192- Assistive Technology and Tech Tools for a Better School Year

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert Podcast Series by Attitude Magazine. [MUSIC] >> Hey everyone, it's Susan Koffen and you are listening to Attitude Magazine to ADHD Experts Audio. Today's webinar, Tech Tools for Better School Year, is a special interest to all of us as we head into the new school year here starting up around the country. Our students with ADHD and with learning issues are juggling academic demands, extracurriculars, peer group interactions, all the while coping with distractibility, with challenges, with focus, that are all hallmarks of attentional learning differences. So for our kids, the right tech tools can make all the difference between success and failures. School Seas days are incorporating many web-based tools that support learning, but even more tools, ones that are not civically adopted across the district, may be specifically helpful to students with ADHD and specific learning issues. These might be included in an IEP or 504, but usually only of parents understand the state of in-school technology and know how to effectively advocate for the right accommodations. So we're very pleased today to have Janet Asenzo, an expert of many years in the field of assisted technologies, to tell us much more about which tools benefit students with learning issues. One of the differences between educational technology and the system technology, what is universal design for learning and why is it important to know about? Which platforms are the most beneficial iPads, Chromebooks, versus laptops? And what are realistic timelines and expectations and goals for using assisted technology? Janet Asenzo, thank you so much for being here today. Janet is a regular speaker at Attitude Award so grateful for her time. She started working with college students at the university level almost two decades ago, assisting students with disabilities. And today, she's an assistant technology specialist and technology integration specialist in New Jersey, where she helps find technology solutions for students with special needs and health teachers integrate technology into their everyday lessons. So before we start, just let me take a moment to thank the sponsor of today's webinar. We're so grateful every week to our sponsors. They will allow Attitude to present the information that we do week after week at absolutely no cost to our listeners. The sponsor of today's webinar is Play Attention. Play Attention is a brain training system, the only one that combines both advanced neurofeedback and cognitive training and effectively improves attention, behavior and learning skills in both children and adults with ADHD. For much more information about Play Attention, please visit online www.playattention.com. So thank you to Play Attention. Don't forget to check that out. So with that, let me turn it over to Janet. It's our thanks again for being here. Thank you. It's great to be here. I welcome the opportunity to talk to both parents, administrators, and teachers also, and talking to them about the state of technology in school districts today. So much is changing with technology on a year-to-year basis. And it's hard for, I know it's hard for me to keep up, even as a technology specialist. And things change almost on a daily basis. So I really, I welcome the opportunity to share some information with folks. What we're going to cover today is technology that may or may not be included in a child's IEP or 504 plan. We're going to talk about what universal design for learning is and how that is really becoming more and more commonly seen in schools across the country. I'm not sure if a lot of parents out there really understand what that is, but it may come up in meetings with teachers and administrators. We're going to talk about educational technology versus assistive technology and what the difference is. We'll also be talking about choosing device platforms, what's best for a child to use. Also taking into consideration what the schools may be already using and how that impacts what your child is using and if it meets the needs. We'll be following up, we'll be talking about following up with tech implementation in the classroom and how you as a parent know whether or not that tech is being utilized. We'll talk about the technology being available at home and at school and what tech tools can be the most beneficial for students with different types of learning needs and recognizing that attention issues are not often the only issues that students experience going through the school year. So we have a lot to cover. So let's start off with considering technology in a 504 plan. So the first thing we need to think about are what are our expectations for technology? Are we looking for a silver bullet in the be all and all and this is going to solve all my child's problems? Well that's as we most of us know that that's not the case. There is no silver bullet, there is no single solution and I would really like to recommend that we stay away from the myth of if my child only had a laptop it would solve all of our problems. I'm a true believer in a nice new shiny device is not going to motivate your child to learn just as a brand new shiny sharpened pencil is not going to encourage them to write. So I think we need to put that in its place first and foremost. It's we're not looking for you know how to get this child to be motivated. We're looking for the tools to make the the goal of the lesson most attainable. So we really need to talk about looking at technology as what is going to best meet that child's needs. So for example I remember working with a parent once and the parent really was determined that their child have an iPad in school and you know we kept thinking about well why do you think that that would be beneficial and the parent said well that's what he uses at home and that's what he's comfortable with and but you know there are a lot of other things that we need to look at and first and foremost is what is the