- I'm a very big fan of the iPad and the potential for us.
I use this for all my presentations, I don't take a laptop with me any more, I just put it all on there, I'm using an Apple TV today to put it on the screen so you guys can see it.
So I can pop this off, and pop my phone back up there in just the click of a button so really good if you're tired of dragging your big ol' laptop around, this is a nice piece of equipment just for you folks.
Okay, just some benefits of using the iPad, just a tactile feel of this for some of our students on the the spectrum, just feels good, feel in your hands, it's small, you can move it, whether it's the pad or the iPhone or the iPod, same thing, it just gives that tactile feel.
'Course very portable, you can take this with you anywhere.
Y'know you think about the movements our students make, the transitions our students make, this can transition along with them, so y'know when you compare it to the laptop or the desktop that we sometimes use, great advantage.
Very engaging, most of our friends on the spectrum of course are into technology, into using gaming, into using at home, using spare time to do things with this sort of thing so we're bringing this, it's probably familiar for most of the children at home, we're bringing it into the classroom, into the school setting, and kinda taking advantage of what they're already into.
Socially acceptable.
Again, it's cool to have an iPod or an iPhone, y'know you go to your senior high schools, most of the kids have one, it's just a common thing.
There's some research around having the "iProducts" and other kids will gravitate towards you because you're using this, particularly with the the smaller kids, 'cause if a student's got an iPad at the back of the classroom we're going over to see what he's doing.
So it's again, it's almost like, like a conversation starter to some degree, and some kids really wanna talk about what they do on this.
And of course evidence-based practices.
We know there's evidence around visual supports, visual modeling, computer-aided instruction, social narratives, others like task analysis we can all do with this.
I've taken social stories and what's been on paper, and we did a movie, put the social story in a video format, used as my student and then had my student narrate it so it was a personal social story, showed our school, my student, dealing with his friends in our so very real, very to the point, he can take it home, he can review it.
Okay, when we look at uses, break it into three categories: for instruction, y'know there's over a million apps in the app store right now.
There's literally a hat for everything, as the saying goes.
For expression, around there's over 300 ACC apps out there.
And for organization as well.
Just in the iPad itself there's also some features that we can use, things like voiceover will read what's on your screen to you, type size so we can make it bigger, those of us who are visually suffering trying to read email we can make things bigger.
Contrast: we can set the background to black and have the print in white.
Motion, we can control the spinning, with, sometimes it keeps flipping.
And a biggie for me, guided access.
If you're not familiar with guided access, unfortunately I don't have enough time to take you through that today but just google guided access, it'll take you step-by-step, it's a way that you can put a student or person on using an app and they can't get out of it to go flicking through the YouTube.
'Cause you know what happens when you give a student this, bang, you're going over to YouTube and then it's trying to get the student out of that app and we create a whole situation that we don't want to create so if you set it up, lock the app, or you can also deactivate part of the screen so the student if it's a page-by-page flick-through, we can't hit the back button accidentally or any other way.
So we're there, we're using it for the purpose that we wanna use it for, it's not a flip-through or we're hitting the same thing over and over again and it becomes a struggle to get back so guided access if you don't use it or don't know about it, go to Google and find it, we can google everything.
That being said, a lot of the apps that I will show, some of them are free, some of them are not, not free, but you can go to YouTube and almost, a lot of the apps are already demoed on YouTube so if you're not sure about something and it's a little pricey, sometimes you can download the lite version which costs free or $1.99 but you can also go to YouTube and see the app in action as well, save your budget.
All right, so instruction mode, I'm just gonna do some examples, of a couple these, just gonna whip this out… So this is a nice little instructional app around just writing, writing letters, writing names.
So what I like about this I can change the instruments that I write with, I can change my background so if I wanna use shaving cream, and I wanna write it on a waffle… J. E.
- And I can take these cupcakes away or I can put them back if a student doesn't need that help. F. F. J-E-F-F. J-E-F-F.
- But the, y'know when we're using this stuff, we also wanna look at long-term down the road, so oftentimes I'll look at an app and I'll say okay how can I do a little more with this, or how can I make it of even more functional use, so I thought about sometimes we have students or adults out in the community and they get encountered with the RCMP or whatever and then there becomes a communication problem, so why can't take something like this and actually teach somebody a phone number.
How wonderful would that be in that moment if I knew that one phone number that could call home that would save a whole lotta grief for a whole bunch of people.
So often I try to look at how can I use it to enhance the quality of life of the person I'm working with.
Another example of instruction, a little different.
- AvaKid, see me go potty.
- If you go to YouTube, if you type in "see me go potty", please use "app" as well, 'cause if you just type in YouTube "see me go potty".
You may find some very interesting things that will occupy a couple hours of your time but it won't have anything to do with this app so see me go potty app or iPad app.
