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S2: Aha Moment - 'LetMeTalk' App as a simple AAC tool  (Najib)

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S2: Aha Moment - 'LetMeTalk' App as a simple AAC tool  (Najib)

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One of my key takeaways from session 2 was the content of the video on the uses and importance of using AAC devices in supporting students with expressive communication difficulties. It has really opened up my pedagogical perspective and awareness of the crucial piece that has been missing in my intervention all along for a ‘non-verbal’ Pri-1 student with ASD; that is, focusing on developing his expressive- communication skills. Therefore, moving forward, I intend to infuse expressive-communication as one of my target intervention areas with the student, which will be tied in with the skills he has learnt pertaining to basic classroom on-task behaviours and transition. In doing so, I intend to start off by using this simple free AAC app ‘LetMeTalk’ that I recently came across. This app is meant for Android users. I intend to use the app to firstly (i) familiarize him with its different features that he can use in expressing his basic needs/wants (short-term goal) before (ii) using it to also work on his basic sentence-construction skills (longer-term goal).

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Using GoogleForm for my Learning Bag (exit ticket) after my withdrawal sessions (Aisyah)

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Using GoogleForm for my Learning Bag (exit ticket) after my withdrawal sessions (Aisyah)

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Personally, i am someone that prefers tangible items compared to having it online. In all my years of having withdrawal session with my students, I would have them to park their learning in an actual bag (it will be filled with a summary of their learning as well as worksheets). When I tried moving towards having this version on soft copy; ie via Google Form, I find that it is much more organized. For starters, they would not lose worksheets (which is sometimes a frequent occurrence with students with SEN!).

Moving forward with another practicality of this medium is that; it is also a good one-sheet tracking where we can monitor what they learn. When i view their collated learning on excel sheet, it helps that I can filter down to my liking (example i filter down 'literacy sessions' or i can filter down the name fo the students), and I can get a good overview. The information presented is also neater. Students also tend to answer more with the use of technology (typing VS writing), and this helps be a good AT for them.

In Summary, taking into consideration the needs of our SEN students (lack of organizational skills, writing skills), I feel the learning bag is good AT for them compared to my older methods of writing their exit ticket on actual paper.

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I have always been the school photographer and videographer but I had never edited any videos until the pandemic started. Learning how to make videos will really be a useful tool for us in this era.

Filmora is very intuitive and allows creative videos to be created without too steep of a learning curve. With Filmora, I was able to create videos for the school as well as videos for the students.

I am also learning the little facets of creating an engaging video for students such as how quick a transition should be, how long a frame should be, music, sound and effects etc.

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Class Activity with the use of Nearpod VS Mini-Whiteboard (Jerene)

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Class Activity with the use of Nearpod VS Mini-Whiteboard (Jerene)

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I was introduced to this app years ago when I went for school visits and observed one of the lessons conducted by a teacher who used it. This app changed my lesson!

Though the students enjoyed using the mini-whiteboards to show their responses during the lessons, they enjoyed using Nearpod just the same.

What made the teaching and learning experiences different were:-
+ Excitement, confidence!
When I pick random work (students' responses) and get them to share how they derived to the responses they gave.
+ Engagement, Independence!
It was observed in a few students who usually required one-to-one guidance or prompts to give their responses. More motivation since the use of ICT is fun to them?
+ Everything for the lesson in one place
With a single resource prepared, I could conduct my lesson, check for understanding and include a game segment as the final assessment.
+ Evidence of learning process
Unlike a lesson conducted with students writing down their responses on the mini-whiteboards and then erasing them to prepare for the next practice, I get to view and/or download the responses the students gave.

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I have used iBooks Author to create social stories in the form of e-books for my students to read on their personal iPads.

To do this, I made use of software called “iBooks Author” but sadly this software has been discontinued by Apple. If you have downloaded it previously you would still be able to re-download on your Apple computers. This software allows individuals to create e-books that is rich in content. You can customise widgets to make learning even more immersive and interactive when your students are reading their own social stories.

