WAP #7 Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology and Tools for ADHD

What is ADHD?

       Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common mental disorders affecting children. ADHD also affects many adults. Symptoms of ADHD include inattention (not being able to keep focus), hyperactivity (excess movement that is not fitting to the setting) and impulsivity (hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought).

----American Psychiatric Association

     Students have ADHD could be very hard to pay attention. Some children describe themselves have two parts in their bodies, one part of them really wants to focus, but another part really wants to play. It could be very frustrating when the children can't focus. This issue could influence children's academic achievement, the relationship between them and parents/teachers, also the friendship of the children. However, the good news is, although the children have attention issues always want to play, they are still willing to pay attention and have a higher achievement. All they need is a lot of reminders, encourage and good strategies. 

The challenge for ADHD in a foreign language class.

      Students will have language anxiety when they are exploring to a foreign language. This is very common. As long as the anxiety is in an appropriate level, the students will be able to learn well. However, the students have ADHD will have extra anxiety and might behavior extra actively. I have seen a student with ADHD in bilingual pre-K classroom, his Chinese is not very good. The most terrible time of the day will be the formal instruction time, when the teacher speaks only Chinese. The student asks for bathroom run a lot of times, play with the bookshelf, kick his classmates... It is terrible. 

Helpful Technology----WatchMinder, a vibrating wristwatch.

    I find out a vibrating wristwatch, called WatchMinder, which could help students with ADHD pay attention. The watch is programable. Parents or teachers could set up some fixed time or time interval reminder to the students. The watch will vibrate and show the reminder to the students, such like pay attention. Because the watch vibrates instead of makes sounds, it won't distract other students.

        However, the watch is expensive. It costs $79. Not every family could accept the price. Besides, the watch only vibrates at a program time. The teacher can't send a reminder when she/he wants to.

My Idea----Restaurant Pagers.

      Therefore, another idea shows up in my brain, although it might be a little bit funny... The restaurant pagers could the job of sending a vibrating message anytime. Then I found something like this.

Restaurant/Catering Waiter Calling Pager System Watch Receiver+4 Call Button Set

       This set is designed for waiters. One waiter wears one watch. The watch could revives four call buttons signal from four tables. I am thinking to let the student with ADHD to wear the watch, and place the four call buttons to different classrooms. For example, one for the lead teacher's classroom, one for the music classroom, one for the art classroom, one for my Chinese classroom. The prompt modes include vibration, buzzer, and vibration and buzzer. If we only use the vibration mode, it could reach the same goal as the WatchMinder. When the teacher wants to reminder the student with ADHD to pay attention, the teacher could push the call button. The watch vibrates and the student get the reminder. In this case, the teacher don't have to stop and saying something all the time, and it save the student's face, too. This set costs $43.99 on eBay. I think the school could accept the price.

Other helpful tools and strategies for ADHD.

1. Seat place.

    Have the student with ADHD sit close to the teacher.

2. Squishy toy.

    Allow the student with ADHD to hold a squishy toy while he/she is listening. The toy release some of their energy and they could pay attention better.

3. Yoga ball.

     Allow the student with ADHD, (also could allow all the students) to sit on a Yoga ball instead of a chair. Sitting on the Yoga ball allows students to have some appropriate movement. It releases their energy and is also good for their health.

4. Noise Blocking Headphone.

     Allow all the students to use earmuffs/noise blocking headphone while they are doing their individual work.

5. Teaching Strategies.

      Plan the lesson engaged, interesting. Use a lot of strong teaching strategies to update the lessons. Try to avoid long lectures.

Troubleshooting for Audio Problem

My computer has no audio is being played.

1. Check the volume settings on the touch panel, the computer and the application or website. Any one of these being set too low can prevent the audio from being played.

2. If using the VGA connection, make sure the audio cable is connected to your computer's headphone output.

3. If using the HDMI connection:

Apple/Mac: 

Under the Apple menu (top-left corner); 

select System Preferences; 

click Sound; 

then Output;

 then select the "Crestron" device.

