Another Environment

Because of circumstances outside of my control, I am not going to be able to stay in the placement where I observed the blind student all last week. So, at this point the project is very up in the air. I emailed the original student's speech therapist to check in about how the project is going, and all is well, but there is really nothing left for me to do to help with their situation at this point in time. They would like for me to attend one of the student's sessions in the new year which I believe my new schedule in cohort will allow me to do so. This would give me an opportunity to see my hard work in practice with the speech therapist.
The setting I have been placed into now is very different from any I have been in before. The school is a center for children with emotional and behavior issues, and these students have been sent here from their home schools who do not know what to do with the students who are being unsafe and unreasonable in the regular school setting. This school does not have a ton of funding from waht I can see. The building is old and poor looking from the outside and in not the nicest neighborhood of town. Going in, I had no idea how much technology was being implemented in the school, how much funding there is for technology, and what the purpose of technology is in a school like this. Some of these questions remain unanswered at this time, but some have become much more clear to me. One of my fellow cohort students has reported to me numerous times that her teacher lets the kids play on the computers so much/almost all of every day which I believe is completely inappropriate and not addressing the issues the students are there to tackle. Computer can be used as a reward but no in place of instruction and the teacher. Technology has a very different role in my classroom here because the students I am working with are high school students. The computer is used as a resource in our classroom but is not used for games or fun time. The computer is for work. The students are allowed to research with adult supervision, watch videos the teacher has found to supplement the educational lessons, and the students also are learning functional computer skills by making power points and using word. I actually had the opportunity to talk to the principal of hte school for a few minutes today and explained my situation and scholarship to her. I asked her to think and brainstorm to see if she has any ideas of technological projects that I could work on or help her with at this time in the school setting. Her mental wheels began to turn very fast and one idea really caught my attention. She has a student that has a computer program recorded in his IEP to use, and the teacher does not know how to work the program. I would love this challenge to see how the student and teacher could better use and understand this program. This would improve this at risks students education, computer skills, teach the teacher, and keep the school under federal guidance by following the IEP goals. I will follow up with the principal next week to see is she has any different ideas or if she wants me to pursue the one she mentioned. I am curious where this project is headed next!
These students have had extremely hard lives and my heart breaks for many of the stories I heard this week about their lives. More than anything these kids need to be shown that they matter and can succeed because so many people have given up on them or hurt them up to this point. Many students at this school on top of having emotional and behavior issues have been sexually abused, have parents in trouble with the law, or have family members who also have emotional issues. More than anyone else I know, these kids need someone to care about them, and this school is where they are finding a place to belong.
(8 hrs)

New Student Observations

This past week, I spent two days in a new classroom observing all new students and seeing how technology is being implemented in a new school system, county, and grade level. My main interest in this classroom was a boy who is blind. I had heard before going into this classroom that the student had more mental issues going on and was not only handicapped with vision impairments. I was looking into the possible technology available for helping him as a blind student and learning what technology he used at present in the classroom. The student is in the fifth grade and is in a resource classroom and does inclusion for one class period a day. In the mornings he has private lessons with a blind specialist at the school. These lessons were fascinating for me. All of his text books are in braille, and he is learning the braille contractions for letter combinations like th, ed, and the likes. For one of his lessons during the day, he listened to a book on tape about Paul Revere. During Math class, the blind teacher came back to work with him. He uses an abacus to do his many digit multiplication problems. I was so impressed with how fast he and his teacher moved the beads around and found the answers. I had no idea what they were doing or how they were getting the answers. On the second day in the classroom, the parapro was amazing and took the time to teach me how to use the abacus for math, too. The concept gets extremely complicated with the many numbers involved and carrying over of tens. It took me about an hour to understand and complete some problems correctly, and I could see what I was doing! In the afternoon, I went with the blind teacher and the student to work on his cane skills and mental map of the school. During this class period, the student is focusing on learning how to use different techniques for different types of hallways, rooms, and situations. Each hallway also has a name, so that he can know where he is and where he is going at all times. It is very difficult for him to memorize the different paths to get to different places. Schools are especially different because so many of the halls are exactly the same. He has to remember to read the braille numbers on the doors to make sure that he is in the right places. The main problem I had with the classrooms lack of technology for the student was in the afternoons. This is the time that the other students play on the educational games, but his only reward is to go listen to the others play which is not ok, fair, or right. There needs to be other alternatives that would be fun for him to do as well. No one wants to listen to other people enjoy their rewards while you do not reap any of the benefits from your own hard work.
The most I learned about Blind technology was from the blind teacher. I am going to look up the device she was telling me about that works like a computer, has braille that is removable and can read itself allowed. She said that the device is worth about six thousand dollars, if I heard her correctly. She is working with a student who has one in another area county. I would love the opportunity to see and work with a device like this one day. It reminds me very much of a Dynavox but for people who are blind. The teacher also has a program on her computer to make tests, write out braille, and convert anything into something for a blind person to read. I was amazed and impressed with what she did. When she is not working with students who are blind, she is brailling out different, books, tests, projects, and such for the students.
These two days of learning what technology is and is not available to make life easier for students who cannot see were great learning experiences for me. I am curious to see what possibilities there are for students who are blind and am interested in learning more about the technology available through some internet research.
(8 hrs)

