The Spring 2007 special education contest is completed! Congratulations
to ten lucky winners. The prizes are:
5 Grand Prize Winner: One Olympus Digital Camera
($500), and $300 in Tool Factory Software!
5 Second Place Prizes: $200 in Tool Factory
Software.
Below are the grant applications of our second place winners.
Click here
to see the applications from the grand prize winners!
Register at Digital
Wish to enter 43 different grant opportunities!
Score: 4.75 out of 5.00
Ann-Bailey Lipsett, Kelley Barz Ann Colton
Annandale Terrace Elementary School, 7604 Herald Street Annandale
VA 22003
Exploration Through Digital Photography
The students in our inclusion classroom are strong, determined
little ones. Not only are they learning to cope in a school setting
with their special needs, but they are also learning to speak
English for the first time. Life as a first grade student with
autism can be difficult. You do not understand exactly what games
are being played at recess or how to interact with your friends.
Communication as a whole is very difficult for you and first grade
is heavily based in literacy concepts. On top of all that, determining
what language to speak at home and at school is a challenge. At
home you speak Vietnamese and have to remember to act respectfully
in the Vietnamese culture, while at school you speak English and
follow the American cultural norms. Your mom and your teacher
cannot communicate without a translator so you often hear conflicting
directions from the two authority figures. The home/school language
and culture transition is difficult for any child, but is especially
difficult for those with special needs.
Teaching in an inclusion classroom with students from seven different
countries, five different languages and a wide range of abilities
keeps us on our toes. It pushes us to be creative with our assignments,
looking for lessons that give students kinesthetic, verbal, visual,
and sensory integrated opportunities for learning. We frequently
get out my old digital camera to make social stories, capture
lessons, and create labels that will help our students become
personally invested in their work. Motivation, beyond anything
else, is what will make these students successful learners.
One particular reason we taught with digital cameras integrated
math and science. We had been studying plants and geometric shapes.
As part of this unit, we planted seeds and watched them grow in
the back of the room. The students were making observations about
these plants such as how fast they grew, the shape of the seeds,
leaves and stems.
Before the students even got to see the cameras, we talked about
the shapes and lines of symmetry. Then we did an exploration activity
where they went outside with digital cameras and took pictures
of these shapes and lines of symmetry in nature. Because our cameras
were limited in numbers, we had only two groups taking the digital
pictures. The third group was drawing the parts of nature they
saw on paper. They rotated groups so that every student got the
opportunity to take at least one picture with the camera. The
students found objects in nature that had geometric shapes or
lines of symmetry. It was amazing to watch their knowledge of
plants and shapes pour out as they excitedly looked for their
objects.
The next day we were able to take these pictures and project
them on the Smart Board. The students came up one by one and pointed
out the shapes we found and their lines of symmetry. This brought
ownership to the lesson because they were looking at pictures
they had taken themselves. They recognized the pictures, and were
excited to point out the different math features they found.
If awarded this grant our school will share the camera lab throughout
each grade level’s inclusion classroom. It will enable us to create
more activities like the plant-shape lesson. It will allow special
education students to create meaningful social stories to help
them understand how to perform in their day to day routines. Teachers
will be able to hand the cameras over to students to create labels
for the classroom themselves. Having pictures throughout the classroom
exposes our English language learners to new vocabulary. For example,
a banana in English is easy for us to understand but if there
is a picture with the word, the students will understand it better.
Students and teachers will be able to upload their pictures onto
our classroom Blackboard sites so that their parents can log on
at home and see their work. After creating a successful pattern-block
masterpiece a student can take a picture of his work, upload it
to Blackboard, and go home to show his mom what he did in school
that day. This not only allows the child to show off his great
work, but encourages a friendly communication between parents
and the school. Due to the language barrier we struggle to have
continuous, quality communication with our parents, particularly
about small successes. If a child is excited to show off his work
on Blackboard the parent is more likely to log on at our school’s
parent computer center and learn more about our classroom activities.
In addition to the cameras, student productivity would increase
as a result of the software your company provides such as the
ESL Bundle, Autism Bundle, and the On Track Reading Series. The
ESL Bundle would be a great addition to our school’s computer
software programs due to our students’ limited exposure to the
English language. During guided reading our students are involved
in reading centers. We could use this program as a center for
English language learners. It is another way our students could
be immersed in the English language.