Windows: 

Right-click the speaker/volume icon (bottom-right corner, near the clock);

 and click Playback Devices. 

In the dialog box that appears, click the device labeled as High Definition or HDMI;

 then click the Set Default button.

Urgen Plan

If the audio is still not working, then could gather the students in front of my computer and let them watch the video or listen to my computer. 

WAP #6 Assessment

Socrative and Voicethread

        As a Chinese (foreign language) teacher, I would like to assess my students' reading, writing, listening and speaking Chinese.  A lot of good assessment apps only offer multiple-choice questions, such like Kahoot!. But I need a tool that could not only provides multiple-choice questions, but also open ended questions. 

        As a Chinese teacher (specialist), I will teach a lot of students Chinese. Therefore, I need the app could be very helpful to organize my report cards and also costumer friendly.

         After a few exploring, I find Socrative which could provide short answer questions and also beautiful and orderly report cards.

The steps of creating your own quiz:
1, Sign up. 
2. Create a quiz. 
3. Launch the quiz to your Room.
4. Students login in and join the Room.
5. Students type their names.
6. Students start their quiz.
7. Teacher see the report and download the report cards.

--------------------  Details  --------------------

1. Sign up.

       Socrative allows teachers to use the simple version for free. The simple version is enough for most of the classroom teachers. However, the simple version just offers one Room/ one quiz at a time. If I want to have more than one quiz at the same time (for example, let different graders students finish their quiz at home.) I have to buy the professional version. The price is up to $59.99 per year.

2. Create a quiz. 

       The user interface is very costumer friendly. I LOVE it. It saves a lot of time. It allowed to create multiple-choice questions, true/false question and short answers. It even allowed to use Chinese! You also could add pictures to the questions. 

      For the short answer question, you could add some optional answers below. Then Socrative will automatically score the answer from students for you. However, it doesn't allow the teachers to manual score the short answer question. Which means, only the students answer 100% match the setting answers, they get score (100%). If they have a tiny mistake in their answers, they will get a zero.  To fix this problem, I could skip the optional answers setting. Which means the short answer question has no setting answers. Socrative will not give any students any score to that question. Then I could manual grade them on their report card.

3. Launch the Quiz to you Room.

     I did spend a long time to figure out how to start a quiz.

     The procedure is: 1. Create a Quiz. 2. Back to home page and click Launch. 3. Choose Quiz and pick the Quiz that you would like to use this time. At this time, you put the Quiz that you would like to use to your Room. When the students join your Room, they will be able to attend to the Quiz automatically.

4. Students login in and join the Room.

         Students don't need a account. But they need to know the name of the Room.

 5. Students type in their names.

       When they join the room, they are required to type in their names. Teachers could decide to use their real names or nicknames.

6. Students start their Quiz.

      Now, students could start their Quiz.

7. Teacher see the report and download the report cards.

        This is my favorite part. Socrative offers very beautiful and orderly report cards. It offers whole class assessment Excel version,  teacher-friendly chart version, and students' own report cards. They are all automatically made by Socrative. Which is amazing!

-------------------- Disadvantage ---------------------

1. Limited free version.

     The free version is very simple. Good enough for a classroom teacher who have one quiz at one time. But not enough for the language teachers who might need quiz for different grade students at a time.

2. Can't manual grade the short answer question.

       For the short answer question, you could add some optional answers below. Then Socrative will automatically score the answer from students for you. However, it doesn't allow the teachers to manual score the short answer question. Which means, only the students answer 100% match the setting answers, they get score (100%). If they have a tiny mistake in their answers, they will get a zero.  

Voice Thread

       Socrative is very good for multiple-choice questions, which could assess my students' grammar, writing and listening Chinese. (If I combine with some oral materials.) But if I want to assess students' speaking Chinese, Voice Thread will be my first choice. I have introduce Voice Thread before. See my previous post 

WAP # 3--Students as Scribe. Now I will review how to do the speaking assessment by using Voice Thread.

