Do you see what I see?

Ever wonder what the world looks like with a learning disability.  Here's your chance!  Try to decipher the following examples.  Leave comments of your interpretation below.

Dyslexia: 

Dysgraphia:

Dyscalculia:

Which number is easier to see?  Would a dyscalculia student say the same?

iBaby

With a new technology era in front of us, with a landscape of ever changing data and tools children are being exposed to technology often from the day they were born.  I remember sitting in the waiting room of the hospital getting text messages from my brother and his wife- count down, doctor said it's time to push, and an hour later, before we were even allowed to see her, we had a mass picture message sent to our phones.  My niece, who is now nearly two, will sit on my lap and flip through my iphone, giggling, toggling around- even taking picture of herself and laughing.

Dispite our best intentions, many professional suggest that computers are not developmentally appropriate for children until about 3 years of age.  The rational for this limit is closely tied to Piaget's theory of childhood development.  Under the guide of his work, Piaget suggests that children at the age of three are learning and absorbing on a active bases.  They are exploring symbols, language, pictures and numbers are are mobile and active learners.  Reinforces by the work of Howard Gardner, age three is when students are learning in a variety of ways, not simply the direct teacher student model.  For these reasons it makes developmental sense to include technology when working with students 3 and older.  Technology offers many new and exciting ways to engage students in learning from an early age- hopefully making students intrinsic and life long learners!  Now what parent wouldn't want that!!

Some early ways of integrating technology are listed below:

Early Childhood ipad apps

Brain Pop!

MET for Kids

Click for more information on development abilities:

Early Childhood

Mistakes Welcome Here

One of the most rewarding lessons to teach children is the lesson that mistakes are okay! In fact some of the most significant discoveries have been created from mistakes- the discovery of America, Penicillin, even the cave of Lascaux in France. This less constrained way of thinking allows students the freedom to activity participate in their learning, without fear or ridicule and to engage in new and intresting dialog, and experiment and interact with their own learning.

English As a Second Language or ESL programs have steadily begun to promote this concept in hopes of giving students a way of developing, practicing on honing students skills so they gain comfort and confidence in their use of English.  Technology has been a huge help in promoting a fear free style learning.  Schools have been using programs like board maker and writing with symbols as a means of engaging students in learning in a visual and exciting way.

The ideology established by ESL programs is not just restricted to teaching English.  The concept of a fear free and engaging method of teaching is a huge component of any good art program.  As an art teacher one of the critical foundations of teaching art is teaching students how to take risks with their work and ideas.  In order to do this, teachers must engage students in activities that encourage and recommend "mistakes" or play as a means of discoving and learning the content.

Below are several really cool suggestions of mistake welcome art activities.  Click on the titles for more details.

Peach Pit Painting

Magic Milk Painting

No Paintbrushes Allowed

Marble Paper

Pushed to the Limit

With ever increasing demands on teachers, from preps, to large class sizes, grading and limited support, teachers are forced to prioritize teaching goals. With education under such pressure it's clear that often something is going to break.  One of the most stressful and difficult aspects of teaching is accomdadating the needs of all students and all abilities.  That means modifying a wide range of lesson plans that will push the students who need extra help and stimulate the students that are speeding through their lessons.

Students with behavioral disorders are often the first students to put on the back burner.  With behavior issues and seemingly limited involvment, teachers tend to critize students with beavoral disorders in stead of correcting and adapting lessons to meet their needs.

New information has come out to encourage and train teachers to create a successful and well bahvioed classroom for students with behavioral disorders.

These tips include:

• Creating an online classroom with clear instructions for students to use outside the classroom.  This will allow the teacher to better differentiate and customize students education.
• Join an online communicate specializing if students with behavior disorders to gain knowledge and ideas.
• Use a range of visuals images such as graphs, charts, animations and colored diagrams.
• Create a quiet and calm for the student to learn without the pressures of adult and student interaction.
• Use computer software to train students on impulse control and social cues.
• Use computer software to monitor computer activity and redirect students.
• Create a system of praise when student behaviors well and a non threatening system of correction if students is poorly behaved.
• Create a points or bonus chart for good behavior.
• Have a journal with assignments students can use during down time to prevent boredom and bad behavior due to lack of assignments.
• Monitor class room volume with devices like "the clapper"
• Allow students to use iPods to keep them focused.
• Use educational animation videos, such as those found on brain-pop to engage students.
• Use web based activities to engage students and refocus them during the lesson.

The Digital Divide

As most teachers know, there are numerous laws and measures take by the state and national government to provide all students with an equal education.  These law help ensure that the needs of all students are meet and students are given the opportunity to success regardless of ability or disability.  Let's take a moment to review the two most important educational laws:

American's With Disabilities Act
Public Law 101-336 [42 USC 12101]
The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 
guaranteed that eligible children and youth with disabilities would have a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) available to them, designed to meet their unique educational needs. 

