Hello AOTA Student Conclave!

I hope you enjoyed the presentation and were able to learn a few things! The link for the powerpoint presentation is here. I will post the apps that you recommended next week -- so please check back.

The Powerpoint has over 50 links to Apps, Equipment, and other resources that I hope will be useful to you.

I hope you had a great time at the Conclave and enjoyed your time in Columbus.

If you have questions about using the iPad, please leave questions in the comment section and I will do my best to answer them.

Connectedchild.net

This is a great website that shows how technology can help a child with a disability learn and also help connect her caregivers, family members, teachers, and therapists to coordinate methods of instruction. connectedchild.net is a great vision for the possibility of technology to enhance and facilitate learning. Check out the four minute video they posted. Obviously there are lots of privacy and access issues to overcome, but London and her family have done it.

Her school district uses the BYLD acronym (Bring your learning device), which is unfortunate as I prefer BYOD -- Bring your own device. Intuitively and in our practice it makes sense to individualize the device to the child, but we need to figure out how we can get devices into the hands of kids who don't come from families who can provide the device for them.

Apps you recommended

Thanks for your participation Ohio OT's and PT's. Here is a link to the apps you recommend. If you have any questions for me, please post them here.

Hello Ohio School Based OTs and PTs

We are excited to work with you at the Ohio OT-PT School Based Institute. This year we will be joined by three exceptional Occupational Therapists who are completing their doctoral degrees at The Ohio State University. If you see this in advance, try to download some of the apps we mention so that we can have even more hands on learning. Here is the link to today's presentation and the apps that we talked about.

Thanks AOTA

Thank you for your great attention on Thursday. The turnout was great -- I'm sorry if you did not get bubbles! I hope you were able to learn something useful! What a great conference.

The PowerPoint that is on this site is more updated than the one on AOTA's webpage. The rubric is included in this PPT.

I am going to put the comments and App recommendations and comments here -- if you have additional comments, please feel free to post those in the comment section.

Apps the audience recommended 

Dolch Words  FREE. Vocabulary/Reading.

Pocket Phonics  $2.99 First Words

Mee Genius FREE. Childrens Books 

Dexteria $4.99 Fine Motor Practice

Magic Piano FREE. A magic piano

Story Kit FREE Create an electronic storybook

Sosh $39.99 Work with adolescents to improve social skills

Letterquiz $1.99 Help kids learn their letters

Doodledots FREE Creates the dots so you don't have to! 

Goingplaces Free

Toontastic FREE. Create your own cartoon

Iwritewords Handwriting Game

Injini $29.99 Child Development (fine motor, sequencing, and more)

I couldn't find some of the apps listed on the yellow sheets. Please add additional ones in the comment section.

Websites:

Apppaboo.com (created by an audience member!) to help find relevant apps

Audience Feedback and Questions:

  Lock the apps you don’t want students to use (YouTube, movies, music)

Use earbuds and a microphone to help with Dragon in the iPad (Apple sells a headset that has the built-in microphone).

One audience member pointed out that Dragon recommends a 6^th grade level spelling and their personal experience is that Dragon is much more effective on the desktop version than the free iPad Version.

As we pointed out, this has not been our experience with everyone we have worked with and for some, but not all, Dragon has worked better on the iPad.
Does the summer camp look at home, school, or community or just a week in isolation on campus?

We use the UKAT (University of Kentucky Assistive Technology Assessment) for all of our individuals. This comprehensive assessment seeks feedback from the school, work, and family members who are involved in the individual’s life.

For some students, they are able to learn to use the technology and have enough natural supports that we don’t need to provide ongoing support. For others, the individuals need ongoing support from us – sometimes we provide training to the job coach, teacher, or family member who supports them in addition to the individual.  

Your point is excellent – we can’t just see any individuals we work with without looking at all contexts of their life. We take students from all over Ohio so we don’t have the resources to visit all of them in advance – we bring them to us to conduct the initial evaluations and do our best to give them experiences to use their technology while they are with us in environments similar to their home, school, and work environments. For example, they have classes they attend on various topics and need to use their note-taking app, or if they are going to a restaurant at night they need to use their technology.

Hello AOTA!

This is the presentation link to the PowerPoint from the AOTA Conference on Thursday April 26, 2012. I hope you learned something today that will help you provide high-quality services to the individuals you serve.

I will have the additional information you contributed from the yellow sheets at conference up on this site some time before the weekend is up! 

I will see you in San Diego in 2013, but in the meantime, feel free to post comments on this site so we can continue the learning together! I have some data I hope to present next year at AOTA that shows our students and their school-based level one fieldwork educators putting the rubric into action. I will check this site regularly for the next few weeks or so, but if there is something pressing, contact me at my Ohio State email address.

My next scheduled presentation is at the Ohio OT-PT School-Based Institute this summer in Columbus, Ohio. 

If I can be of additional service to you, please contact me at The Ohio State University Division of Occupational Therapy. My email is available on Ohio State's website under faculty -- or it's also on the link to the presentation! 

My best advice to help you learn about technology for those of us non-digital natives (anyone over the age of 25) is to take a fieldwork student. They speak the 'digital' language as natives and teach me all sorts of new things every day!

Have a great time at conference.