Good news though for those who do not have iBooks Author for you can still create e-books using Pages but sadly widgets can no longer be done on this platform. That being said, I personally find it rather useful especially for some students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and you might wish to take a look too if you have an Apple device and is keen to find out more.

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It was interesting taking a deeper look at the concept of an e-portfolio. While I have come across the term, I have never had a chance to explore one or look at how it can be beneficial.

In one of the readings, the e-portfolio was very aptly described as a vessel for demonstrating student strengths and weaknesses as well as documenting progress.

The session has got me thinking that starting an e-portfolio could be a great avenue for the sharing of resources amongst colleagues and other stakeholders. Looking forward to maximizing the benefits of having an e-portfolio!

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When I was introduced to the concept of having an e-portfolio, it reminded me of the days when I used to have an online journal, aka a blog, on one of the platforms.

In my opinion, it is an interactive platform with a purposeful collection convenient for everyone's viewing and/or access - a one-stop place for others to view, read, or comment on the posted content.

It is pretty enticing to know that you can use this platform to share the students' signs of progress and development through the intervention sessions they have with us. At the same time, allowing us to provide immediate feedback to the key stakeholders (parents, student's therapist/psychologist, school personnel, etc.) We can also get the students to document their learning processes, indirectly motivating and encouraging them to spur on and be reflective learners.

I am looking forward to having fun exploring this platform further and honing my ICT skills simultaneously!

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Class Dojo - Reward System to encourage positive behavior (Jen)

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Class Dojo - Reward System to encourage positive behavior (Jen)

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A few years back, I used concrete items e.g. Kuti Kuti to reward students as a token economy system; giving Kuti Kuti when students participate, achieved their goal for their tests, submit forms on time etc, and remove them when they show inappropriate behavior. At the end of the term, they will be able to exchange their Kuti Kuti for certain rewards, based on the number of Kuti Kuti they have, such as extra rest time/ stationery etc. However, I realised it can be hard to manage their behaviour when we are out of the classroom (PE lessons, learning journeys, school celebrations in the hall). I switched to Class Dojo when I felt they were ready to and got them involved in suggesting the criteria to receive/ deduct points. Class Dojo also has several functions like random picker for forming groups. I could also manage the settings if I know it may be difficult for certain students to work together. It also provides individual QR codes for students to check their points when they are not in school. Since I am able to access it through the app, I am able to access it anywhere, as long as I have my phone with me, and that has helped me to manage behaviours and set expectations for students when we are not in the classroom for lessons.

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I have been using TimePage. Actions App since the beginning of the year, and it has helped me in syncing my schedule, tasks to do, appointments, reminders and note-taking as well. It's like a digital planner that allows me to have an overview of my work and even personal errands. The choice of colours allows me to personalise the different items - making it more fun! SO far it has really helped to make me more organised and itemising things in priority.
More importantly, there are sub headers that allows me take notes on my students' progress, regardless of where I am throughout the school. It's convenient as I can consolidate easily and send via email - for reporting purposes.

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What intrigued me the most from last week's lesson was the e-portfolio. I felt that it was something new and fresh and I agree with Dr Liz that this does not only have to be for assignment but to build on what we already have and continue them even after the assignment. Thank you for this idea as it was my goal this year to think of creative ways to share resources with fellow AEDs (LBS), teachers and parents. I had gone back to school and shared this learning to some of my critical friends and also my Principal. I told them how this can be a repository for my sharing/resources that I would like to share with others. Although I have not started on exploring it online but I wrote some notes on paper by writing what content should I put in.

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I made use of the wordwall site to create fun games to work with my students with SDR during HBL last year. Given the reading difficulties and the short attention span of some of my students in the programme, I knew that it was important to engage them in a fun manner, wherever possible.

I was able to embed the created games into SLS lesson packages. I structured the lesson package such that they will go through the expected reading and spelling activities as dictated by the SDR curriculum, but then I also interspersed it with some games where they have to revise words read for the week in order to answer the questions correctly. It is also my hope that the games are engaging enough that they may want to play it more than once, so they get more revisions of the words and sounds they learn for the week

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Classroomscreen is a pretty helpful teaching tool for me in classroom. This allows me to use multiple features such as stopwatch, randomizing name (when I have to test for my students understanding), flashing out agenda for the day and also polling.

