Special Education Strand at the UCET 2012 Conference!
The UCET Board is working hard to provide workshops at the UCET
conference related to special education. There are many assistive
technology experts across the state of Utah who have submitted
presentation proposals. If you are a special educator or a regular
classroom teacher working with students who have a disability, the 2012
UCET Conference will be an excellent place to learn about the latest
iPad apps and strategies to implement assistive technology in the
classroom. Below is a small sample of special education related topics
that will be addressed at the conference.
iPads and Students with Low Vision - We will cover our experience with: Accessing the curriculum (textbooks,
books, etc.) through scanning and briefly touching on sources like
Bookshare.org and Project Gutenberg. This session will discuss
accessing worksheets (through email, etc.), note taking (through audio
notes, livescribe, etc.) and student to student mentoring.
Livescribe / Echo Smart Pens - This session will demonstrate how students with limited note-taking
skills are using the Livescribe pens in and out of the classroom.
Bookshare -
This course will cover information on the use of Bookshare.org including the following:
- Bookshare® is free for all U.S. students with qualifying disabilities.
- Bookshare dramatically increases the accessibility of books.
- Bookshare includes a searchable online library.
- Bookshare offers approximately 127,000 digital books, textbooks,
teacher-recommended reading, periodicals and assistive technology
tools.
Come see how you can use Bookshare in your classroom absolutely free.
Using What You Already Have or Free Tools to Help Students with Reading
and Writing Challenges -
We will explore using the technology that you may already have in new
ways as well as exploring different FREE options that may allow students
with reading and writing challenges to be able to access the curriculum,
and be able to create and edit their own unique work.
Writing Assistance - Using Desktop and Portable Word Prediction -
Do your students have difficulty spelling but have the ability to
choose a desired word from a written list? Would they benefit from
having a computer speak word choices and constructed sentences to them?
Do your students have challenging fine motor skills that inhibit
handwriting or need help increasing productivity with keyboarding?
Co:Writer, a word prediction program, may be the solution. This session
will demonstrate the steps to using Co:Writer6, including how to
customize vocabulary to meet students needs and classroom curriculum. We
will also discuss the NEO, a portable solution to make Co:Writer
accessible anywhere.
Identifying and teaching concrete skills to make the iPad an effective
classroom tool
- Identifying a student's current levels of performance with an iPad
using the AAC profile and observations.
- Determining concrete skills for the studnet to master using the iPad
(operational, linguistic, social, strategic).
- Setting up a program to teach and monitor the development of these
concrete skills.
Look at This! Video Modeling as an Instructional Tool -
This session will explore what video modeling is, some tools for using
video modeling, and sources for learning more about video modeling.
Research has demonstrated that video modeling is effective in teaching
specific social, play, and functional skills to students with autism and
other cognitive disabilities. It is tailored for special populations and
also has applications in regular education as well.
What's New with Boardmaker -
Boardmaker software from Mayer Johnson has been around for years and
has been used faithfully by special educators. A year ago, Mayer Johnson
introduced Boardmaker Studio, a new version of the software that allows
teachers to quickly print out activities on paper or design interactive
activities that can be used on a computer or with an interactive white
board. This session will teach you how to create activities using fast
and easy templates, design activities from scratch, create pictures for
augmentative communication, and access thousands of free activities
designed by educators from around the country through Mayer Johnson's
Boardmaker Share. This software will help you spend less time preparing
materials and more time working with your students!
Craig Boogaard
Utah Center for Assistive Technology
1595 W. 500 South
SLC UT 84104
801-887-9533