need that we are trying to meet. Are we trying to keep the child on task? Are we trying to make writing to be less difficult for that child depending upon you know are we talking about fatigue issues? Are we talking about motivational issues? Are we talking about attention or learning needs? So we really have to specifically think about what's going to go into the 504 plan or what's going to go in the IEP. Not just the child will use a laptop in class but the child will utilize word processing with word prediction to support their writing you know that is more of a realistic goal for technology. So we need to keep that in mind. I'm thinking about technology tools. I often think about you know if I were a mechanic or if I was working on cars what is the best tool for the need. We have general tools and we have very specific tools. You know can we use a wrench that could be utilized for a lot of different things or do we need a very specific tool for a very specific need. That's one of the things that we really need to look at when we're talking about writing technology into a 504 plan or an IEP. So the other thing we need to consider is when we talk about that you know a wrench that kind of fits and fixes a lot of things that's kind of what I think about when I think about educational technology that is starting to build in supports for all students. That's becoming more and more of the norm. So instead of just having years ago let's say we would purchase as a school district an online subscription to a textbook. Now those online subscriptions come with many built-in tools so it's not just the textbook that we're looking at online. It's not just replacing the paper with a screen. It's built-in supports like I can highlight the text. I can click on a word and look up the definition. I have the ability to extract highlights and annotations out so that I can have a set of notes directly from the website that I was reading. I can listen to the text being read out loud. So a lot of those tools that are you know considered educational technology have those supports built into them. And as time goes on we're seeing that more and more. It's much more commonplace. Assistive technology on the other hand is considered to be those supports which it's beneficial for a lot of students. You don't necessarily have to have a learning disability or attentional issues to benefit from those supports. They are necessary for some students but it can be beneficial for all students. So that's you know how I would like to introduce the concept of assistive technology versus educational technology. The line between these two terms is becoming more and more blurred as we go on. And we're seeing that you know the tools that have one support also happen to have two or three other supports built in. So the need for the term assistive technology and very specific assistive tech to be built into IEPs in 504s is becoming less and less necessary because it's more commonly available. That being said, I would like to talk a little bit about the concept of universal design for learning. So let's break this down a little bit. UTI or universal design for learning. The origins of that term come from the architecture industry. So if you think back to when we started to build curb cuts into sidewalks and cities, the reason why those curb cuts were being put there were so that we could offer wheelchair accessibility from sidewalk to sidewalk. So we kind of, you know, we think you'll hear that term curb cuts a lot. Curb cuts are not only beneficial for folks who use wheelchairs. They are beneficial for people who use strollers, bicycles, skateboards. They're useful for delivery people who have carts to bring on to, you know, from sidewalk to sidewalk. So is it necessary for some? Yes, it is. It is necessary if you're in a wheelchair, but it benefits many. Education has taken that term, UDL, and brought it into the classroom to really redesign the way lessons are presented and learning happens in the classroom. Those tech tools that support many students are part of a universally designed classroom environment. So although, you know, there may be assistive, what we used to be considered assistive technology tools for specific students, those tools are now available for everyone in the classroom and everyone can benefit on it. And they have the choice of whether or not they want to use those tools. And again, depending upon the need, I do want to specify that there are certain students who have very specific needs who assistive technology is absolutely necessary. You know, things that are not what we would not consider commonly used assistive technology tools, those that are less commonly seen like switches or access tools for students who are mobility impaired. That may not be as commonly seen in a UDL classroom. I'm referring more to software tools and headphones. And we'll get into particular items in a minute. So UDL classrooms, what do they include? What do they look like? So we talk a lot about flexible learning materials in UDL classrooms. And that could be, we'll start with the the instructional materials on the right hand side here. We may be talking about books, but we also will be supporting those books with video and with audio and perhaps the use of QR codes in doing scavenger hunts to find material in the lesson around the classrooms. There are computers and/or tablets, use of a learning, an LMS, which is a learning management system, where teachers share the information that the students will be learning. There may be timers to help students stay on task. So that students know you have 20 minutes to complete this task. And there are other writing supports available to keyboards, the text, voice recognition, things like that. So those are the types of learning tools that we might see in classrooms. As far as environmental supports go, we may have standing desks available. We may have rows of seats that are movable, perhaps desks on wheels so that we can move them into smaller learnings, collaborative learning spaces. We may