Day 11 Part B: Boardmaker Work Continues

Over the weekend, the switch accessible book about Grand Pre was completed for Sarah. As detailed in Assignment Five distributed by Barb,

"Sara is a grade 7 student who accesses the computer through indirect selection to an onscreen keyboard through single switch scanning with her elbow as control site and appropriate mounting system (you will learn these terms Thursday;). She is non verbal but is able to communicate through her onscreen AAC scanning program Boardmaker Plus. She enjoys participating in all classes with her peers. Sara is on an IPP for all subjects. She is a dependent wheelchair user. She is consistent and accurate when using her switch at the appropriate rates and settings. Sara presents with emergent literacy skills, global delays and good receptive language."

Bev and I spent significant time planning the content of the Grand Pre book, so that it matched with the Social Studies content being covered by the class in the Settler unit. The ten-page book was prepared in Boardmaker Plus, with one communication board being linked to the next in the sequence. The board was programmed to auto scan for its single switch access method by using the spacebar key.

Individual cells were planned with care, either inserting symbols using the symbol finder feature, or by inserting a jpeg image with accompanying text. Then cells on one board had to be logically linked to subsequent cells, and in consideration of consistency and ease of use. Speech was also added to augment text with the goal of Sara moving forward in her IPP communications goal of reading with more independence, and so growing her immergent reader skills, too. The navigation buttons at the bottom of each screen had to planned with significant care so that buttons were programmed appropriately for each different page in the book. There were SO many details to think of, programme, check, recheck!

The detailed planning needed to functionalize the communication boards was a wonderful exercise in task analysis, and content planning. We were careful to select images and text that matched the true story of Longfellow's Evangeline poem (summary here, or full poem here). We also carefully selected images to match the Grand Pre national historic site, located closeby Wolfville, since a field trip to the site would be planned with the full class.

By late morning, we advanced to the second task of beginning to develop a dynamic communications board for Sarah. Again, the board is programmed to auto scan for its access method since Sarah has only her elbow as a control site; the switch is to be the space bar to select the appropriate button. One of the four switch buttons on her Home Board (at left) will bring her into the school board, then Social Studies, then to the option of asking her assistant to load the Grand Pre book for independent reading.

Again, the detailed planning was a task onto itself, but I kept reminding myself that it will be important to have these Techie Teacher skills when I return to the classroom so that I can help students like Sara communicate and learn, just like everyone wants to communicate and learn. It's a right, and I now share in the responsibility because I now share the seeds of the skill set. I have a LONG way to go in my learning, but the possibilities and the path are in front of me.