neurodivergent/special needs

To Differentiate: Lower Floors and Raise Ceilings [Byrd]

On 04/02/2019, in K-12 related, neurodivergent/special needs, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

To Differentiate: Lower Floors and Raise Ceilings — from byrdseed.com by Ian Bryd
When you’re planning a task for a wide range of students, the terms “floor” and “ceiling” are easy mental shortcuts to increase the range of success for all kids.

Excerpt:

It should be our goal to develop tasks that all students can get started with, but that also scale up for students who are ready for more. This is the easiest way to create a task that can work for everyone.

My friend Lisa has a fantastic piece of differentiation advice:

Plan for your highest-ability students first, then figure out how to onboard your other learners.

Why? Because it’s really hard to increase the ceiling on a worksheet. It’s much easier to lower the floor on, say, a research project. You can always scaffold down – but you can’t always raise the ceiling.

Aiming for a low floor and high ceiling supports all students. Plus, it gives even low-performing kids a chance to go somewhere interesting. You’ll never know who will take advantage of that high ceiling.

Cambridge library installation gives readers control of their sensory space [Schoenbaum]

On 03/29/2019, in A/V -- audio/visual, accessibility / UDL, architecture, attention, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, library / librarians, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, music, neurodivergent/special needs, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, United States, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, XR - extended reality, youth, by Daniel Christian

Cambridge library installation gives readers control of their sensory space — from cambridge.wickedlocal.com by Hannah Schoenbaum

Excerpts:

A luminous igloo-shaped structure in the front room of the Cambridge Public Library beckoned curious library visitors during the snowy first weekend of March, inviting them to explore a space engineered for everyone, yet uniquely their own.

Called “Alterspace” and developed by Harvard’s metaLAB and Library Innovation Lab, this experiment in adaptive architecture granted the individual control over the sensory elements in his or her space. A user enters the LED-illuminated dome to find headphones, chairs and an iPad on a library cart, which displays six modes: Relax, Read, Meditate, Focus, Create and W3!Rd.

From the cool blues and greens of Relax mode to a rainbow overload of excitement in the W3!Rd mode, Alterspace is engineered to transform its lights, sounds and colors into the ideal environment for a particular action.

From DSC:
This brings me back to the question/reflection…in the future, will students using VR headsets be able to study by a brook? An ocean? In a very quiet library (i.e., the headset would come with solid noise cancellation capabilities build into it)? This type of room/capability would really be helpful for our daughter…who is easily distracted and doesn’t like noise.

7 Things You Should Know About Accessibility Policy — from library.educause.edu

Excerpt:

Websites from the Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) of the California State University, Penn State, the University of Virginia, and the Web Accessibility Initiative feature rich content related to IT accessibility policies. A California State University memorandum outlines specific responsibilities and reporting guidelines in support of CSU’s Policy on Disability Support and Accommodations. Cornell University developed a multiyear “Disability Access Management Strategic Plan.” Specific examples of accessibility policies focused on electronic communication and information technology can be found at Penn State, Purdue University, Yale University, and the University of Wisconsin– Madison. Having entered into a voluntary agreement with the National Federation of the Blind to improve accessibility, Wichita State University offers substantial accessibility-related resources for its community, including specific standards for ensuring accessibility in face-to face instruction.

The information below is from Deb Molfetta, Outreach Coordinator at EdDPrograms.org

EdDPrograms.org helps educators and administrators research doctoral education opportunities. Their organization’s work in education began in 2008 with projects ranging from a new teacher survival guide to their own teacher education scholarship program. More recently they realized that there weren’t any websites dedicated to professional development through Doctor of Education (EdD) programs, which is why they created their own – EdDPrograms.org. It covers a lot of ground, but here are a few sections they think administrators will appreciate:

A detailed overview of the EdD, including what to expect and how to choose a program
https://www.eddprograms.org/schools/
.
Specialized guides to EdD programs for leadership positions
https://www.eddprograms.org/schools/educational-leadership/
https://www.eddprograms.org/schools/organizational-leadership/
.
A comprehensive directory of EdD programs organized by state and delivery format. For example:
https://www.eddprograms.org/schools/online/
https://www.eddprograms.org/schools/michigan/

EdDPrograms.org is owned and operated by a group that has been creating post-secondary education resources since 2008. According to Deb, they have a history of providing students with objective, fact-based resources.

