Week 2 - Webinar: Autism, iPads and Accessibility

The webinar that I watched, Autism, iPads and Accessibility, was an archived webinar given by Toni Plourde. Toni Plourde is an educational assistant, originally from Texas who now works in the Livingstone Range School Division in Alberta, Canada. The reason she gave this webinar was to inform people on how to enhance learning through the use of iPads. The main focus of this webinar was the integration of iPads with children with Autism. The presenter talked about multiple different apps that someone who is working with a child with Autism might use. She went through and showed how she used each app and what she used them for specifically. She really focused the webinar on talking about one student, Chase, and how she used these apps to help him succeed in school. Students with Autism tend to be visual learners so an iPad is a really great tool to use to help these children succeed at school. The presenter also mentioned how iPads are a great calming positive activity. For children with Autism their brain is firing a million different ways and it can be easy to become overwhelmed at school on a daily basis. An iPad can be used to calm them down and bring them back before they have an outburst.

As Chase's teacher, Toni had developed different goals for him and she used the iPad to help him meet these goals. Two goals she discussed in the webinar were communication and toilet training. To achieve these goals she used apps such as Windows Movie Maker and other apps to create personal picture stories. Children with Autism learn best with concrete information so she used pictures of Chase doing each activity she wanted him to do and showed him pictures step by step in order to get him to complete a specific task. For example: to get Chase to use the bathroom she had pictures of the bathroom door at his school, a stall, him washing his hands, etc. She also used the same method for communication and getting him to interact with his peers. She would take a picture of him playing with a specific friend that he would normally play with and an audio bubble saying "do you want to play with me?" She found that this really helped him.

I thought this webinar really resonated with a specific student I have at work. I know that he would do so well with an iPad but unfortunately I work at a school which gets a grant for limiting screen time and I think an iPad is just not a luxury we can afford. Fortunately this student in my class is three and heading off to a specialized preschool in the fall where I may ask if they can try to get an iPad for him. I've seen the work this child has accomplished with a simple app on his mom's phone. He learned all his letters and can recognize them when given the opportunity. If I could use an iPad at school with him to create visual story boards like the presenter used with Chase I really believe he could be more successful at schools and his outbursts would minimize.

If I had the appropriate technology I would love to use these sort of applications (visual story boards) for children on the autism spectrum. I had a student in my class who I thought was on the autism spectrum. He had a very hard time during transitions so we made him picture cards and they helped a lot during transitions but unfortunately his parents lost them. If I had an iPad in my classroom I would create a visual story board for this child for transitions and other activities I could see he had difficulty with. I could then send it, potentially, to the parents personal iPads or even iPhones. This way the parents would not be able to lose it and the child could have a consistent routine with the picture cards at school as well as his home.

Through this webinar I learned some of the benefits of using an iPad in the classroom, especially for students with autism. Originally I thought that iPads could be used just for apps that teach children things or keep them occupied but the presenter showed the Windows Movie Maker app and explained how she used it to create personal picture stories for one of her students to get him toilet trained and to interact with other children. This would be great in my classroom because of those difficult transition times when children like to know what is happening. You could create the movie and show the child what is coming next because for children with autism it is easier to see concrete information rather than hear words and try to create a scenario in their minds. I would love to be able to use this information in my classroom if I had the technology but unfortunately I do not. If I ever did have this technology in the future the apps that the presenter showed us would definitely be some of the first ones I would try.

I think webinars can be a great tool to help us learn new things. This webinar was free and only an hour long and I feel I really learned a lot of using apps and iPads with children with autism. I have done other webinars for professional development hours for work as well and I think they are great resources for that also. As a teacher I must maintain 18 hours of professional development throughout the year and sometimes those can be hard to come by or expensive. Webinars tend to be free and the previously recorded ones can be done on your own time which I think if very helpful.

This webinar met some of the course outcomes for this class. I feel the outcomes it met are the following;
3. Demonstrate an understanding of safe, ethical, legal and moral practices related to digital information and technology

 This webinar met this outcome because it taught me a new way to help my students using safe and legal practices that are already in place in some schools.

5.Demonstrate an understanding of the use of assistive and adaptive technologies and other digital resources to personalize and differentiate learning activities for every student

This webinar definitely met this outcome because the whole basis of this webinar was discussing the adaptation of technology into classrooms, specifically with children with autism in order to help them succeed. The iPads were used specifically to differentiate activities so each child could succeed. 

6. Evaluate and reflect on emerging tools and trends by reviewing current research and professional literature


Through my reflection within this blog post I have met this outcome because I am reviewing current research and trends.