day 11 July 19, 2010 Low-tech. inventions

Today the class presented their low-tech. inventions. there were many great ideas. What a pool of useful items for a resource teacher to take away from the course. Aside from that, it was also entertaining and fun to watch. For the remainder of this post I am sharing some of the results of our dollar store inventor power shopping sessions. this includes today's floral block inventions.

Halloween Grabber:

This is a Halloween prop with a dinosaur trigger operated pincher head. this off the shelf item would be useful for a person with limited mobility and some fine motor limitations. It would extend their reach and provide pincher control with a simpler squeezing action.

Bingo blotters can be used to select for a student with fine motor issues.

The drawing board can be used by a person with dysgraphia and with fine motor issues.

The beads can be used as staggered hanging bookmarks and for visual sensory input.

the mirror ball can be used for sensory input. It is reflective and shiny. Reflected light creates interesting designs.

Bath scrubbies can be used for sensory input. They can be used to paint by people with fine motor issues. They also create neat designs.

These hair accessories can be fasteners, book marks, and page turners.

Measuring tape can be used as number lines and measuring in Math class.

Emery boards can be used for art and woodworking projects which require finer detail.

The clipboards can be used to hold a variety of items such as books, loose papers, and art projects.

Table cloth weights can be used as bookmarks

Assignment # 3

AT Seekers and Inventors – Carl Paddock & Margaret Buffett

Education 5173 Z4

Background:

Karen is a 13 year old girl who has been diagnosed as moderate to severe cognitively delayed and is on the autism spectrum. Karen has fairly good receptive language; however, she has limited expressive language.

In the school environment she requires a great deal of assistance with organization. In particular, she requires assistance with keeping her school supplies (i.e., pencils, erasers, ruler, paint brushes etc.) organized and accessible. When she uses a standard pencil case or a cup style pencil holder, she finds it difficult to find the particular item that she needs and will usually take everything out of the case or holder. Karen experiences difficulty with keeping her books organized, as well. She has her own collection of High School Musical books, craft and art books, as well as subject related books which she usually has misplaced. She also requires assistance with keeping personal items organized and accessible in her locker. Since she likes to hang out by the locker with her peers, she likes to have personal items such as brushes and combs in her locker; however, she has difficulty finding these items and often loses them. Her difficulty with organizing and keeping track of her materials often causes Karen to be late for class and activities. It also causes her to be stressed and she often gets upset over this.

Karen is a very sociable girl who enjoys being with her peers in the grade 7 classroom. She also likes to hang out with her peers in other school environments such as the cafeteria and by the lockers in the hallway. Karen displays similar interests as her age peers such as watching movies, videos, listening to music, and is particularly interested in High School Musical, Hannah Montanna, and Justin Bieber.

The low-tech assistance technology is designed to give customizable organizational tools that fit directly to the student’s needs. The low tech material used is floral foam blocks which can be shaped to fit the student’s organizational needs. For example, school supply block, book shelf organization, Art supply block, sequencing block, and the locker block. The school supply block would hold items such as pencils, erasers, ruler, sticky notes, and pens. The book shelf organization block is a personalized book shelf to hold various books such as subject related and leisure reading. The art block would hold art supplies such as paint brushes, glue, and scissors. The sequencing block would be used to teach story sequencing or to sequence tasks. The locker block would be used to hold Karen’s hair accessories such as brush, comb, and headbands. These blocks would be attached to her desk, books shelves, and the locker using either magnets or Velcro to keep them stable and accessible.

Making this low-tech assistive technology available to Karen, will enable her to have more time on task as she won’t have to spend time looking for items. It will also enable her to have the correct items needed for specific tasks such as her school supply block.

Karen’s use of these low tech assistive technologies will be monitored closely to see how effective and efficient they are with enhancing her organizational skills. Karen’s progress will be monitored daily by her classroom teachers to see if these devices are minimizing her stress that she has experienced as a result of losing items and not being able to find them when she needed to.

Considerations:

· Many of these items could be made in art class, by all students. This way they could be personalized and used for a wide variety of purposes. This would also help Karen’s differences to blend more easily into the class. In any case, Karen would have the opportunity to customize her own items.

· Karen enjoys a variety of tactile, sensory input. For example, she is often seen playing with soft, fuzzy items such as cotton balls, tennis balls, and textured stickers. This made the selection of floral foam blocks a good choice for Karen.

· In each of the blocks, items can be inserted at an angle which would provide easier access for Karen.

· Each of the blocks can be painted with paint or glue to seal the blocks and make them more durable. This would also take care of any dust issues.

IPP

The following goal is taken from the outcomes in Karen’s Functional curriculum.

Goal: Karen will organize and keep track of her school supplies and personal materials 90% of the time.

Objective: Karen will organize her school supplies in the school supplies block.

Objective: Karen will organize her Art supplies in the Art block.

Objective: Karen will sequence a story with four elements using the sequencing block.

Objective: Karen will sequence a task using the sequencing block.

Objective: Karen will organize her books in the book block.

Objective: Karen will organize her personal items in the locker block.

Strategies: Direct teaching, provide a model to follow, have Karen help design and decorate the blocks, verbal reminders.

Evaluation: Daily checklist, observation, report from subject area teachers, self evaluation.

Materials: Floral foam blocks, glue, Karen’s school supplies and personal items, checklists.

This fish display is an example of how this floral foam block can be easily cut and shaped to any imaginable creative use. It is a segmented fish which holds various characteristics of a fish. This is a possible Science activity.

These are bases created with two slots for the positioning of cards and accompanying numbers. They can be used for sequencing, social stories, video story boarding, and organizing elements of any type of writing. Because they are very movable and easily modified, they offer maximum flexibility.

This is an example of an art supply organizer with items positioned on an angle for easy access.

This is a combination school supply organizer and book holder. They can be made separately but we combined them for illustration purposes. They can be coated with glue, painted, and customized in any way that the teacher or student sees fit.

Summary:

The above pictures illustrate how flexible floral foam blocks can be as a low-tech. assistive material. It can be crafted into a variety of 3-dimensional graphic organizers that would be customizable to any subject area and a wide variety of purposes. We do suggest that the final product be coated with ordinary glue, paint, or polyurthane if the intended use is meant to be long term. It is very cheap so they don't all need to be protected with expensive coatings. Have fun trying new things with them and please send us pictures of your creative ideas.