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Introduction of the e-portfolio during this week lesson has bring about ideas on how we can make use of it in our work as an AED LBS.

We can make use of the e-portfolio to document our learning progress, to capture our reflections along the way and record any outcomes that we may have accomplished through the learning.

We can also teach our students to make use of e-portfolio to document their learning and achievements.  Many of our students may not experience success in their academic learning in school.  By guiding them to record down each little success that they experience in their learning can help to motivate them to preserve when the going gets tough.

E-portfolio can also be an useful tool for us to keep track of how our students progress in school.  We can record the challenges of the student and interventions that we have carried out.  The skills that the student has acquired. The support that we have put in place. When the student graduate, the e-portfolio can be shared with the Tertiary Institution, with the consent of the student, as part of the Transition Support.

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I used Padlet to help one of my students understand word class. She has ASD and struggles with language/literacy. When her EL teacher taught the class about word class/parts of speech, she could not make any sense of it all. Yet she needed to use the knowledge for editing and cloze passages (Normal Technical). Padlet allowed me to arrange the individual parts like nouns, verbs etc into columns, with appropriate examples below and to add/teach a new part to her at each session. I could also use her favourite colour red as background. It also allowed her to type in examples and sentences. She could also return to refer to the resource whenever she forgot.

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I was so inspired to do my CLASS work after last Monday tech session. Although I have Canva on my desktop for the past 1.5 years, I would always use PowerPoint to do my slides. Having that continuous momentum from tech class, I decided to explore Canva and did my task with it and it didn't disappoint me!

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E.g. of work uploaded in the 'Notes' Section (Pic Taken from Website)

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By the end of Session 1, one key takeaway for me was the discovery of using Student E-portfolios as an effective means to organize and showcase student’s selected work and learning activities completed over time on top of facilitating both educators and the students to assess their learning progress made in the different areas.

As I embarked on the first phase of exploring the different tools that I can use for my own students with Special Needs in the future, I came across Evernote. Though I have yet to put my hands to it, I am highly impressed with one of its brilliant features I read on; that is, it enables a variety of means for students to showcase their work by creating notes. Students are at liberty to either type their responses (by adding text), upload a photo (if they wish to use the raw product of their own written work, drawing, reflections, class-assessments, etc.) and they can even upload an audio recording! This is especially ideal for monitoring reading progress as well as for students who prefer to verbally express their responses or self-reflections as opposed to penning them down on paper. I also find that in availing this flexibility, it is in alignment with one of the UDL principles; that is, providing multiple means of action and expression.

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This concept of the e-portfolio was being introduced to me during the start of the course. What I found remarkable and useful of this tool was being able to showcase and display all of your learning resources which will include your, learning goals/objectives and outcomes, progress monitoring, updates, feedback etc. into one platform and categories them accordingly to their topic and where is will be so clearly visible and convenient for one to assess and refer to. You get to be original and as creative in the process.  Usually for me, I tend to keep my resources separately and sometimes it can be a hassle locating them, thus with the e-portfolio, I hope to become a better reflective practitioner and a more IT-savvy person by creating my first very own e-portfolio.

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I’ve had the opportunity to try out Padlet during a withdrawal session this week. Usually, at the beginning of sessions my students and I would play a card or board game as a check-in activity. Strangely, this time my student wasn’t in the mood for any of the usual games that we would play. Thankfully, I’d prepared a Padlet activity which I was planning to use as a tool for repeated-teaching. As soon as I directed her attention to the Padlet screen (which was in her favourite colour pink), her eyes lit-up and she was fully engaged and completed the activity joyfully. This P3 student has severe literacy deficit, thus Padlet is an appropriate tool as it allows for a lot of free-play using images. The withdrawal session objective was meant to review previously taught on-task behaviour rules. On the Padlet wall, 2 column-titles were displayed – ‘Good behaviour’ and ‘Not So Good Behaviour’. Beside the column titles, pictures of desirable and undesirable behaviours were displayed. The student’s task was to click, drag and drop the relevant pictures under the respective column-titles. This is my first experience using Padlet infused lesson plan and I look forward to trying out more ed-tech tools.

