Comprehension: word identification, language comprehension, print processing. Karen spoke to identifying which area the student was having difficulty with and assigning an appropriate intervention based on that with technologies that match a student’s abilities.

One interesting comment that Karen made about assistive technologies is that the practice of highlighting word by word as words are read, is not best practice for increasing silent reading comprehension but rather it is better to highlight reading zones.

Karen said that in order to be able to read silently with comprehension students need:
-need knowledge about the world
-knowledge of text structure
-print processing beyond word identification
-inner speech/voice
-personal prosody (the rhythm, intonation, stress, and related attributes in speech)
-print to meaning links

Karen backed up what she said with research that was recently completed in which students made huge gains in silent reading comprehension.

Using an assignment presentation style of Pecha Kucha (peh-chak-cha) where students use PowerPoint  and show a total of 20 pictues on 20 slides in 6.2 seconds to convey their message was one of the strategies shared by these middle school teachers.

One excellent graphic shared by Trevor was a revised Bloom’s Taxonomy for Digital Learning.  This taxaonomy can be found at http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom’s+Digital+Taxonomy Trevor shared a comparison of the two taxonomies as show below. Further discussion can be found on the mentioned link.

Although the session did not directly address the differentiated instruction that was mentioned in the title there were many excellent suggestions and resources discussed.

Presented by Trevor Hammer and Alex Hutchison who are Grade 8 teachers.