So I can change the gender, the eye color, the skin tone, the shirt, mouth, face, my little avatar, male and female.
- Go potty please.
Walk, walk, walk to the bathroom.
Pants down.
Sit down on the potty.
I'm going pee pee.
Pants up.
Flush, bye bye pee pee.
Wash hands.
Dry hands.
I did it!
- But again, y'know, oftentimes that's a common problem that we encounter around toilet training, and y'know another way of addressing the issue, very reinforcing and the poo-poo is there as well.
I'll save you, we won't do the poo-poo.
Again, it's another way of doing it visually, but probably a nice route for me.
- [Audience member] It's clutter free.
- Yeah it is.
- [Audience member] Just the salient points.
- Yeah, it's just, just the necessary stuff is there.
I think I paid, I think I did pay for this one, but like $2.99 maybe.
- [Audience Member] $2.29.
- $2.29, throw in some taxes.
Yeah so for three bucks, you've got what you need to do the job, literally and figuratively.
I do birthday parties and weddings.
Okay I just look at a couple organization ones.
This is, you may have this on your phone, this is a free app and it's about just taking your pictures and doing all kinds of fancy designs with it but I kind of put my spin on it and say okay, how can I use this? What I like about this is it gives me a platform to do visuals in an instant.
I tap, use my camera, beautiful picture, and here it is, and I can manipulate it I can make it that big.
So if I wanted to, this can become a visual schedule.
We're doing this, it can be a first and then, we're doing this then we're doing that, when that's done, goes in the garbage can, I can tap it back out, I can put it back in.
If I want a big visual because my student needs bigger visuals, I can make it that big.
And when we're done, garbage can, and we're doing this.
What I like about it is we try to be as routine as we can in transitions much but there's always things that happen caught on the fly, y'know we normally go on the large bus but the large bus is broken down today so we're going on the smaller different bus, y'know there's a leak in the building or the gym is not available so we're going somewhere different today, we're going outside, y'know it's fun, we've got some nice weather and instead of playing basketball we're going outside today, so bang I can step out the door and take a picture, we're eating recess then we're going outside.
So what I've found when I work with some students that I will have all these kinda conventionally tucked away on the side, I just pull them out as I need it.
And when I save, it saves all these, so as soon as I pull it up and I hit the button I can manipulate at another time.
And another great thing is if I'm into more traditional-type visual schedules, I just change that pattern and it goes in nice squares, and if I'm real nice to the secretary who's usually got access to the colored printer, I'll just email that out to her and she can print those and I got my visuals for my more traditional lower-tech visual schedule.
There's nothing wrong with low-tech.
Low-tech is wonderful, high-tech just sometimes does things a little faster and a little more user-friendly.
This one's free and I didn't include this one, I found this one a few days ago and it's called ASD Tools, again there's four components.
So you can do a little sequence of activities.
That's one part.
We've got ourselves a timer and we can put a picture in there so if I just wanted to put a picture in there, I believe I can take my camera, on there… Let's try that again.
There's my bookshelf.
And I can play around with times, set the timer on it.
I can have it count up, I can have it count back.
We can do first and then, we can just snap the pictures and plop them in there bang bang.
And we can do a little reward and you can stick in some graphics there or take pictures.
And I can do my tokens, so when I get my tokens completed, I'm not a believer in taking away tokens but… And that's there, free, pieces don't get lost on the floor, right? Janitor doesn't sweep it up.
We know where it is.
And whether we're going to music class or whether we're going to Phys Ed class or whether we're going outside, this is with us.
And this'll work on a phone as well so if you got a phone you can stick it on your phone it even makes it even more manageable.
For communication, how many of you have heard of Proloquo2Go, most everybody? All right new update this week, added 5,000 more symbols, and added another voice and added adding and the folders and the buttons much more user-friendly.
Before it was kinda cumbersome adding buttons and folders, they've tightened that up a bit more there's now with 5,000 more symbols I think there's 19,000 symbols and a number of voices.
It's continually improving, again it's, they've added another advanced level of language to go even deeper and more synthetic and more semantically correct.
Still can be a little overwhelming for our students sometimes but I like the feature where I can start off with something very simple.
This is a app of apps.
It breaks them down into free and paid, iPod iPad, and we can go by categories, 'cause you say well y'know I'd really like to find and see if there's something out there.
There's a million apps out there, there probably is, so I'll just pick whatever, see data collection, there we go.
There's a whole bunch out there.
Autism Speaks also has a website and on the website there's a section there about, you can go through and put in some parameters and it'll give you some apps as well, some suggestions, there's another one from somewhere in Australia I believe that does the same thing, so there are a number out there, 'cause it is, y'know time is precious.
It's nice if you got your shortcuts out there.
So five key points.
This is just another tool that we can use, we still need wonderful intelligent human beings to make good choices around whatever we got.