      Teacher could start a foreign language activity or assessment with students' audio records. Activity might include to have the students read a story, record their voice day by day. Students will be able to listen to their own voice and see how they improve their oral language. Teachers could also record a model reading to the students. Students could listen to the teachers' pronunciation and practice everyday.
     I also see a Chinese teacher use this app as an assessment. Every student record their oral presentation as comments and perform their final language skill. They could also listen to their peers' presentation, too. Awesome!

Extra: Turn Training into Learning

      September 4^th, my husband and I held a couple of flowers with big excitement and sent our first daughter to the school bus stop first time in our lives. Our daughter, who is five, was also super excited for her first school day. In the meantime, the five-year-old children in China wake up with very stressful heart and start their painstaking school day, which will be following by 2-4 hours after school tutoring and 2 hours homework. The education way in China was ever very popular all over the world. We call it traditional way. There are a lot of difference between the traditional way and the new way. If I have to use one word to label the traditional way, I will say the traditional way is training, but not learning. 

        The traditional way requires a lot of memorizing and practicing. I call it training-like education. The spirit of the training-like education is to pass over the best knowledge of previous generations. It worked very well when people lived in a steady, slowly developing age, especially the Agricultural Times. However, after the Industrial Revolution and Information Revolution, our world changes much faster than ever. Our children are living in a fast-changing world. The future world requires them to manage and distinguish a great capacity for data, to think deeply and critically, to ask questions and solve problems… How could educators equip our children with these skills only with traditional lectures instruction and everlasting practicing? We have to equip our children with better ways and give them ability to keep learning. I call the better way learning-focus education.

        What’s the difference between training-like education and learning-focus education?

1.    The goals are different.

    Training-like education focuses on passing over the knowledge of previous generations. It also focuses on the passing the tests and exams. For example, the main body of the history education in China is memorizing. Students have to memorize all the details, results and influence of the historical events. But students are not allowed to discuss the events or have their own opinions. If a student has different opinions, he or she probably won’t pass the exam.

    But the goal of learning-focus education is to understand the world. For example, history education should allow students to understand how thing interact with each other, why and how something cause consequence like this. Through learning from the history, students are be able to make better decisions. 

     How could technology help the learning? The online resource explores the students to a lot of different opinions. It is good for them to hear different opinions first, balance the pros and coins, and truly understand the world and have their own opinions.

2.    The center of the education is different.

     The center of the training-like education is the educators. Students have to listen to and follow the teachers. Since the only way that the students get the knowledge is listening to the teachers, students are usually hard to have achievement beyond their teachers. 

     The center of the learning-focus education is the students. Educators know that every student has his/her own potential. Educators help the students reach their highest achievement.  

      How could technology help the learning? Frankly, it is impossible to ask one teacher to teach differentiation in a classroom have 20-50 students. But the technology could help the teacher. Teacher could split the students into different group and give them different activities. Some activities could use computers’ help. Then the teacher will be able to explore the students to different level of studying.

3.    The brains we develop are different.

    Training-like education requires a lot of memorizing. This education develops the memorizing part of our brain very well. As a result, the students who are good at memorizing usually become the successful students.

    Learning-focus education is different. It requires students to memorizing, problem solving, critical thinking and questioning. It helps develop our students into powerful thinkers. 

      How could technology help the learning? Technology could easily engage the students and prompt them to solve the problems.

4.    Time is different.

    Training-like education is fast in the beginning, but need much more time latter for the students to practice and reinforce their knowledge.

    Learning-focus education is slow in the beginning, but it’s efficient latter. Students remember what they have learned very well and the memory last longer.

    How could technology help the learning? Technology helps engage the students. 

5.    Classroom climate is different.

    Training-like education is usually boring and painstaking. 

    Learning-focus education will have much more fun.

    How could technology help the learning? Technology offers interesting games, real audience, lively instruction, newfangled ideas and global resource to the students. 

    My husband and I feel lucky to send our daughter to the school in America. We are pretty sure that her childhood is not full of painstaking homework. But as an educator also, I don’t want to be satisfied of our education in America. The world is changing, fast; we have to keep improving, fast, too.