*The following information is quoted from this link. Technology Laws

For this blog, I'd like to focus on a lesser known law that has a HUGE impact on education today.  As was unknown to me, until about an hour ago, that there is clear legislation that dictates that technology resources must be equally administered to all students regardless of ability.

Technology Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities   

Not only does the law dictate that students have the right to access this technology, the law also provides that funds will be given to schools for assistive technology that meets the following criteria:

The technology will

• be in demonstration centers, information centers, equipment loan facilities, referral services, and other consumer-oriented programs;
• protection and advocacy services to help people with disabilities and their families, as they attempt to access the services for which they are eligible;
• Federal/state programs to provide low interest loans and other alternative financing options to help people with disabilities purchase needed assistive technology.

 The following link offers great insight into this law and how to gain funding.
 Assisitive Technology Laws


In addition to the Technology related Assistance act and additional law provides that teachers be given the appropriate resources and skills to use assistive technology.

Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act Amendments of 1998

Schools are required to integrate academic, vocational and technical training, increase the use of technology, provide professional development opportunities to staff, develop and implement evaluations of program quality, expand and modernize quality programs, and link secondary and post-secondary vocational education.

The goal of these laws is to ensure that in a growing digital age, all students are given fair and equal opportunities.  With such drastic technology changes happening on almost a daily basis, it is easy to see how students with disabilities could easily be forgotten.  It essential that as teachers we are aware of legislation in place to prevent this from happened.  Its also critical that we as teachers become advocates for students that lack "voice" in our education system.

Sources:
http://www.fctd.info/resources/techlaws.php
http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/ATBasics/Foundation/Laws/atlegislation.php

It's a Visual Word

It goes without saying that art is a visual subject.  Often attributed for meeting the needs of visual learners, the idea of creating lesson plans for students that have visual imparments can seem very challenging.  The key to tacking the fear of creating lessons for students with visual imparments is to understand that art offers much more then visual stimulation.

I often believe that the best way to help students with disabilities is to learn how to compensate with their abilities. For instance, students with extrememly limited vision will likely have more atune senses of touch.  Think about focusing on the tactile learning skills, like sculpting, clay moddeling or paper mache.  Allowing students to touch and feel works of art, giving them an oppertunitiy to explore how the peices connect or join can be a huge benefit.

Let's walk through a basic lesson on sculpture for students of all abilities.

1. At the start of class explain that the students will be working with sculptures.
2. Have small student made clay sculptures at students desk.
3. Ask ALL students to close their eyes and explore the sculpture just using touch. 
4. Have students open their eyes and describe how the sculpture feels.  
5. Take notes on the conversation using a smart board.
1. The notes can be saved and hand writing can be turned into text.  
2. This will allow you to save the notes for later and make them more readable and able to be enlarged.
6. Give students clay and ask them to close their eyes and practice molding the sculpture just using touch.
7. End class with a discussion about how just using touch helped and hindered the process, allow students to explore the difficulties and create connections with the activity and the students in the class.

Visual and Virtual

This weeks blog dealings with an amazing assistive technology for art teachers known as virual envirnments.  One of the many challenges in education is differenciate instruction to meet all the abilities within ones classroom.  One group of students that can sometimes be forgot is those that are considered gifted and talented.  Creating virtual envirnments within a classroom can allow for students to differenciate the content for themselves, allowing for learners to take more time in areas of difficulty or others to spend more time in a particular area.

So this got me thinking, how can I use this in my own classroom?  Read on to see me walk a future art unit through the process of virtual creation

So here are the steps:

1)  Creating a Virtual Thematic Unit

     
I'd love to create a unit dealing with understand how a kiln works.  I teach 4 cermics classes and    often have students finishing work at differnet times.  While it's not critical that students understand kilns too indepth I believe it's a great thing to understand and want to offer an oppertunity for students to gain more knowledge on this topic if they finish projects early.

2) Create Hyperlinks to Lessons.

This stage encourages you to find links and lessons that deal with your thematic unit.  Below are some awesome links about understanding the kiln.

Skutt: Don't Be Afraid of the Kiln
Current Cones
The Basic Stuff

3) Use Assistive Technology.

For this unit I would also find pod casts, you tube movies, and artist interviews to add to the overall lesson. I would also make note of any and all disibilities that I need to make adjustments for.

4) Discover Virtual Museum Tours.

This step allows you to explore alternative ways of visiting or touring museums that relate to your theme.  Below are some great Ceramic museum websites.

Ceramic Research Museum
International Ceramics Museum
Public Library
Ashmolean Museum

5) Find Online Learning Games.

While this is an awesome way to engage students, I am causion about choosing games due to the potencial advertizments displayed on the games sites.   Here is a pretty cool and ad free link.

American Girl Ceramic Studio