For the first time in its history, the Gerber spokesbaby is a child with Down syndrome [Diaz]

On 02/14/2019, in accessibility / UDL, Daniel S. Christian, hearts -- matters of the heart, neurodivergent/special needs, society, youth, by Daniel Christian

For the first time in its history, the Gerber spokesbaby is a child with Down syndrome — from cnn.com by Andrea Diaz

Excerpt:

(CNN) This cutie with a contagious smile is 18-month-old Lucas Warren and on (2/7/18) he made history: He’s the first child with Down syndrome to become Gerber’s “Spokesbaby of the year” in its 91-year history.

Meet the first Gerber Baby with Down syndrome

From DSC:
I just saw this item from last February… and I love it!

From DSC: If you think teaching and learning is easy, I dare you to try these 3 things!

On 02/04/2019, in accessibility / UDL, assessment, curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, K-12 related, learning, learning preferences, neurodivergent/special needs, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, Uncategorized, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For anyone out there who thinks that teaching and learning is easy and who agrees with the uninformed saying that goes “Those who can’t do…teach”…might I recommend a few potential to-do’s for you to try out…?

Try teaching 30-35 students yourself for at least 4-6 weeks about a topic that you just found out that you’ll be teaching and one that you don’t know much about. (And see if you enjoy the process that some teachers sometimes have to go through…putting down the tracks right in front of the trains that are rapidly moving down the tracks right behind them.) Also, you must have at least one student in your class who requires an Individualized Education Program (IEP) as well as 4-5 students who constantly cause trouble and who don’t want to be in school at all.
.
Identify each student’s strengths, weaknesses, and learning preferences — and their Zone of Proximal Development — then customize the learning that each of your 30-35 learners receives (with the goal of keeping each student moving forward at their most appropriate pace, while staying encouraged and yet appropriately challenged).
.
Attend Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings and work with other IEP team members to significantly contribute to the appropriate student’s (or students’) teaching and learning environment(s). For a real challenge, at least one of those students will be someone who is struggling, but is very much hanging in there — someone who is “right in the middle of the pack,” so to speak. (My guess is that if you did this, you would never think of teaching, nor teachers, nor other specialists in quite the same way again. My guess is that you would develop a whole new appreciation for how complex teaching and learning really is.)

Regarding that last item about at least one of your students requiring an IEP, here are some questions that might come up:

What specialized services are needed this year?
What do the teachers need to know about this student’s cognitive processing/executive functioning?
How has the student been doing with the specialized services and teaching and learning strategies that have been attempted since the last IEP meeting?
If their scores are going down, how are you going to address that issue (especially given limited resources)?
How is the student’s motivation level doing? Is attending school still a positive experience? Or are things starting to become negative and/or downright painful for the student? Are they starting to get bummed out about having to come to school?
How are they relating with and collaborating with other students? If poorly, how are you going to address that issue? How are you going to handle group-related projects (especially after reading all of those articles that assert which skills the workplace values these days)?
What do you do with grades and assessments? Do you treat the student differently and give them higher grades to keep them encouraged? But if you do that, will your school system back you up on that or will someone come down hard on you for doing that? Or, perhaps you will find yourself struggling internally — trying to figure out what grades are really for and wondering if they are helpful in the first place. In fact, you might find yourself wondering if grades aren’t really just a mechanism for ranking and comparing individuals, schools, and even entire school systems (which, as we know, impacts property values)?
What do grades really produce — game players or (lifelong) learners? It won’t surprise you to know that I would argue that the former is what gets “produced.” Grades don’t really produce as many learners as they do game-players (i.e., students who know the minimum amount of work that they need to do and still get that all important A).

So, as you can hopefully see here, learning is messy. It’s rarely black and white…there’s a lot of gray out there and a lot of things to consider. It’s not a one-size fits all. And teaching others well is certainly NOT easy to do!