The Autism Bundle would help reach our students both verbally
and socially. The computer software would allow our students time
to be creative and expose them to unfamiliar vocabulary. Our students
also have difficulty putting things in the correct sequence. The
software would facilitate the creation of stories that demonstrate
a logical sequence of thought.
The On Track Reading Series-5 CD Set program will help our early
learners build phonemic awareness, letter-sound correspondence,
and fluency. The students who have auditory processing deficits
will benefit from listening to the different sounds the letters
make.
It is often difficult to find good resources to support the needs
of students in an inclusion classroom. If we had the cameras in
our classroom, our students could take pictures of what they are
learning. The cameras will enhance resources and teaching tools
by giving our students the opportunity to take real-life photographs
that will make learning meaningful. The students will apply their
new knowledge in their everyday lives. If students can apply what
they are learning to the world around them then they will have
ownership of that knowledge.
Score: 4.63 out of 5.00
Judith Gentile
Wilcoxson, 600 Wilcoxson Avenue Stratford CT 06614
Calling All Public Attention, to promote Good Character
In my eighteen years of teaching students with special needs,
I have learned so many things and I've been impressed by my students,
in so many ways. I've learned that developing a student's written
expression skills, is beneficial on so many levels. There are
so many different genres of written expression. We need to have
high expectations for our students, and make every effort to have
students express themselves by writing in every way we can.
For this reason, I am always looking for new and exciting interactive
software, which will facilitate student writing in a meaningful
way. Students in the general education classroom, includnig all
students of various ability levels, will write an advertisement,
create a radio broadcast, or write an article for a magazine or
newspaper. This will identify and encourage their peers to demonstrate
character-building behaviors such as responsibility, respect,
caring, citizenship, trustworthy, and fairness. This is a proactive
effort to encourage and promote appropriate behaviors and facilitate
written expression at the same time. This project initially will
include all grade 3 and grade 4 classes. Each consecutive year
after this, another grade level will be added, until the entire
school is participating in this project.
This project will begin by the teachers demonstrating what a
good advertisement, radio broadcast, or magazine or newspaper
article may look like. The model will include pictures of character-building
behaviors, creative written work, and "catchy" slogans. This will
be presented as a contest. The winners that earn the most points
will earn free time on the computer utilizing the Young Writers'
Workshop software. The contest will award 10 winners. All entries
will be judged by grade 3 and grade 4 students (approx. 150 students).
Peers will rate each entry with a score of 1 to 5(1=OK, 2=good,
3=very good, 4=outstanding, 5=superior). lst place contestants
will earn 2 hours of computer time, 2nd place will earn 100 minutes,
3rd place will earn 90 minutes, 4th place will earn 80 minutes,
5th place will earn 70 minutes, 6th place will earn 60 minutes,
7th place will earn 50 minutes, 8th place will earn 40 minutes,
9th place will earn 30 minutes, and 10th place 20 minutes.
Students will utilize the awesome Olympus 5.0 megapixel digital
camera to take pictures of what character-building behavior looks
like, which includes the Tool Factory Software. Students love
to take pictures and develop them. This motivates and empowers
our students. Students will use the Young Writer's Workshop software
to develop their writing skills and create an advertisement to
promote good character. This interactive and inspirational software,
will make this school project seem like fun. The project can be
saved as web pages for easy posting on the Internet. This annual
event, will be an exciting contest that our students will look
forward to each year to come.
This Young Writers' Workshop software is especially useful for
students with dysgraphia, because many students demonstrate an
impairment in the process of writing. Using the keyboard to create
written work, eliminates the student's inconsistent letter formation
and slant, irregular letter sizes and shapes of written letters,
misuse of lines and margins, illegibility, and cramped fingers
on the writing tool. In turn, this supports student's weak motor
memory and promotes writing success. The Young Writer's Workshop
supports the visual learners as well. This levels the playing
field for students with disabilities. Oftentimes, students with
disabilities can produce academic work equal to their nondisabled
peers by utilizing the computer. We would love to have this software
and explore all of the other interactive writing opportunities
each year. We as teachers would love to provide this kind of superior
software to our students, to create photo stories, radio broadcasts,
interviews and plays as well as articles for magazines and newspapers.
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity on behalf of our students.