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One of the many things that I found interesting is the e-portfolio. I never really heard of it and how it is being used. Being introduced to it and having some sense of what it entails, I thought it’s a different approach to creating content, sharing of resources and showcasing your skills and experiences. The nature of the e-portfolio, it encourages you to take on the ownership of the content that you put up. Over time, you will be able to see how much you have progress. I’m looking forward to creating my own e-portfolio, it will help me to document my learning, resources and definitely my growth. Hopefully it can also be platform for others to learn from as well and also for me to reflect on.

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During HBL, I assigned some asynchronous lessons to students via SLS and noticed that one of the students never attempted any task assigned despite my repeated reminders. When I finally had a chance to "interrogate" the student face-to-face, I found out that it was because his SLS account was blocked after too many failed login attempts. The student had forgotten his password, and I had to get TA's help to reactivate his account.

Students with poor organisational skills might easily lose their login credentials, thus facing additional barriers to online learning platforms. I am drawn to Nearpod because lessons are easily accessible with a code. As I'm only in school 3 days a week, I'm considering creating online lessons for students whom I can't see as often as before. Blended learning would allow for greater flexibility in timetable planning and might become the new normal for withdrawal lessons with students who are adept at interacting with tech devices.

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Gamified "Sentence Sequencing", Motivate recurring practices! (Daniel)

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Gamified "Sentence Sequencing", Motivate recurring practices! (Daniel)

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"Sequencing" is a important skill that students need to develop for their comprehension of texts read. Using Microsoft PowerPoint the "sentence sequencing" activity has been gamified into an interactive activities to motivate recurring practices. Students can either do it individually and practise to achieve their best time in arranging the sentences after reading the texts; or in pairs and compete against one another. The game also guides in the development of  categorisation skills.

One important lesson learned is the "Game (motivation) expires when novelties wear off"!

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I have never heard of an E-Portfolio until the lecture last week, I find it a very interesting and refreshing way of learning with more focus on the journey than the finishing point. It is also a helpful archive to document how I got to a certain point, it helps remind me to be more mindful and purposeful in the things I do.

As I explored Google Suites, I also get to try my hands on building a website which is something I have never attempted. I feel that the exposure to E-Portfolio will hone my technical skills as well as my thought process.

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Using Nearpod as a tool for assessment of understanding (Adelene)

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Using Nearpod as a tool for assessment of understanding (Adelene)

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Nearpod is an interactive tool that can be used as a form of assessment. A similar tool will be kahoot in which the host can key in the questions and users will choose the answers within the given timeframe. There is no sign-in required and the users will only need to key in the code for the session. The only difference is that the users can choose a character and throughout the game, you can see your character move up and down according to the accuracy of the answers. The gamification interface makes it engaging for learners. The downside is that it tends to be more laggy as compared to Kahoot.

While facilitating the session for a PD sharing for fellow educators, they enjoy using the platform as they find it refreshing and interactive.

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Print Screen (PrtScn) key is now a Dinosaur Tool (Qiheng)

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Print Screen (PrtScn) key is now a Dinosaur Tool (Qiheng)

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The "Screen snip" tool has been introduced into Windows for some time, always available when you click the notifications button on the bottom right of the screen. It was introduced as a more efficient way of doing screenshots on Windows. Yet for stubborn reasons I have been ignoring it, preferring the old tried-and-tested and familiar 5-step way of doing screenshots: Print Screen -> Paste -> click Crop tool -> Adjust all 4 sides -> Crop.

However, for the past week, I was frustrated with the tediousness of using it when I had to use it multiple times for my work. Hence, I decided to try out the "Screen snip" tool: Screen snip -> Adjust and Crop at one go -> Paste 😎.

From a 5-step process, it is now a 3-step process. This learning process was also a realisation of how resistant one can be to embracing new ways of doing things even when they are for one's own good. The tools are on one side of the river and the users who need them are on the other side of the river. The boat that brings them across is communication, persuasion, demonstration, and guidance.

