My Experience with the iPad Montlieu Project

Comic Life/My Hobbies

Overall, I had a great experience working with my student during the iPad Montlieu Project.  My student was actively engaged in the learning process and enjoyed working with me each week.  The main focus of the experience is to help students work on their reading and writing skills.  During the semester we did numerous activities that helped the student's writing skills grow.  Keynote, Comic Life, and Collins Big Cat books were just a few applications that we used with the students.

The first project that I worked on with my iPad student was making a Comic Life presentation about her life.  I made an example to show my student which consisted of my hobbies, life goals, information about my school and what clubs I was in.  I asked my student to do the same.  She was really good at coming up with ideas for example she mentioned that she wanted to go to New York City to visit her grandmother.  The next assignment was to create a a poem about yourself using the Keynote application.  She mentioned in her poem about how she enjoyed playing with her little brother and also that she wanted to be a cheerleader when she went to middle school.

Collins Big Cat/Around the World

Later on in the semester I was in charge of creating writing activities on the iPad with my student.  I found a great application called Collins Big Cat books, which has a series of book applications that you can read and then you can create your own book after.  There are many themes of books such as traveling, gardening, recycling, etc.  I let my student pick which book that she wanted to read.  I had her read the book to me and then I let her create her own book based off the theme of that story.  She chose to read a book about traveling.  It showed different places around the world.  After reading my assignment for her was to think of places that she wanted to visit in her life.  The picture on the side is an example of a page that she did in the book.  This page was about how she wanted to go to the beach and why.  It took us two visits for her to finish the book.  She also wrote about wanting to go to New York City, Mars, and to the zoo.  She really enjoyed this project not only because she could write what she wanted but she could also pick a background, characters, and objects and customize it to her liking.

Another great application that we used was Cursive Practice.  The application allows a person to trace with you finger over letters, words, and even whole sentences.  It is great to practice cursive.  We only used that application one time but she loved practicing writing her name and other words. 

Montlieu Logo/Google Images

My time at Montlieu Elementary School was very enjoyable.  I would have only made a couple changes.  I wish there was more options for us to pick from when working with our student.  My student would get bored easily and would want to do something else.  Having some more options to choose from would have made the time with my student more enjoyable for her.  I would also like to have more of the activities free for me and my student to choose what to do.  For example my student wanted to write about other things that she liked besides her hobbies and school.  Overall, I had a wonderful experience at the school and I cannot wait to work with the students at Montlieu Elementary School again next semester.

iPad's in a Special Education Elementary Classroom

The iPad has been a fantastic tool for students to use in their classrooms everyday.  Not only are students in a general education classroom getting a chance to enhance their learning with this device but, students with disabilities are having the chance to use them as well.  There are many applications the iPad provides that can help a child with a disability enhance their learning, such as: 

DreamWalker/Google Images 2010

• Smarty Speech provides hundreds of flashcards that help with articulation and pronunciation of words.
• Speak It! allows word documents, emails, etc. to be put into a translator and to be read out in a natural sounding voice.
• iSign shows gestures and hand motions of American Sign Language modeled by a 3D character.
• Kids Math Fun~Kindergarten encourages students to practice simple addition and subtraction of simple numbers without negative answers. 

Not only are the applications on the iPad great for students with special needs, but the device itself has special settings that can be adjusted to help a student use it better.  For example the iPad has VoiceOver capability for those who are visually impaired.  Another great feature is the "white on black" view, which can also help children who are visually impaired ("Accessibility vision ," 2012) . 

 Student who are hearing impaired also have many setting on the iPad.  Closed captioning, headphone jacks, and visual alerts are just a few of the settings that can be altered to enhance a students' ability to use the iPad ("Accessibility Hearing ," 2012).