RELEVANT IDEAS:

While I’m thinking about related ideas here…wouldn’t it be great if EVERY. SINGLE. STUDENT. could have their own IEP and their own TEAM of specialists — people who care about their learning?

What if each student could have their own cloud-based learner profile — a portion of which would be a series of VoiceThreads per student, per period of time (or per mastering a particular topic or area)? Such VoiceThreads could include multimedia-based comments, insights, and recommendations for how the student is doing and how they best learn. Through the years, those teams of people — people who care about that student’s learning — could help that student identify their:

strengths
weaknesses
passions/interests
their optimal learning strategies and preferences
potential careers

The students could periodically review such feedback.

For every single student, we could build a history of feedback, helpful suggestions,
and recommendations via audio, video, text, graphics, etc.

Executive Function Deficits Determine Student Achievement [Friedman]

On 01/21/2019, in accessibility / UDL, neurodivergent/special needs, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, psychology, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, by Daniel Christian

Executive Function Deficits Determine Student Achievement — from thejournal.com by Sara Friedman
A new report finds the achievement gap tends to widen with students having academic difficulties in math and science starting in kindergarten.

Excerpt:

Difficulties in math and science learning in the early grades can have lasting consequences for students who have impairments in executive functions, according to a new report from Penn State researchers published in the Early Childhood Quarterly journal. The research looks back at executive functions related to working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control to determine when problems begin in early STEM education.

The study analyzes data from 11,010 students who participated in the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics Early Childhood Education Study, which measures childhood development, school readiness and early childhood experiences. The report data comes from students who started kindergarten in the 2010-2011 school year through the spring of third grade.

From DSC:
One of our daughters has issues involving executive functioning…we’re told that she has to work twice as hard as the other students to process the information coming at her. Thus, mini breaks are really helpful for her. For example, if she can walk something to the office, that’s really beneficial for her.

DC: Is this type of functionality another piece of a next generation, powerful, global learning platform!?!?!

On 01/09/2019, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, accessibility / UDL, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, business, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, faculty, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, languages and translation, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, Microsoft, neurodivergent/special needs, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, second screen apps, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Presentation Translator for PowerPoint — from Microsoft (emphasis below from DSC:)

Presentation Translator breaks down the language barrier by allowing users to offer live, subtitled presentations straight from PowerPoint. As you speak, the add-in powered by the Microsoft Translator live feature, allows you to display subtitles directly on your PowerPoint presentation in any one of more than 60 supported text languages. This feature can also be used for audiences who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Additionally, up to 100 audience members in the room can follow along with the presentation in their own language, including the speaker’s language, on their phone, tablet or computer.

From DSC:
Up to 100 audience members in the room can follow along with the presentation in their own language! Wow!

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?! If this could also address learners and/or employees outside the room as well, this could be an incredibly powerful piece of a next generation, global learning platform!

Automatic translation with subtitles — per the learner’s or employee’s primary language setting as established in their cloud-based learner profile. Though this posting is not about blockchain, the idea of a cloud-based learner profile reminds me of the following graphic I created in January 2017.

A couple of relevant quotes here:

A number of players and factors are changing the field. Georgia Institute of Technology calls it “at-scale” learning; others call it the “mega-university” — whatever you call it, this is the advent of the very large, 100,000-plus-student-scale online provider. Coursera, edX, Udacity and FutureLearn (U.K.) are among the largest providers. But individual universities such as Southern New Hampshire, Arizona State and Georgia Tech are approaching the “at-scale” mark as well. One could say that’s evidence of success in online learning. And without question it is.

But, with highly reputable programs at this scale and tuition rates at half or below the going rate for regional and state universities, the impact is rippling through higher ed. Georgia Tech’s top 10-ranked computer science master’s with a total expense of less than $10,000 has drawn more than 10,000 qualified majors. That has an impact on the enrollment at scores of online computer science master’s programs offered elsewhere. The overall online enrollment is up, but it is disproportionately centered in affordable scaled programs, draining students from the more expensive, smaller programs at individual universities. The dominoes fall as more and more high-quality at-scale programs proliferate.