have carpeted spaces where students can go and find a comfortable place to go and read or learn. We might have seats that have rubber bands that allow students to fidget or move. Some of you have seen those pedal seats and I have some pictures later on that I'll show you what those look like. But a lot of our students need to move. And a choice again between collaborative workspaces versus single study spaces. I want to paint a picture of what a traditional room might look like with straight rows of desks and a teacher standing at the front of the classroom. That is not what I'm talking about when I'm referring to a UDL classroom. I'm talking about an environment that perhaps looks a little bit more like this. This is a classroom environment where very often the teacher is not standing in front of the classroom as what we would refer to as the stage on the stage if you will. They are more of a facilitator of learning. They present the information that needs to be learned. The students understand what the task is either through work posted on a website or posted on the projected onto a whiteboard or even in a paper packet if you will. But there are different learning spaces that the students can utilize. Specifically if we look a little bit closer at this picture, we have some carpeted areas with some cushion seats that students can choose to go to the back and find a quiet spot so they can concentrate on their working. Where that square is, that's actually a cart that there are computers or Chromebooks in. In the back is an area where a teacher can work with small groups at a time and on the far right where the two arrows are. Those are small cafe tables where students can work in groups of two or three altogether. You'll notice that there are not your typical desks here in rows. You'll notice that these are high desks. There are schools there if students want to sit but if students want to stand up while they're working they can and they could move around and they can fidget. They're not expected to sit for long periods of time at these desks. So it's a very different environment than what we've seen in the past with rows of desks where students are sitting for 40 to 50 minutes at a time. This is encouraging to me. I know this is not common place but this is the direction that we're moving in education. This is an example of a classroom in my district. I actually have permission from this teacher to use this picture. It really speaks to the way education is going. I remember when my son was young, one of the things he said to me that will stay with me for a very long time is we were talking during a meeting with his case manager and he said to me, "Mom, I am so trying to focus on sitting still for a 45 minute period that that's really all I can think about is how much longer do I have before I get out of this chair?" And this type of a classroom where students can move around. They can stand up. They can find a spot where they're comfortable to read and learn. Is a much more amicable type of environment than sitting and concentrating on sitting still for 45 minutes? So that being said, let's talk about some of the tools that we might use in this environment. So many of these are kind of common place now. We're seeing them more and more in classrooms where we have tablets or computers. And again, students have a choice of if they want to use these or not. And very often, if there are students who prefer to use pencil and paper, they can make that request of the teacher or if everyone is working digitally, that information is available also digitally. And we're going to talk about why choose one over the other. So this picture reflects different platforms and different manners in which to attain information. Tablets certainly often have text-to-speech built into them, reading supports. If there's words that a student doesn't know, the definitions are readily available just by a click or a touch. On the bottom right hand corner here, we see a chrome book. And a chrome book looks very much like a laptop. But if you're not familiar with chrome books and again, they are more and more popular across the country. This is basically what I think of as a glorified template. It is a, I'm sorry, a glorified browser. It provides you with the chrome browser on this device. But that's really it. There's no storage on the device. They're not typing word documents and saving them on the device. Everything is done through Google Apps for Education, which is now referred to as G Suite. But what that really means as a parent and as a teacher is that the work that they do, any work that is done on a chrome book, is widely available because everything is saved in the cloud. Nothing is stored on the device itself. So that means that if a student goes home and needs to find the same document or the same website, as long as they log into the chrome browser, all of that information will be available to them. So it's more and more, we are moving toward tools, learning tools that are what we're talking about. be called device agnostic. You don't need to be on the same device to get that information because the information is stored in the cloud and the student has access to it anywhere they go on any device. So it's what we refer to as anytime, anywhere learning. So I put the picture of the headphones here because I think of headphones in two different ways. headphones can really help a student to focus and filter out all of the auditory distractions that are going on in the classroom. It can help them to listen to reading materials and at the same time they can just not have any audio at all. They just want to muffle out the sounds that are happening around them to better help them focus. So when I have parents ask, "Can the student wear headphones in class?" I try to steer them away from those little earbuds because those don't really filter out and buffer out the outside sounds. I prefer the headphones with the cups that go over the ears that really just keep the student focused on what's in front of them. As far as