Score: 4.50 out of 5.00
Dena Deen
Coffee Middle School, 1303 S. Peterson Ave. Douglas GA 31533
Mulligan Stew
As a special education teacher, one of our most challenging aspects
is the social adaptation of our students. They struggle to grasp
many of the concepts into society and need much help to make transitions
from simple tasks that other students don’t even think about to
what to do with their lives after graduation. Different disabilities
require different approaches, such as autism. Students with autism
often have a difficult time grasping abstract ideas like love,
hate, jealousy, happiness, pleasure, etc. I once had a student
who burped in girls faces to let them know he liked them. Our
students learn the majority of their knowledge of other groups
of people from television shows, music videos, and movies. As
we all know, these “ideas” aren’t always true. As my school mainstreams
special education students into the regular education population,
we struggle to get regular education teachers and students to
accept their peers, as we also struggle to teach our special education
students what is truly appropriate especially the differences
in our cultures.
There are two different approaches to identifying the society
in America. One is the "Great Melting Pot", where everyone melts
together to form a new, cohesive group, and then there is the
"Mulligan Stew". The "Mulligan Stew" approach comes from merging
different cultures and people into a pot with a cohesive gravy,
while maintaining the individual identities of each group of people,
like a beef stew. Our school will become a "Mulligan Stew" next
school year. Coffee County, Georgia will be merging two middle
schools into one, very large middle school with around 2,000 students
and a faculty and staff of over 100 people. Our school will be
one of the four largest middle schools in Georgia, and is the
largest middle school in the entire southern region of Georgia.
We are different from the other middle schools in that we are
located in a small, rural community. Our county population is
around 37,000 and growing. Our county is full of different cultures,
socioeconomic groups, talents, and personalities that will all
be merging into one massive middle school. In order to make merging
such a large variety of people into a happy, successful school,
I would like to create a pictorial journal, blog, and discussion
board of our journey to learn about and understand each and every
group of people that make our school unique. We will be merging
three grades, 6th through 8th, including a large number of special
needs students including our community based program that includes
our most special and beloved students. Given the most recent news
of school shootings by persons who feel left out, forgotten, bullied,
and even hated by others, I will be challenging our students to
create a new learning and social environment to promote the differences
among our large population and understanding others that are different
from them. We are creating a "Mulligan Stew" of wonderfully unique
students, faculty, and staff that needs to be explored, expressed,
and understood. I have always felt that you should strive to tolerate
your mother-in-law, but should strive to understand other groups
of people. I want to share that feeling of peace and understanding,
and hopefully create a positive growing environment for our students
to grow and learn about the world around them. Our project might
sound like just another yearbook, but it is a social integration
"experience” promoting cultural awareness. Students in various
grades will write letters explaining how merging schools has changed
them, changed how they learn, and changed how they think about
other people. We want honest feelings either named or anonymous.
We will also create a website for our students to blog, discuss,
and share our project with the rest of the world. Our culminating
activity will consist of creating our first school art project
with a celebratory collage of our first year in our new school.
Our world is changing around us, and our students are growing
up quicker and quicker, so we have to teach them how what about
it, how to deal with all of life's challenges in positive, constructive
ways, and to embrace the differences that make our "Mulligan Stew"
ours. Materials: Photo Inkjet Printer, Ink Paper, and Memory Cards.
Use the ToolFactory software to create our pictorial journal
and print our final project. Use Homepage to create our blog/discussion
board for student share their experiences, viewpoints, and promote
health expressions of one's self. Use Whole Class Fresco to create
fun and interesting collages of our work to share with the rest
of the world. Use Multimedia lab for our students to express their
creative natures anyway they wish in their showcase of talents.
Score: 4.38 out of 5.00
Katrina Tonneas
Fairview Elementary, 14060 Blosser Rd Sherwood OH 43556
Small Group Instruction/Therapy
I will use the digital camera to encourage my Kindergarten, 1st
and 2nd grade Learning Disabled, Autistic, and Cognitive Disabled
students to take pictures of what they'd like to talk about, write
about and make a story of. Then, with the "Tool Factory Word Processor"
CD we will download these photographs and write sentences that
will become stories. My kindergartners will label pictures with
simple words. The first graders will write 1-3 sentences about
their picture or make a short story with 3-4 pictures (first,
then, last, concept). My 2nd graders will write a short story
about their photographs. The ability to hear what they are typing
will be a huge thing to my students who tend to write like they
talk, with speech problems and inappropriate grammar. We will
use this camera and software during our daily writing class (40
minutes daily). I have a volunteer during this time 3 days a week,
who can help out with taking the pictures or working on computer
with them as well. I expect the students to become excited to
see themselves as writers and feel success at being able to create
a sentence or story complete with their own pictures. The stories
and sentences will be shared with other classes by using our smartboard
in the project room. One of our state standards is to give oral
reports to peers, and this project would be a perfect thing to
incorporate this activity into a fun experience. It will be something
the "regular education" students do often, and help my students
fit in with their peers and feel proud of their accomplishment.