Deep Roots Festival

On Saturday, I worked with Dawn at the Deep Roots Festival to promote Digital Bridges. It was an absolutely beautiful day for people to come out and enjoy down town Milledgeville. We set up the tables outside that were playing the new promotional video for Digital Bridges. All of the important people are on the video. The footage of the student and I is great! He looks so cute working the Dynavox, and the video footage really shows what I am doing and working on with this project. By the end of the day, Dawn and I were quite tired of listening to the video, but either one of us can do a great rendition of it, if anyone ever wants to hear what the video says. I thought it was a great idea to have us set up in front of the new home of Digital Bridges. That way people can know what the building is going to become in the future, and people can begin to put the name Digital Bridges with the place where it is going to be. We had a ton of candy set up outside for people to eat and enjoy. We also gave away bookmarks and asked people if they wanted to sign up for the email newsletter listing. I do think it is a great idea that only the ideas that people want to know about will be sent to them without other information that does not pertain to their individual wants. The crowds were really good for the festival overall, but the traffic near our table and store was low. This was because people are there to have fun and eat food. Learning about a new business was not people's first priority at Deep Roots. A lot of the people there were also parents of college students who are not from the Milledgeville area. Over all, I was very glad to have the opportunity to talk about Digital Bridges, represent the organization, and be a part of the Deep Roots festival.

(8 hrs)

The Final Catch Up

On Monday, I had a meeting with Dawn to discuss what is going on with the project, what direction the project is going in, and what I am going to be doing for the project this week. We want to keep the project very specific and localized to a limited number of students with needs for Assistive Technology, but also, I want to make the most out of the hours I am devoting to work on this project. For now, I am going to focus the project completely on the student with the Dynavox and the possible new student who I will evaluate on Tuesday next week. I am excited to see what will come of the new aspect of this project.

I also sent a lot of emails on Monday to confirm the time and place with the speech therapist for our meeting on Tuesday. I made sure that I knew when and where I was going, and everyone involved knew that I was getting the Dynavox from the school to take it to the speech therapist. That way there was no miss communication between the teacher, parent, speech therapist, and myself. The last thing I did on Monday was to work on editing my blog entry before uploading it to this blog spot.

On Tuesday, I went to meet with the speech therapist in Macon. She was completely amazing! We went into a conference room, and we talked about the project, and what we want for the student. I showed her what I have done to the dynavox, and then she really wanted to know how I did it. I was really impressed that she brought a pen and paper into our meeting to take notes and really learn how to work the device. When she thought of some pages she would like created, I walked her through how to do it, and then taught her how to connect the pages. She was so interested in how the device works and how I rewired each part that she actually kept the device after I left to make more pages and understand the device even better. I believe she was floored that I took the time, understood the device, understood her student, and wanted to help so much. After the meeting, I felt like I really had another person on the same page with me advocating for the student to use the device on a daily basis. The speech therapist is also willing to push the parent to use the device more often and in more situations than only at therapy or school. The largest complement she gave me was that she has met with two employees and representatives for the dynavox company, and in one hour, I had taught her and been more helpful than anyone else. She was amazed and sent me a thank you email after our meeting. She is also planning on us meeting up again, partnering, and helping her out in the future. This meeting was a great connection and leap forward with the project.

I worked a lot this week to update the blog and met with Dawn on Friday to prepare for Saturday's festival. The deep roots festival is tomorrow, and we are going to be promoting and educating about Digital Bridges. This will also let people know where Digital Bridges is going to be located now. The building is the one next to the Theater down town. I am excited to work the festival tomorrow and will blog about it very soon.

