There are a number of assistive-type softwares that may help students with access to learning in the classroom. The following focuses on writing, reading, and vision supports. Most are free and can be easily downloaded by the student. EASE of ACCESS: This group of tools offers simple word prediction through the on-screen keyboard, magnifier (for vision…
“Citizenship” is Everyone’s Business
February 1st is the 32nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, the day before Groundhog Day, the day (1920) of the newly established Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But more importantly, it is the official launch of our Digital Citizenship Initiative (K-7). While some may hone in on the word, “digital” implying that it is…
Learning Sessions – Making the Most of Fast ForWord
Fall is definitely in the air – crisp, clean and clear. For those of you starting Fast ForWord or returning after a break, we have set this year’s 3 part series: * October 15, October 27, December 1; 8:30-12:00 at Schou-TLC Each session will build upon each other (from neuroscience basics, how the program fits,…
Connectedness & Relationships
Welcome back. Exciting things are afoot… This month is all about connecting and relationship building. Behind every one of those faces are stories waiting to be heard. Changes to both our infrastructure and Fast ForWord content is going to make this an exciting year. If you are interested in having this program in your…
Celebrations
Around this time of year, the terms of celebration, reflection and sharing, become even more of a focus. It’s almost cyclical in nature. Beyond the “let’s have a party to showcase all the end products”, I wonder about the little things. Things like perseverance and tenacity and the courage to turn around and face the dragons of…
When Opportunity and Resources Meet = Success Happens
Connecting a ‘just right’ opportunity to engage in independent deeper thinking and a resource that allows that to happen is a challenge. When the two meet, it’s almost magical, especially when it can include students who struggle with reading and writing. For these, time is spent mostly on the mechanics of reading/writing, leaving little cognitive energy for…
Welcome Back!
Starting a new year is always exciting and this year cannot be any different. We’ve done some updates to the blog – please take time to familiarize yourself with the organization (you’ll find new consent templates, Admin section now under Program…). New training sessions (for new sites and any teachers new or nearly new to program)…
Summer Thoughts
As we go into the summer, a huge ‘thank you’ goes to teachers, students and parents. To the students, you’ve practiced focus and attention and this is no easy feat. It takes hard work to build and exercise an efficient brain. To our parents, you ensured your children had a good night’s sleep and a…
Interventions – Positive Steps in the Right Direction
Those pesky red flags made your heart sink. And they were doing so well. At some point every student reaches this wall. Actually this can be seen as a good thing. It means that both the student and the program have located the area of need, that point where the student missed along the journey…
Secret to the Universe When Motivation Wanes
Many times I’ve been asked “how do you motivate students”? This is usually during the time when the newness of the exercises wear off and it’s clearly drudgery that takes over. This might happen during week one (sigh) or perhaps pop up in week three. If you’re lucky, you won’t see the effects for quite…
New Beginnings
A huge welcome to our new sites – South Slope, Marlborough, Buckingham, Burnaby South Access Program and Moscrop Access Program. A great time of learning with all teams and we continue to have more gatherings in the near future to continue the conversation of supporting our students. The days of January have been whizzing by,…
App #10 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #10: Partner a beautiful image that you’ve drawn or photographed with interactivity and you’ve got Thinglink. These rich interactives provide another way to curate and organize information. I’ve written about this before using the SAMR Model as an example (developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D) and also here where I was participating in CLMOOC. Thinglink offers interaction tools that tag photos or images…
App #9 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #9: In our effort to highlight the SAMR Model of integration of technology, we’ve been considering what activities might fit into Redefinition (technology that allows creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable). What activities might have significant impact to student outcomes? The “tell your story” concept remains one of the powerful ways we have to teach others, to increase audience,…
App #8 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #8: Image editors are the tools that help your ordinary images dance off pages. IrfanView is a free program (on your school computers) that does a variety of basics like compression. I love the “batch conversion” feature when I need a ton of images resized for the web. (click here for instructions) When I need to add…
App #7 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #7: How do you present information from research projects? Usually we default to PowerPoint. Another option is Haiku Deck for all platforms. I wrote about this app for the iPad before (click here). The presentation software offers a beautiful, yet simplistic way to to share information. Each slide offers options for layout, format (bullet points), images (including…