the whiteboard goes, I put in an interactive whiteboard here because very often that may be a center in the classroom where students will work together on a project or something interactive that needs to be done up at the display board. We're seeing that more and more as centers become more popular in education. So don't be surprised if that's something that you see more of in the classroom. All of these tools provide what we call multiple means. And part of a UDL classroom is providing multiple means of representation of information. So we have teachers who are not only just providing information through books or through paper, but through multiple means through video, through audio, through books, magazines, trade books, things like that. It also allows students multiple means of expression. And what I mean by that is showing what you know. And in the past, traditionally, students had either a test given to them on paper or they've been asked to either take a paper test or write a paper. And those were either the one of the two ways that teachers knew if students were getting the information that was being taught. That's not really what UDL classrooms are all about. UDL classrooms are about giving students choices in showing what they know and showing how they've learned and understanding what type of learner they are is often the beginning point. We try, I know in the district that I'm in, to really help students understand how they learn what type of learner they are and give them choices of how they want to express what they know. So you'll see much more of the traditional write a paper or take a test. Let's do a presentation. Let's have students write a song. Let's have students do different type of projects so that yes, they're showing what they know, but it's beyond the traditional way of showing what they know. So what happens if your child is in a classroom, that's not a UDL classroom. What if those learning supports are not there? And I'm realistic. I understand I've gone into many school districts around the country where I see maybe two desktops in the back of the room and that's really it. Or maybe there's a class set of five laptops in the classroom and that's all the students have to share. If that is the case and you know that there's a particular tool that your child or your student would benefit from, well maybe that's where it is more important or more of a focus to request that assistive technology be built into the IEP or the 504 plan to ensure that that child has access to the tools that they need. So that's when you would look into it. Typically, classrooms that are paper-based have limited accessibility to students with learning needs. They, you know when you're reading a book on paper or if you're looking at a packet from teachers, you don't have the ability to benefit from text to speech and you don't have the ability to look upwards you don't know. And that's where this video comes into play. So I have this little video here just to express why textbooks are limiting and you make here more and more talk about textbooks. You know when they go home they don't take out a paper book and read it. They're on their devices, they're on their computers and they're learning things in the mode that they learn in which is a digital world. It's more of a, you know their world is a digital world. So we have to think about if we want them to learn, we want to give them the ability to find out more information, save information. You know we don't want to limit them by saying okay here's the information in the book and that's all the information that we're going to provide to you. So let's give them choice in being able to to take that information and do more with it. So that being said if we are looking toward digitizing our classrooms we need to really think about platforms. So what do I mean by platforms? Platforms mean what is your preferred device and there are a lot of devices out there being used by schools and they have to be taken into consideration based on budget based on availability, safety, what's going to be easiest to maintain from your IT department. So there are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration when considering different platforms. The first thing that needs to be taken into consideration especially if we are looking to put the device in an IAP or a 504 plan is can we use that device to meet the student specific needs, the needs of the student always need to drive the device choice. Luckily for us in education many of these devices offer the same types of accessibility tools. In the past it really wasn't that wasn't the case. So now if a district is already using Windows laptops then if we can meet the students needs with the Windows laptops which very often is the case then that is a good choice. I will have a make one comment. You know sometimes it's very difficult if the parent is very determined to recommend a specific platform like my child needs a Chromebook or like my child needs an iOS device or an iPad. We need to make sure that the child is well versed in using that device in those specific tools within that device to meet their needs. We also need to make sure that the teachers are comfortable with that device. And finally we need to balance the needs and to see if there are ways to meet the needs using a device that a district already supports. For example if the entire district is already using Chromebooks and the supports for that child are available it would be easier to support that child while they're in school using a platform that the school is already using. The other side of that coin is let's talk about the child's social development and whether or not that child feels comfortable using a device that nobody else uses or that everybody else is using. So if we can meet the needs of that child using a platform that is being used by everyone in the school then that kind of is a win-win situation. So that's all I'm going to say about platforms. So but let's talk about specific tools within those platforms. What are we looking