This week’s blog edition is dedicated to the Indiana educators.  In reviewing my year, I have logged a whole lot of miles and met with a whole lot of school staff.  It has been GREAT! What an amazing group of folks.  My life is truly richer for these experiences.There has been a number of topics that we have covered.  Much of what we have talked about is how to include all students in the curriculum and I can tell you that is a loaded statement. It sounds simple, but it has a lot of layers when you really look at it.  For some presentations, there is a slide I show of a Venn-type diagram of 6 circles.                                 I think this describes education today.

1.  I put students in the center.  As educators, we know students really are and have always been the central focus.  
2.  Just above that is a circle of Diversity.  We can all agree there is much diversity found in the classroom ranging from academic abilities to socio-economic, cultural, language, religious, and the list can go on.  As a consultant, I include teachers and staff in the diversity pool and this is something that must be considered for communication and for accessibility as well.  One size does not fit all.  Neither for students nor staff.
3.  So next to children and diversity, we find student achievement.  I list this third, purposely, as we are not dealing with a product here that can be measured in purely economic or statistical terms.  Achievement is very important to be sure.  Educators have always found a way to measure student achievement.  So the fact that we have and need student achievement is a given and absolutely necessary.  The thing is, student achievement is best measured when there is a good match between what the children know, can do and demonstrate with what is expected.  That brings us to the last three circles of the Venn Diagram.  

The Stuff. Instructional Technology (IT including infrastructure), Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Assistive Technology (AT)
4.  In the middle we have the Instructional technology provided for all students/staff, regardless of educational placement.
5.  On one side we have AT which is required for students to benefit from their special education where ever it is i.e. general ed class, special ed class. So those make sense and have been around for awhile.
6.  The other player is UDL, which serves as more than a bridge between the two.  It has been called a framework and I look at it as a warm embrace for education.   Purposeful, planned, front-loaded, collaborative. A future blog can go into this in more detail but suffice it to say that UDL brings education full circle, and honestly, I have seen this kind of work in action all around Indiana.

Schools today operate with technology.  They really always have.  It used to be the slate and soapstone, or the vellum and quill, or the #2 lead and paper. Pick your era. There was always a way to use a tool for education, so really, there is no difference now.  The discussion should not be to use technology or not. The question is, "How do children demonstrate what they have learned?"  The discussion should include brainstorming multi-modal ways to engage students, multi-modal ways to present information and multi-modal ways to have them express and demonstrate understanding, while building in layers of increasing independence.  The challenge is on to find out what students know and to find ways to challenge all students.

It has been an absolute joy to meet teachers and educators across Indiana engaged in dynamic ways of reaching students and who seek out more ways to reach children who learn via atypical means and methods.  Keep up the good work!
 

OK we have this new blog and I get assigned the last week in March to submit an entry. The pressure is on to think of a topic.  I labor over it trying to think of a witty, informative and relevant blog entry. And the bar has been set after the previous three entries!  So I start thinking what can I do? What can I say? Can't talk about everything I learned I learned in kindergarten.....Kelli sort of went with that theme plus kindergarten was eons ago for me! Can't talk about retail therapy....Sandi just did that!  It dawns on me to somehow tie in March Madness into the blog entry.  But after Purdue lost there was no reason to have any March Madness blog theme!

So I start thinking the only thing that has consumed my life lately has been a trip to the emergency room and eventual hospitalization of my 92-year-old mother.  Now how can anyone make this witty, informative or even relevant? I mean come on no matter what one does a hospital gown is never flattering on anyone and hospital food ranks right up there with school lunches!  Then it hits me.  While in the emergency room the staff began to speak to me in a foreign language. It began to resemble the adult in all the Charlie Brown cartoons.  You know that "wha, wha, wha" sound! We are going to do a BMP, let's keep your mom NPO. We are going to take her to IR for a procedure.  Her doctor has ordered a CXR.  That monitor helps us track her HR. I was beginning to feel so ignorant!