— Ray Schroeder

Education goes omnichannel. In today’s connected world, consumers expect to have anything they want available at their fingertips, and education is no different. Workers expect to be able to learn on-demand, getting the skills and knowledge they need in that moment, to be able to apply it as soon as possible. Moving fluidly between working and learning, without having to take time off to go to – or back to – school will become non-negotiable.

Anant Agarwal

From DSC:
Is there major change/disruption ahead? Could be…for many, it can’t come soon enough.

The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2018

On 12/18/2018, in accessibility / UDL, education, education reform, ideas, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, memory, neurodivergent/special needs, policy, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2018 — from educationnext.org

Excerpt:

Every December, Education Next releases a list of the most popular articles we published over the course of the year based on readership.

The article that generated the most interest this year was one that looked at the policy of inclusion, or mainstreaming, in special education. A response to that article was our third most popular article of the year.

Some other popular articles were studies finding that teachers’ impact on non-cognitive skills is 10 times more predictive of students’ longer-term success than teachers’ impact on test scores; an analysis of the effectiveness of instructional coaching for teachers instead of regular professional development; and a look at whether teacher preparation programs can be evaluated based on the learning gains of their graduates’ students.

Other articles collected data on public support for higher teacher pay and greater school spending, the decline in private school attendance by middle school families, and whether states are lowering their proficiency standards.

Here’s the list of 2018’s Top 20 articles…

From DSC:
The picture below was posted in the item below from edutopia. What a powerful picture! And not just for art or drama teachers!

Does it not once again illustrate that we are different? The lenses that we view the world through are different. Our learners are different. Each of us comes to a learning experience with different backgrounds, emotions, knowledge…and different real-life experiences.

As the article mentions, we need to create safe and supportive learning environments, where the love of (or at least the enjoyment of) learning can thrive.

Getting creative with social and emotional learning (SEL) — from by Maurice Elias, Sara LaHayne
How to incorporate creative expression and movement in the classroom while building social and emotional learning skills.

Excerpt:

Being creative is an inherently vulnerable process. In order to authentically build SEL competencies through creative expression, teachers need to strive to create a safe space, provide time, and open doors for validation.

Creating a safe and supportive classroom environment
Providing time
Opening the doors for validation

Introducing several new ideas to provide personalized, customized learning experiences for all kinds of learners! [Christian]

On 11/06/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, accessibility / UDL, adjunct faculty, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, assistive technologies, attention, blended learning, bots, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, elearning, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, library / librarians, memory, more voice more choice more control, neurodivergent/special needs, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, reading, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I have often reflected on differentiation or what some call personalized learning and/or customized learning. How does a busy teacher, instructor, professor, or trainer achieve this, realistically?

It’s very difficult and time-consuming to do for sure. But it also requires a team of specialists to achieve such a holy grail of learning — as one person can’t know it all. That is, one educator doesn’t have the necessary time, skills, or knowledge to address so many different learning needs and levels!

Think of different cognitive capabilities — from students that have special learning needs and challenges to gifted students
Or learners that have different physical capabilities or restrictions
Or learners that have different backgrounds and/or levels of prior knowledge
Etc., etc., etc.

Educators and trainers have so many things on their plates that it’s very difficult to come up with _X_ lesson plans/agendas/personalized approaches, etc. On the other side of the table, how do students from a vast array of backgrounds and cognitive skill levels get the main points of a chapter or piece of text? How can they self-select the level of difficulty and/or start at a “basics” level and work one’s way up to harder/more detailed levels if they can cognitively handle that level of detail/complexity? Conversely, how do I as a learner get the boiled down version of a piece of text?

Well… just as with the flipped classroom approach, I’d like to suggest that we flip things a bit and enlist teams of specialists at the publishers to fulfill this need. Move things to the content creation end — not so much at the delivery end of things. Publishers’ teams could play a significant, hugely helpful role in providing customized learning to learners.