for? What are the types of tools that are helpful for students? So we always want to make sure that the need comes first. What are the needs of that child and then what kind of tools can meet that need? And I have a few different areas here. I think these are the most common areas that students see as challenges in school. So let's start out first and foremost with organization issues. When I'm looking at organization issues I'm looking at students anywhere from kindergarten right up through high school. A lot of our students have organizational issues. And I'm talking about things like I lost my work. I can't find my paper. I brought home my study guide but I left it home. I can't find my planner. I didn't write my homework clearly enough so now I can't read what I was supposed to do in the assignment. I really didn't understand the way things were explained during the lessons. So I don't really get the whole concept that was being taught. Those are the types of things that I'm referring to when I talk about organization. So it covers a broad area of needs. The first thing I want to talk about is the need for a digital calendar. Let's start with the bottom of the screen here. Many of our students have trouble keeping track of both short term assignments and long term assignments. And one of the things that I think I, one of my own personal pet peeves is the accommodation of please have the teacher initial the planner as the student is walking out of the classroom. I kind of scratch my head sometimes because in the year of 2017 to be checking paper planners I think we have the tools to have a better way of doing things. And that brings in the the topic of digital calendars. So many of our schools have either something called an LMS or some type of teacher website area that will allow teachers to have a shared calendar for each one of their classes. And I implore teachers to please use that because again it doesn't just help those students with organizational issues. It helps every one of your students. And it also incorporates the ability to have parents on your side. So if a parent says you know what homework do you have tonight and the child says I don't have any homework tonight, the parent can say okay bring up the teacher's calendar and let's take a look at it together. So whatever the parents can partner with teachers in support the learning and the assignments in the classroom. I think that's a win-win situation. So that being said let's skip up to the top and talk about learning management systems. And I had mentioned this earlier. Learning management system is often the ability for a teacher to have their the presence of their class online. So very often a parent I'm sorry a teacher can choose to have a lot of information or just a little bit of information online. But it is a place for your class to live online. So that could be updates that could be announcements you know don't forget to have this parent form signed which could be a huge help because if a student constantly leaves things in their locker or leaves things in their basket and the parent needed to sign something by tomorrow it can be posted up on the LMS. So document available study guides available calendars available with timelines of long-term projects those are all available on an LMS or a learning management system. Many school districts have adopted learning management systems and there's lots of training going on and I know that cost is sometimes an issue but I would I would say that there are quite a few LMS choices out there that are free and for all of you teachers who are listening there are options such as Ed Moto if you are using Google Apps in your district you have the ability to use Google Classroom for free. So I would implore you to just check them out and see how they could benefit your students because this allows you to have greater accountability of your students if things are posted online and for those students who lose everything they can just go online log into your class and find your classroom resources. It's it's a huge benefit to students with organizational challenges. Finally I have here concept maps and I am a huge visual learner myself and I know that when information is organized in such a way that it visually makes sense it's much easier for me to learn and process that information. So as far as teaching and lessons are concerned I would always recommend the use of concept maps in trying to explain information. For those of you who would like to check it out there's a great online search tool called InstaGroch and that's INSTAGROK and what InstaGroch does is if you look up any term or any any term that you're trying to learn about on InstaGroch as opposed to googling it. InstaGroch will give you a visual layout of what the meaning is of that word. It will also give you multiple means of representation meaning it might give you a video explaining that term. It might give you a definition of that term but it's all laid out in a visual concept map. So for those students who benefit from visual learning I would recommend InstaGroch. There are also concept map tools available online that students can use to reflect what they know about a term. Many of them are free. One of my favorites is called MindMup2.0. So if you're looking for a tool that will help you express a term or introduce a new concept check out the online concept mapping tools mind-muk being one of them that's wet-based. All right so those are the organizational recommendations. So when we talk about reading there's two different areas of reading that I just want to mention. There are the mechanics of reading and by mechanics I mean the decoding and being able to sound out words and understand words either by sight or by decoding. So those are different needs from understanding reading where that's more of the comprehension side of things. So we really need to look at the supports that can help those students with reading difficulties. So one of the things that I know many students with attention issues have are the ability