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My fellow colleague who was a Learning Support Coordinator, introduced me Classkick as a useful online resource to be used during Home-based Learning (HBL)) as we have similar profile of student.

What is great about Classkick is the different options available for the student to express his/her answer to the assignment given. The different options are record audio, pen mode to write directly use the mouse, highlighter mode to highlight information, insert images and also the basic insert text which requires keying in of answer using a keyboard. The student can choose the way that he/she is most comfortable with to answer the questions on Classkick and still meet the objective of the activity posted.

The teacher can also insert some accommodations such as having audio recording of the assignment instructions for struggling readers, more visuals to support learning of concepts and additional audio clips of possible guided questions for students to ponder about.

As the assignment is given online, the student have the time flexibility to complete it and after which, the teacher can use the pen mode to mark the assignment.

I see great potential of Classkick beyond just using for HBL. I believe it can be use in the main class and also during withdrawal lesson as it allows the student a choice in answer presentation and also increase accessibility of the questions as compared to the pen and paper practice. This would encourage independence in students in completing their work.

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Using Padlet as a discussion board with my students during HBL (Jumiati)

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Using Padlet as a discussion board with my students during HBL (Jumiati)

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While preparing lessons for HBL, I was looking through various mediums that can help me get participation from the students. Padlet came to mind and I decided to explore how it can help me and the students learn in a better way.

The last time I used Padlet was a few years back, and that was only when one of the staff introduced Padlet to the department.

It's a simple platform that does not require students to log-in. I only needed them to type in their names in their comments - for tracking purposes.

The students really like this - and it's quite useful for those who have good literacy skills. It's also a good way to track their work and as reference material when they need to check on their work.

THe downside of it is that you can only create 3 padlets with the free account.

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Using Google Sites for E-portfolio/Resource Bank (Amirah) 

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Using Google Sites for E-portfolio/Resource Bank (Amirah) 

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After being introduced to Google Sites in the first session of this module, I went to explore on my own and found that it would be a very good platform to showcase resources I found useful for both my students, parents and fellow colleagues. I could also segregate the different categories of resources into different pages. This platform is really easy to use and quite fun to explore!

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This is our own homegrown communication platform developed by MOE for communication between school and parents. Most of us are familiar with it as it is commonly used for making school-wide / level-wide announcements or for Class teachers to communicate with parents of students in their class.

It can actually be used in a more versatile way. I tried it out to make an announcement to parents of selected SEN pupils about a consent form regarding their transition to secondary school. I am able to select and create a group for the targeted students so that the announcement can go out to the parents of this specific group of students. The form teachers (in a pre-created group) can also be selected as Staff Involved (similar to a cc list in email) so that they can receive the same announcement and be kept in the loop for follow up actions.

The most value-added feature is the report. The system tracks the status of whether the parents have read the announcement on a real-time basis. It generates a summary of the number of 'read' vs 'unread' and detailed status for each student. This makes monitoring much easier at the school's end and we can follow up with the parents in a timely manner, especially for sensitive and important information.

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Parents Gateway is a one-stop portal that strengthens school-home partnership to support our children in their education journey.

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I was introduced to the concept of e-portfolio for session 1. I realised that it was a form of blog. What I find interesting about this is that it is personalised and it helps to document the tools, strategies, reflections and summaries. The possibilities are infinite and not exhaustive. By creating my e-portfolio, it helps to hone my skills in creating a website. It is interactive as viewers can comment and ask questions pertaining to what is being posted.

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Using the Poll Function in Zoom to play 2 Truths 1 Lie (Cheryl)

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Using the Poll Function in Zoom to play 2 Truths 1 Lie (Cheryl)

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As a ice-breaker activity during my first Collaborative Learning and Sharing Session for AED (LBS) as a facilitator, I tried out the Zoom Poll Function to play "2 Truths 1 Lie". Each AED (LBS) typed in their statements which I copied and paste immediately into the Poll. The function allowed us to vote and see each other's response immediately. We had fun and most importantly, we explored and learnt together. We have all participated in polls as participants but never as a host. We shared with one another how what the voters see, what the host sees and discussed how we could apply this to our sessions with our students.