Some of the ways that this could happen:

Use an HTML like language when writing a textbook, such as:

<MainPoint> The text for the main point here. </MainPoint>

<SubPoint1>The text for the subpoint 1 here.</SubPoint1>

<DetailsSubPoint1>More detailed information for subpoint 1 here.</DetailsSubPoint1>

<SubPoint2>The text for the subpoint 2 here.</SubPoint2>

<DetailsSubPoint2>More detailed information for subpoint 2 here.</DetailsSubPoint2>

<SubPoint3>The text for the subpoint 3 here.</SubPoint3>

<DetailsSubPoint3>More detailed information for subpoint 3 here.</DetailsSubPoint1>

<SummaryOfMainPoints>A list of the main points that a learner should walk away with.</SummaryOfMainPoints>

<BasicsOfMainPoints>Here is a listing of the main points, but put in alternative words and more basic ways of expressing those main points. </BasicsOfMainPoints>

<Conclusion> The text for the concluding comments here.</Conclusion>

<BasicsOfMainPoints> could be called <AlternativeExplanations>
Bottom line: This tag would be to put things forth using very straightforward terms.

Another tag would be to address how this topic/chapter is relevant:
<RealWorldApplication>This short paragraph should illustrate real world examples
of this particular topic. Why does this topic matter? How is it relevant?</RealWorldApplication>

On the students’ end, they could use an app that works with such tags to allow a learner to quickly see/review the different layers. That is:

Show me just the main points
Then add on the sub points
Then fill in the details
OR
Just give me the basics via an alternative ways of expressing these things. I won’t remember all the details. Put things using easy-to-understand wording/ideas.

It’s like the layers of a Microsoft HoloLens app of the human anatomy:

Or it’s like different layers of a chapter of a “textbook” — so a learner could quickly collapse/expand the text as needed:

This approach could be helpful at all kinds of learning levels. For example, it could be very helpful for law school students to obtain outlines for cases or for chapters of information. Similarly, it could be helpful for dental or medical school students to get the main points as well as detailed information.

Also, as Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows, the system could check a learner’s cloud-based learner profile to see their reading level or prior knowledge, any IEP’s on file, their learning preferences (audio, video, animations, etc.), etc. to further provide a personalized/customized learning experience.

To recap:

“Textbooks” continue to be created by teams of specialists, but add specialists with knowledge of students with special needs as well as for gifted students. For example, a team could have experts within the field of Special Education to help create one of the overlays/or filters/lenses — i.e., to reword things. If the text was talking about how to hit a backhand or a forehand, the alternative text layer could be summed up to say that tennis is a sport…and that a sport is something people play. On the other end of the spectrum, the text could dive deeply into the various grips a person could use to hit a forehand or backhand.
This puts the power of offering differentiation at the point of content creation/development (differentiation could also be provided for at the delivery end, but again, time and expertise are likely not going to be there)
Publishers create “overlays” or various layers that can be turned on or off by the learners
Can see whole chapters or can see main ideas, topic sentences, and/or details. Like HTML tags for web pages.
Can instantly collapse chapters to main ideas/outlines.

Report: Accessibility in Digital Learning Increasingly Complex — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

The Online Learning Consortium (OLC)has introduced a series of original reports to keep people in education up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of digital learning. The first report covers accessibility and addresses both K-12 and higher education. The series is being produced by OLC’s Research Center for Digital Learning & Leadership.

The initial report addresses four broad areas tied to accessibility:

The national laws governing disability and access and how they apply to online courses;
What legal cases exist to guide online course design and delivery in various educational settings;
The issues that emerge regarding online course access that might be unique to higher ed or to K-12, and which ones might be shared; and
What support online course designers need to generate accessible courses for learners across the education life span (from K-12 to higher education).

What teaching that lifts all students could look like [Rizga]

On 06/20/2018, in accessibility / UDL, collaboration, communities of practice, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, K-12 related, learning, motivation, neurodivergent/special needs, participation, society, sociology, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

What teaching that lifts all students could look like — from kqed.org by Kristina Rizga

An initial comment from DSC:
I recently ran across this article. Although it’s from 12/24/15, it has some really solid points and strategies in it. Definitely worth a read if you are a teacher or even a parent with school age kids.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

…his comments in class about the substance of her ideas, his feedback on her writing, the enthusiasm in his voice when he discussed her thinking. Over the course of a year, that proof solidified into a confidence that couldn’t be easily shaken anymore. It was that pride in her intellect that gave her the fortitude and resilience to cut through many racial stereotypes and negative myths as she made her way through high school and then Boston University.
…
For McKamey, the most important value driving her teaching and coaching is her conviction that being a good teacher means hearing, seeing, and succeeding with all students—regardless of how far a student is from the teacher’s preconceived notions of what it means to be ready to learn. When teachers are driven by a belief that all of their students can learn, they are able to respond to the complexity of their students’ needs and to adjust if something is not working for a particular individual or group of students.