to sit and read for long periods of time and concentrate and comprehend and remember what's being what they're reading. And there are many tools to help that. Certainly one of my favorites is text to speech. So when we think about students reading in textbooks text to speech is not an available support to them. They also don't have the ability to look up words and hear listen to definitions or hear the meanings of the words or perhaps see the word being used in a sentence so that they understand context. They don't have the ability to adjust the text and very often there are reading supports out there that will let you increase the white space between words so that the layout is easier to see and easier to read. The other thing that has been very helpful for students with reading comprehension is the ability to highlight as they're reading and that kind of pulls their eye along. So if you look at all of these tools and you add headphones to this you're really immersing that student in the reading material. You're immersing all of their senses what they're hearing what they're seeing and trying to help them with engagement and focus on the material that they're reading. It's very hard to do that if you're just using paper books. So if the need is to support reading and reading comprehension then I strongly recommend text to speech and highlighting minimally with headphones. Any platform these days has text to speech built into it. There are free tools available out there that are available on Chromebooks. They're available on iPads. iPads now have they've had it for a while but text to speech built into the operating system. So anything you're trying to read whether it's a book through iBooks or a website you have the ability to select text and have it speak out loud while it's highlighting. There are also Chrome apps and extensions that do it for free. There are paid tools that do it even better. So you know as far as reading supports out there that's now commonly available. Even Microsoft Word has text to speech built into it. As far as libraries are concerned you know sometimes we have novels and books that we need to read in language arts classes that are not textbooks and whether or not they're textbooks or novels or different genre pieces. There are online available, online libraries available and I've mentioned two here that the focus of these online libraries is to bring access to students and adults with reading and attention issues. So both bookshare and learning ally allow you to create a membership with them. If you meet the eligibility requirements and that is the one caveat you do need to meet the eligibility requirements to access those libraries and those the supports that are built into those books especially learning ally they have books that are read by human readers or they have books that are also read with synthesized speech which means text to speech. Bookshare is basically books that you would download into one of your tools that you have either on your iPad or on your computer that will read those books. They don't have their own apps so to speak to read them in but the supports are there so that you can access those bookshare books. As I mentioned before, you need to be eligible to sign up for free membership with them. You need to have either a learning disability or a print disability to be able to sign up for a membership. But I highly recommend both of those. We use them in school all the time and more and more. You'll see them available in schools. They both have school or organizational memberships available to school districts for free. So I highly recommend that if you have a child that needs to access digital books. Okay, moving right along. We're going to talk about writing. Writing, again, I often will break down writing into two different areas and that's the mechanics of writing. The ability to hold a pencil, the pencil grip being appropriate. Being able to write for long periods of time without fatiguing, that's what I refer to what I talk about the mechanics of writing. And sometimes that's an issue. And that's where you might consider keyboarding. Keyboarding is a skill that students are going to use truly for the rest of their lives. So I'm thinking that at this point, you know, keyboarding and keyboarding practice is becoming more and more commonplace in schools again. You know, it's very common years ago and then we kind of let it go into the wayside. And now, you know, especially with our standardized tests being computer-based, keyboarding is more and more important. So very often we will see students who have the choice of either writing their notes or typing their notes and that's becoming more commonplace. The other side of writing is writing and using correct grammar and making sense of your writing, being able to write and convey your ideas effectively. And a lot of students struggle with that. They also struggle a lot with the ability to proofread their writing. And very often we'll, you know, sit with a child and read back their own writing and they'll say, "I didn't write that or I didn't mean to write that." That's actually what you wrote. So that's where the combination of writing and text to speech come into play. I'm a huge supporter of having text to speech built into any tool that students are using for writing so that they can effectively listen back to what they wrote and hear their mistakes, hear their grammar mistakes and their spelling mistakes and whether or not they're repeating words over and over again. The other tools that we've seen being used more and more, especially in our UDL classrooms, is voice recognition. You know, very often we have students who have great ideas and great thoughts, but it takes them too long to get those ideas down on paper or down on a screen. And if they could speak them, those ideas are down much more quickly and they tend to not lose their train of thought. There are free voice recognition tools now and years ago voice recognition was something that I was really reluctant to recommend for