(5 hrs, 30 min)

Almost Caught Up

Also while I was at home, I spoke with a lot of my extended family about what I am doing with the project, showing them how the device worked, and telling them what I was doing to make it easier for the student, family, teacher, and therapist to use the device for communication purposes. They really thought this was amazing and became really interested in the technology and how it works. My Grandmother was having a really hard time getting her head around what I was doing, so I sat down with her and really explained what the device does and how it can help the student. Once she understood, she thought about my cousin who had a stroke and asked me if a device like this would help him. I was floored. Why didn’t I think about that before? My cousin had a stroke and gets really angry when he is trying to communicate but cannot say what he is thinking. He is completely competent in the head and would be the perfect candidate for a dynavox device. I am going to speak to someone very soon about whether or not his family would be interested in helping him receive a device like this. I don’t see how they could not want one because this could make all of the difference in the world for him. He would not need to learn the cause and effect ideas or have the device simplified for him. He just honestly needs the voice to say what he is thinking. I do not believe his fine motor skills are defined enough for him to write down everything he wants to say. Who wants to have to sit with a pen and paper all of the time at the dinner table and be trying to eat. He is such a very bright man who wants to be completely engaged in the situations around him, and he has such a large family that to have a voice would make a lot of difference in his entire life. Even though I have been working on this project for months, I still did not even think about my own family member who this device would benefit. It took my grandma understanding what I was doing for me to see its potential close to my own home. I am sure that this is a huge issue in all of areas because people don’t always think about all of the options but instead just learn to deal with it as things are. This also makes me wonder why no one has suggested such a device for him or if they have, why hasn’t his family done something about this.

On Wednesday when I got back to school, I worked very hard on putting all of the finishing touches on the device before giving it back to the student on Thursday. I changed a lot of little things to make it even friendlier to use and moved orders around and just double-checked all of the features one last time.

On Thursday, I took the device back to the school, but the student was not in class that day which was very disappointing because I had hoped to run a check with him and work with him some that day to see how the school day ran using the device. I also wanted his teacher to see how I would incorporate the device into his daily routine of classes and activities at school. This is what I believe will be the biggest challenge for her. I do not know whether or not she is going to think to go get the device, turn it on, and use it for all of his classes. Will she remember to charge the device before the next day? Naptime would be the perfect opportunity for her to make sure the device was fully functioning and ready for the next day. I did take the time to sit down with the teacher and explain what all I have done with the device to make it easier to use. Because I had the opportunity to be in his classroom for seven weeks for my own schooling, I know his classroom schedule and what he is working on in school. I made sure to include these on the device. That way he can answer questions, participate, and take initiative during classroom time. When I got home from school I left a message for his mother on the phone to let her know that the device was back in the classroom and ready for her to use. Then I began contacting some speech therapists to move forward to find out how they viewed AAT and whether or not they have patients using the device at this time. I contacted the center where the student I am working with receives speech therapy, and they told me how to get in contact with his therapist to set up a meeting time to talk about what I have done with the device. My next step was to contact a speech therapist in Milledgeville because I wanted to know how AAT is received in Baldwin County specifically. In as nice a terms as I can use, they were very not agreeable, not interested, and rude to me. This saddens me because whether they realize it or not, I am actually here to help and could be a real asset to what they are trying to accomplish through speech therapy. There is another speech center in Milledgeville, so I am going to work on trying to contact them in the near future. I have done a lot of emailing back and forth with the student’s speech therapist, and we scheduled a meeting for Tuesday morning to talk about his device, which was really encouraging to me after the last bad experience.

I hand picked who is taking over the classroom where I was placed as a student teacher, so I went over to the new girl’s house to train her about the dynavox and what I would like to see accomplished with the device in the classroom. I drew her some pictures, explained what was on the device, how to use the device, and what the student is like to deal with in the classroom. We talked about my concerns for the teacher not using the device, and I am very grateful to have her being my eyes and ears in the classroom for the next seven weeks. I am excited to hear how things are progressing. The student teacher that is going in is very excited about working with the student, the teacher, and the dynavox, which is awesome! She is going to check in with me to let me know how things are going, what needs to be fixed, and what is or is not actually happening in the classroom. I will be very thankful for some honest feedback. She is also the kind of person who advocates for what is right, so I know she will encourage the teacher to incorporate the device into daily activities in school. I am very optimistic about her working with the student after the time we spent together in training and talking about the project.