Fox J./Google Images 2010

The major use of iPads for students with disabilities is for speech and language purposes.  A child who was unable to speak is able to use an application that uses pictures associated with words to help her communicate with others.  Proloquo2Go only costs 190 dollars has saved many of these parents of children with disabilities money.  In the past software could have cost up to 15,000 dollars to buy a device similar to that application.  The iPad has been a wonderful cost effective tool that is becoming more widely used (Valentino-Devries, 2010) . 

iPads can also motivate children with physical and motor disabilities to become more active.  For example a boy with Cerebral Palsy was having a hard time finding motivation to perform exercise.  With the iPad the child was able to move the mouse, keyboard, and his fingers.  With this ability, his motor skills have greatly improved (Fox, 2011) .

Even though having the iPad in a special education classroom has great benefits, many schools cannot afford to give every child an iPad.  If a teacher is lucky, there might be one iPad per class.  This causes teachers to become creative and find ways so that every child can use it.  There are many ways use a single iPad so that all students can make use of it:

• Lead and pass around the iPad.
• Have rotations and centers around room.



Apple/Google Images 2012

• Give students a certain time during the week to use iPad individually.

Even if a class has only one iPad it can still be a vital tool that every student can use.

For special education in an elementary school classroom, the iPad has been a necessary tool to keep a childs' interest and motivate them to learn.  With all of the wonderful applications available, there are many programs to help with any subject or grade that a student maybe struggling with.  Even children with disabilities such as speech and language, hearing, and physical skills, have many programs to enhance their way of life and help them to communicate easier.  The iPad is a wonderful tool that should be incorporated into every classroom.    

References:

*Accessibility hearing . (2012, September 4). Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/accessibility/ipad/hearing.html

*Accessibility vision . (2012, September 4). Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/accessibility/ipad/vision.html
*Apple. (Photographer). (2012). Google image. [Print Photo]. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?q=ipad&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1255&bih=709&tbm=isch&tbnid=xJa-RwHyGEFiYM:&imgrefurl=http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad&imgurl=http://store.storeimages.cdn-apple.com/2844/as-images.apple.com/is/image/AppleInc/ipad2012-step0-ipad-gallery-02-normal%3Fwid%3D520%26hei%3D410%26fmt%3Dpng-alpha%26qlt%3D95&w=520&h=410&ei=qJFHUMSDK-r20gHC5YD4CA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=322&sig=101468402239327129267&page=1&tbnh=120&tbnw=151&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0,i:156&tx=91&ty=60
*CBS News. (Photographer). (2012). Apps help autistic children communicate. [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=communicate with autistic child with ipad&oq=communicate with autistic child with ipad&gs_l=youtube.3..15215.26789.0.26900.43.34.1.8.9.0.142.2364.29j3.32.0..0.0..1ac.3Ga0IQilKx8*DreamWalker. (Photographer). (2010). Google image. [Print Photo]. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyavThrmi6A1r1OnfZYdgAl0OJ4GSl7zFWT4XDDsrncpxI4Alsk-57sxNBh85aVl_bhQOkf3U4x-J4pgUAJM23rE6_abPvIuPQX2mEPbBuryS_jBGgUUu1NQg6CWEiTbqRrvbmWC8tH1Q/s1600/aaron-ipad-for-kids.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dreamwalkersworld.com/2010/09/apple-ipad-new-tool-for-children-with.html&h=903&w=1024&sz=291&tbnid=aEarp-drk4y2BM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=110&prev=/search?q=kids+using+ipad&tbm=isch&tbo=u&zoom=1&q=kids using ipad&usg=__7ESUVzDbyGvIYKk1mZhY3NpHxtM=&sa=X&ei=VpFHUIXCNMH50gGjwYGICA&ved=0CC8Q9QEwAQ&dur=301
*Fox, Z. (2011, July 25). 4 ways the ipad is changing the lives of children with disabilities . Mashable Tech. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/07/25/ipads-disabilities/
*Valentino-Devries, J. (2010, October 20). Using ipad to connect. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575547971877769154.html