The stories can also be shared at our "Back to school" night where
families come in and see what their students are learning.
The CD "Eye Track" will be used individually daily with my kindergarten
and lower 1st graders who have significant problems in the area
of visual perception. I can also share this with our Occupational
Therapist who works once a week with my students - he would love
this program. The ability to print out the student's records of
how they are doing is a great bonus feature of this program. The
program "Phonics 2" will be used with a small group of 1st and
2nd graders who are beginning readers. They will have fun learning
how to blend beginning and endings of words. This interactive
program will be used on a Smartboard projector we have in our
small projects room. The students will take turns reading and
touching the correct answers on the wall as the other watch and
learn by listening and seeing it so large in front of them!
Score:4.25 out of 5.00
Julie Warr
Potter Street Elementary School, 725 Potter Street Bainbridge
GA 39819
The WAR (We Always Recycle) Project
The classroom for students with moderate intellectual disabilities
several years ago began the WAR (We Always Recycle) Project. These
students went to WAR against litter and excess waste in and around
their school. We were able to eliminate one of two industrial
size dumpster that collected materials that could be recycled.
The program began with recycling paper and cardboard and had expanded
to recycling of plastic bottles, printer cartridges, plastic drink
rings, cell phones, aluminum cans, Box Tops for Education coupons,
Campbell Labels, Pure Life Water Labels, and tennis balls. All
recycling comes through our doorway to be sorted, counted, and
bagged for storage and processing. This class works in conjunction
with the local recycling center to process all the materials that
are recycled from our school. The local recycling center provides
jobs for adults with disabilities. Our program has been the catalyst
and motivation for other schools in our county to recycle. Out
of the six elementary, two middle and one high school Potter Street
has turned in approximately 51% of all material recycled by the
schools within the school year.
These students are learning skills such as responsibility, dedication,
scheduling, and proper maintenance of materials and equipment
while implementing this program. This class consists of 11-14
students from Kindergarten to 5th grade. Many of these students
are in this class of six years, so by the time they leave this
class they know a lot about recycling. To keep the motivation
up and the students interested we search for many strategies and
activities to provide to the students. We use the computer everyday
in the classroom for these students to learn letter skills, writing
skills and copying skills. Using the Tool Factory Word Processor
and the digital camera with the recycling program will give students
a daily option to work on writing and photography skills. Students
have used Powerpoint software to make slide shows for other classes
to view in the past, but with the Tool Factory Word Processing
program students will be able to write and refine information
that they accumulate for each presentation that they develop.
Many of these students cannot write independently, but with help
can identify letters and basic words. The features that the Tool
Factory Word Processing program has will elevate what these students
can accomplish. The photography will be a great help in their
identifying events that happens with the recycling program. They
will also be able to develop their own schedules with the use
of photos and words. With a wide range of ages in my classroom
I have to provide a variety of levels of materials and software
that is applicable to all my students.
Being such a big part of the recycling program students get a
feeling of ownership of the school as well as being successful
in helping teach other classes about the recycling process. As
part of our instructional aspect of the recycling program I am
the teacher who dresses up like “Dr. Recycling” and takes some
of my students with me to regular education classes to teach what
is and is not appropriate to recycle for our program. My students
feel like they are “experts” in the area of recycling. With the
use of the Digital camera and the Tool Factory Word Processor
program students can take pictures teaching other students and
build information pages as well as school flyers or pamphlets
about the program. Using these materials will benefit each child,
since they do not normally have the opportunity to use cameras
independently. Teaching them how to take a picture will be a challenge
in itself, but the outcome is what is important. They will be
able to use materials and equipment with expertise. Students will
not be able to learn how to use equipment if they never have the
opportunity. Giving that opportunity is the first step in their
learning. Our recycling program began as a small classroom activity;
it has grown into a local, state and nationally recognized program
that encourages everyone to be part of the recycling activity.
Students have involved parents, siblings, grandparents, friends
and neighbors to contribute to our much important program. With
the use of The Tool Factory Word Processor and the Digital Camera
we will be able to spread the word about our program and instill
the importance of recycling to the next generation.
Read the applications
of the 5 grand prize winners.
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