(6 hrs)

Beginning to Catch Up...

I have had some really amazing experiences working with the device over the last week. On Monday, I had the opportunity to speak and be interviewed through Skype at a conference in San Antonio, Texas where Digital Bridges was being represented. There were over a hundred people in attendance at the conference, and I was able to talk about what I am doing with this project. When I explained that I am working with this child to fix the device to be more user friendly for him to communicate with society and that I am taking the device back to him very soon, the room erupted into applause. I was thrilled. The mayor of Milledgeville was also being interviewed alongside me, so I got to meet him, too. He was there to represent Milledgeville and to tell what Digital Bridges is going to bring the area and community here. I was proud of how I interviewed and that I was able to communicate my thoughts clearly to the audience at hand.
On Tuesday, I updated and showed Dr. Wills what I have been doing with the project. He helped me figure a few things out with the Dynavox. The film team came to school that day to get footage of the student and I working together with the device. He did great. There is definitely a great attraction to the on/off button, but once we got past that, he really took to the idea of pushing a button and receiving the item he asked for by using the device. I would hold a cracker, and when he pushed the cracker button, I would hand over the cracker. The instant gratification really helped him see the connection between hitting the button and getting the desired response. I also sent a note home to inform and update his mother on the progress.
On Wednesday I received an email from the student’s speech therapist and learned a lot about what to add and work on for the student. It really hit home for me when the Speech Language Pathologist wrote that she would use the device in therapy, if I can make this work for him. This just reminded me how much ability and use this device could have and that the impact on the child’s life could really be huge. I really want to set up a meeting to show the SLP what I have done and see if the changes work with what they are trying to accomplish with the student.
On Friday I attended a luncheon for my scholarship put on by GCSU. I enjoyed the opportunity to represent the Knight Foundation, talk about my project, and meet a lot of interesting people. It is a great honor to be invited to eat lunch with all of the scholarship donors. These people have worked hard in life and have a ton of wisdom to share with this next generation of students. The lunch was held in Magnolia Ballroom and was very well attended by students, faculty, and donors. I loved the opportunity to meet and mingle with other very bright students who are also working very hard in their fields of study. It is important that all of the students receive some recognition for the efforts, sports, good grades, personality, and so many other things about the individuals that got them the scholarships in the first place.
I worked extremely hard to finish up the “My Phrases” section and get some recommendations about what changes should still be made to the device. I found out that I really needed a larger and more visible way for the student to get back to the home page at any time. I reprogrammed one button in each section to be a back button with a new symbol that better represents what the child would see as moving back to the home page. I deleted all 390 something pages of phrases! There is no way that a three year old needs that many pages of phrases!!! He needs six or so main phrases. That is it. I have it set up to close after he presses a button from there to go back to his main page. I am going to create five more complex phrases in a different area that could be accessed by the parent, teacher, or Speech teacher in order that the information is there, but only accessible when needed. I will surly need to teach the appropriate people how to work the other sections. These phrases will move the student’s use of the device forward without making it more complicated for him to navigate. Simple is still the best idea at this point in his life. I can always add more and more information, but right now we are going for simple. Very, very simple.
(10 hrs)

Forward Motion

I worked with device on settings for the average adult. I made myself a setting temporarily on the device to use for testing and to learn the functions that are too complicated for such a young child as the one I am working with on the project. I am working through the manual to make sure that I understand a lot of the functions and can teach someone else when the time comes.
In class on Friday, I tried to use the device without talking which was the plan, and it worked for the first ten minutes. Then Dr. Wills wanted me to talk about the project and what all I am doing, so I, of course, had to talk. This showed me how difficult it would be to only be able to communicate by using the device. There was no way I could have explained to everyone in the room what I was doing while trying to use the device as my only means of communication. This experience alone taught me a lot.
I met with Dawn on the phone that afternoon because our schedules did not match up htis week. We talked about how to move the project forward, bring in volunteers, add students, gather more data and so much more.
For this scholarship, I will be attending a scholarship luncheon this coming Friday.
I also worked with device to learn how to search, use the navigator section, and the eye control software.Then I did some ground work to find out which groups might be interested in getting service hours by working on this project with me.
For the student's Dynavox, I have almost finished programming his device. All that I have left is to finish the "my phrases" section before I am ready to work with him and his mom. I should send a note home to try and set up a time to meet with her next week some time.
(6 hrs)