students to use, but it's gotten much better over the years. Even Google now, if you were to look into typing a Google Doc, they have something called voice typing built into their tools menu and it's free and available for anyone who uses Google Docs. So if that will help the student get their thoughts down more quickly and take away the fatigue of writing and also the challenge of making sure everything is spelled correctly, it often improves their writing. When you think about a student who really struggles with spelling and if they are going to type a sentence that contains a difficult word that they're going to be challenged to spelling, they may use a lesser word in their writing when they're truly capable of expressing at a higher level. So instead of saying it was a beautiful day today, they'll say it was a nice day today because beautiful is just too difficult to spell. Well, that's where voice recognition comes into play and also word prediction. So word prediction also mentioned here is the ability to get a list of words. So as you're typing the tool that you're using will recommend full words. So as you start to spell a word, you'll get a list of words to choose from based on the context of the sentence and also words you've commonly used. So word prediction is something that we see all the time on our cell phones, our mobile phones, people use it more and more just to help speed up their writing. And again, if you can speed up the writing and get your thoughts down more quickly, you'll less often lose your train of thought and be able to focus and engage in what you're writing. So those are the tools that are available. The spelling and grammar checking is available on just about any device you can type on. We all know the challenges that we have with the auto correct on our phones and that kind of spelling and grammar support is available through just about any tool that you're using to type in on either an iPad or a Chromebook or a laptop. Voice recognition, again, available through free apps and word prediction is usually something that needs to be specially installed or possibly purchased with an add-on, but commonly used and seen a lot. Okay, so note taking has been a very controversial topic. Do we have students take their own notes or do we provide them with a set of notes in the classroom? More and more, we're seeing, again, the issue of writing, being a challenge for many students, their hands fatigue, it's hard for them to write for long periods of time. When you think about high school students sitting in an electric class for 45 minutes and just writing notes, that could be very fatiguing. And if they don't keyboard quickly enough, you know, that they could lose a lot of information there. So there are different supports out there for students who have to do a lot of note taking. One of the things that we're seeing in classrooms that's becoming more popular is something called guided note taking. This is where a teacher will provide a very loose set of either PowerPoint slides or Google slides where the topic, one of the topics to be discussed will be on the top of the slide with the main ideas, but then the students fill in the rest of the information. Or perhaps there are sentences with blank lines that the students need to finish so that they can listen to the majority of the lecture, but still get those notes down and the major points are there. So that would involve students each having their own device in the classroom. And certainly we're seeing that more and more as we go one to one with devices in classrooms. And by one to one, I mean that every student has their own device in a classroom. But if you're a student who has an IEP or a 504, we're using a laptop or using a Chromebook in a classroom, certainly it may be appropriate to use digital note taking tools. I've noted a few here. There's some common ones here and these are all free. Every one of these tools are free so that if a student forgets their notebook in school, it's not an issue anymore because if they're using something like Google Docs or one note, those notes are going to be saved in the cloud. And if as long as you have any type of device, you could log in into your cloud storage and get those notes. So again, particularly helpful for students with organizational issues where they're often forgetting notebooks and devices in school. The other side of that coin is something that I refer to as digital pens. These are pens that use special paper. They have a camera built into the pen and they have a microphone built into the pen. So essentially as you're taking notes, the camera is seeing what you write and later on seeing and recording what you write. So at a later time, if you take that pen and touch it to the ink, you will be able to hear what was being spoken as you were writing that note. So it could be very effective for students who fatigue quickly. They don't need to write full sentences. Sometimes I've shown students how to just make a star when there's something important they need to hear or relisten to. But again, that involves making sure you don't lose the pen and making sure you don't lose the note paper. So you really have to gauge that with the students' need and what their strengths are. If you have a student who often loses things and that might not be the best choice for them. But it is another option for students who need help with note-taking. And I want to talk about self-regulation just very quickly. Students who have ADHD who are very hyperactive, who need to move all the time, need to have tools that will allow them to self-regulate, that will allow them to keep moving in the classroom without it being a distraction to other students. So these are the things that we're seeing more and more in schools that allow them to allow students to move. The bouncy bands, the ability to move their feet or shape their legs while they're sitting. The regulation balls where if you're sitting on a ball, you're kind of being forced to shift your and hold your center of gravity so that you can