Now don't get me wrong I have watched my fair share of Marcus Welby MD, ER and Grey's Anatomy.   And my wife's a nurse so I have been around medical terminology for a long time.  But I am sure that I must have been getting a snack when they tossed out these acronyms on TV.....and just tuning my wife out as I have been accused of doing on occasion!  My only salvation was when the OT and PT came in to do an assessment. A sigh of relief!  I can finally talk their lingo.  I know what ROM and ADL stand for. No longer was I looking at medical staff like a deer in headlights. I felt like an equal!

Well this experience allowed me to do some pondering, plus mom was sleeping a lot in her hospital room in-between personnel coming for more blood, breathing treatments and waking her up for a vitals check.  We toss out a lot of terms every day to parents, gen Ed teachers and other school related personnel. And the list of acronyms is constantly growing!  Just when everyone was beginning to understand what FAPE is we now talk about BIP (say it fast enough and it sounds like that could possibly be Marty McFly's buddy from Back to the Future or is that a mis-spelt acronym and are we going to discuss bibs?). Then we begin to sprinkle our conversation with PLOP (are we beginning to sing the Alka Seltzer jingle?) and SLO (are we being politically correct using the term slow in front of a parent whose child falls 2 or more standard deviations  below the norm?)

Well hopefully by now you get the picture.  Explain those acronyms and abbreviations. It will make for a more pleasant conference/meeting. As for me, there is always next year for my Boilermakers and in the meantime I will be binge watching reruns of Dr. Kildaire, Medical Center and Emergency (if you don't know what I am talking about google them) so that the next time my mom decides to take a field trip to the hospital I won't be the deer in the headlight!



P.S. My mom is recovering nicely!

One of the questions you get asked when people are curious about you is, “Do you have any hobbies?”  I have a hard time answering that.  I have things that I enjoy doing, but are they hobbies?  You tell me.  I really enjoy shopping.  I don’t care who I am shopping for.  I just want to find the one thing that will make someone smile and understand that, I get them.  I want to buy the perfect wedding gift or birthday gift, and I’m not afraid to hunt for it.  I search both online and stalk the stores.  Sometimes I know exactly what I want.  Sometimes I find it accidentally while shopping around for fun.  The thing is, I do it enough that I don’t have to wonder where to look for things when I need them.   

Recently I worked with a school district that is going through an abrupt change of status with one of their students.  In the blink of an eye that student’s method for learning and expressing their comprehension was drastically altered.  The learning professionals banded together to find a path to learning for this student through a forest of technology that they didn’t even know existed.  They built a team that included administrators, technical support, special educators and regular educators because they knew that it was going to take the knowledge of all concerned parties to facilitate the student’s needs so that he could continue learning at his previous level.  The thing is, they didn’t know what they didn’t know.  Everyone was ready to pitch in, however they needed help finding out if the things they wanted to exist, did.  Moreover, would they work the way they needed them to.  

So, how do you find things if you don’t know they exist?

The need for assistive technology solutions in schools is constant.  It is always an emergency when a student is blocked from learning.   Resolutions need to be found quickly and this is where years of shopping experience comes in handy!  It is time to shop!

When shopping for Assistive Technology solutions I am particular about where I look. The sites must be credible. I need to see expert level analysis or be able to link to it. If they are comparing technologies I want to see the rubric. I appreciate having tech sorted through and rated on a consistent scale, but the scale must be pertinent to the activities to which it will be employed.

Tech Matrix - "Assistive and educational technology tools and resources to support learning for students with disabilities and their classmates."  This site allows for searching by text, content area, grade level and IDEA disability category.  It then compares up to four products across that search criteria.  It also allows for the searching of up to 302 pertinent research articles.  This site is worth knowing for this function alone.

Since you are reading this blog I bet you know two other great AT searching opportunities...

That's right, the PATINS Library and PATINS Tech Expo.

Both of these resources come with expert level support to empower your search.

Whether we play a big part in the coordinating of a student’s assistive technology or a small part, everyone involved has an important role.  Once you have considered the student, their environment, and the task that is to be performed I will be happy to help you shop your technology options!