The best way to improve teaching and reduce the achievement gaps, McKamey argues, is to allow teachers to act as school-based researchers and leaders, justifying classroom reforms based on the broad range of performance markers of their students: daily grades, the quality of student work and the rate of its production, engagement, effort, attendance, and student comments. That means planning units together and then spending a lot of time analyzing the iterative work the students produce. This process teaches educators to recognize that there are no standard individuals, and there are as many learning trajectories as there are people.

2 items re: how assistive tech can help students w/ developmental delays & articulation disorder succeed academically

On 05/26/2018, in assistive technologies, ideas, innovation, neurodivergent/special needs, parents/guardians, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, youth, by Daniel Christian

Assistive technology to help students with developmental delays succeed academically — from thetechedvocate.org by Matthew Lynch

Excerpt:

Developmental delays can affect almost every area of a child’s life. This broad issue can cover any possible milestone that a child doesn’t meet according to the expected timeline, including speech or movement. While children with developmental delays can still be successful, it will require some additional help from patient teachers. Educators would do well to research the available assistive technology that can help to bolster a child’s education and encourage academic success.

What tools are available to help students compensate for their developmental delays? Here are just a few of the top technologies that parents and teachers have found to be successful in the classroom.

Assistive technology to help students with articulation disorder succeed academically — from thetechedvocate.org by Matthew Lynch

Excerpt:

Some students encounter extraordinary challenges when it comes to forming the sounds of everyday communication. This may be due to a structural problem with the mouth or a motor-based issue. Collectively, these difficulties are considered to be articulation disorders. They can make classroom education extremely hard for both teachers and students. However, there are some ways that teachers can help students with articulation disorders still succeed academically.

If you want to help your student with articulation disorder succeed, you will need some of the best assistive technology available. You can see the recommendations for the top assistive technologies used with this disorder below.

Online Learning Designed for the Deaf [virtuallyinspired.org]

On 05/24/2018, in accessibility / UDL, higher education, learning, learning ecosystem, neurodivergent/special needs, online learning, society, universities, by Daniel Christian

Online Learning Designed for the Deaf — from virtuallyinspired.org
Universities partner to provide accessibility through sign language focus.

Excerpt:

Bilingual Education Hybrid Course Project
Conceived within the National Plan for the Rights of Disable Personnel – Living Without Limits, a partnership was formed to create an online course focused on bilingual pedagogy in Distance Learning (EAD). The Bilingual Education hybrid course project is driven by the goal of train teachers so they can adjust their pedagogical approach to better meet the cultural and linguistic specificities of deaf students.

This is the first online bilingual education course done in Brazilian sign language rather than with small translation window in the corner of the screen. Content, materials created with deaf students at the center. Professors Bruno Galasso and Dirceu Esdras spearhead the project with a multidisciplinary team of graphic designers, educational designers, university teachers, and translator interpreters.

With a personalized virtual learning environment platform approach, the design team created bilingual teaching materials incorporated with digital objects and multimedia tools including a mental map, social network for collaboration, personal galleries where students can store their work. The diversified environment hybrid design also contains a gamification element, animations, a glossary with linguistic variations, videos, and learning tracks for real-time interactions in class and online.

Through the partnership, twelve renowned public higher education institutions (INES, UFAM, UEPA, UFPB, IFG, UFLA, UFRGS, UFC, IFSC, UFBA, UFGD, UFPR) expand the reach across Brazil make it possible cover the five-macro regions of the country.

Learning Ecosystems

For the first time in its history, the Gerber spokesbaby is a child with Down syndrome [Diaz]

DC: Is this type of functionality another piece of a next generation, powerful, global learning platform!?!?!

Online Learning Designed for the Deaf [virtuallyinspired.org]

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