move around. But there is a physical attention that needs to be put towards sitting up and sitting straight. The, we kind of call these wiggle cushions where students can kind of wiggle a little bit in their chairs and shift their weight easily. So they don't have to sit still the whole time. The fidgets on the bottom, those are the fidget cubes that we're seeing more and more. And it allows for students to keep moving and get that sensory input while again, not being a huge distraction to other students around them. And then finally, we have standing desks. Standing desks are being seen more and more in the classroom. Again, when you think about the idea of sitting for 40 minutes or 45 minutes without moving around, it's really difficult for some students. So why not let them stand up? You know, give them a couple of standing desks and say if you need to move, just take your computer or take your book and use the standing desk. And it kind of relieves some of that. Oh my gosh, I have to sit here for another 15 minute anxiety issue. So think about these items as you think about your students sitting in class for long periods of time. One word on fidgets, Bennors. I would be remiss if I did not bring this up. When it comes to fidget gadgets, I think the important thing is that the student has some sensory input with the ability to move, but at the same time, any type of fidget should not be a distraction to other students. So if they have to look at it and attend to it while they're using it, chances are they're going to lose focus on what they need to be focusing on in the classroom. So really think about the type of fidget gadget that you are using or giving to your child to using class. The fidget spinners are becoming a huge distraction to other students, kids are kind of flinging them around the classroom. So if it doesn't give them that sensory input without becoming a distraction to other students, then that may not be the best fidget tool for your student. All right, another thing that we can do is far self-regulation goes. And I'm talking to the teachers now. We have these tools that allow students to get up, move around and kind of shake their sillies out, if you will. The Go-Noodle website is great for teachers who want to take a brain break. There are many studies coming out these days that recommend that students incorporate physical activity throughout their day to help with blood flow and oxygen to the brain. And it's really showing that students are learning better if they can get up and move around throughout their day. The tool on the right is called Move It. This is a Chrome extension that works with your Chrome browser that allows teachers to, once it's running, every certain amount of time where it's five minutes, seven minutes, every 10 minutes, it stops the teacher in their lesson and they have to get up and do some type of physical activity for between 30 seconds or a minute and let kids move around. And then it kind of locks the screen. Once that minute is up and the activity is over, students sit down and get back to learning. So it's proving to be very helpful, especially in those classrooms, where we have our fidgety kids. All right, so what can teachers do? Teachers can really know, get to know their students and their learning needs. Ask for help from a tech specialist if you're looking to incorporate tools into the classroom. Help your students with self-regulation issues and embrace the use of an LMS in your classroom. Parents, I invite you to partner with your teachers and work together for the success of your student to keep in touch, but I also ask you to balance that with, what is your child meant to be accountable to do as opposed to what is your teacher supposed to be doing to keep your child on task? So partner with your teachers. The ultimate goal, so the ultimate goal is to help our children to become independent learners, help them to know what type of learner they are, help them to understand what it's going to take for them to self-regulate and how to use tools effectively, not as toys, but as learning tools that they can use throughout the rest of their lives, no matter what they're doing, and whatever device they're using right up and through their careers. So that is the goal. With that, I'll end there and I know Susan, it's two o'clock. - This has been so terrific, Janet. I think we're at a time, unfortunately. So there are many questions related to specific apps, but I just don't think we can address them. Everyone, please download the slides. There's great information. Janet did a great job of making it very clear. I love your mind maps. I want to ask one of the questions that everyone loved and everybody asked was, they wanted to repeat the name of the mind map tool that you mentioned. It's called Mind Mop, M-I-N-D-M-U-P 2.0. Mind Mop. - Great. If some folks want to get in touch with me, you can always find me on Twitter at JanTechNJ, J-A-N-T-E-C-H-N-J. - Great, and also everyone, I think Jan is gonna take some questions on the attitude forums. If you post your questions immediately in the next two days, you'll be lurking around. You go to attitudebag.com/community and scroll down to the thread for the webinars and you'll find a thread just for this one. So everyone says, can you please come back for another session? (laughs) And can we please have longer time praying in the future? And thank you so much. So thanks everyone, hope to see you soon. - Thank you. - Sorry for running so long, but I'm glad you did. Okay. - Good stuff, thanks. - Okay. - For more attitude podcasts and information on living well with attention deficit, visit attitudebag.com. That's A-D-D-I-T-U-D-E-M-A-G.com. (upbeat music) - Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be, let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great, you love the host, you seek it out and download it, you listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lib Sin ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one. 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