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The Fall 2006 special education contest is completed! Congratulations
to ten lucky winners. In this round, 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 five Grand Prize Winners!
Click here to see the applications from the runner-up finalists!
Score: 4.92 out of 5.00
Jessica and Vicki Heise and Lockwood
Cromwell Valley Elementary, 825 Providence Rd., Towson, MD 21286
Phone: 410-887-4888 vlockwood@bcps.org
I Love Seplling!
This comment on and spelling of spelling – seplling –
is derived directly from a childhood writing assignment. Currently,
as a special educator, my partner teacher and I find this old
declaration to be of major interest to us today. This interest
manifests itself in two ways – grave difficulty with spelling
and the lack of love for writing, to which struggling with encoding
is a great contributor.
We are making a concerted effort to make our resource room be
more than “that room where some kids go”. We want it
to be the place to be where learning is fun all the time. While
we service students who have an IEP, we are fortunate to be in
a place where we include any child who could benefit from additional,
focused VAKT instruction.
Our room is set up like a community with a construction zone,
writing café, park, health clinic, outlaw word jail, basketball
court, math zone, etc. In these neighborhood areas, instruction
is interwoven through games, activities, brainstorming, etc. Now
that we have been introduced to the Spelling Bundle our minds
are stimulated as we envision our community growing with opportunities
- opportunities to slip in much needed focused and engaging spelling
instruction with our other activities.
One of the products included in the Spelling Bundle, Two Wise
Owls, seemed to particularly compliment a technique we currently
use, Visualizing and Verbalizing. This is a strategy we use in
order to teach reading comprehension. This strategy incorporates
a series of “structure words” that help students attend
to details and create vivid visualizations with their minds eye
while reading text.
In the early stages of this strategy students utilize pictures
to gain an understanding of the structure words. Currently, the
pictures are provided by us from magazines, calendars, etc. We
feel that if the students could use the camera to take photographs
themselves they will feel a sense of ownership, thus furthering
the impact of this strategy. For example, one of the more challenging
structure words is perspective. Students can better understand
the concept of this structure word if they had the opportunity
to take several photographs of a single item each from a different
perspective.
To our delight, Visualizing and Verbalizing skills quickly carried
over to the students’ writing. Their written responses became
more detailed. When additional details were needed to enhance
meaning, students referenced a structure word list to consider
size, shape, perspective, etc. Once the student considered them,
they could quickly add any overlooked details thus improving their
response. Our incorporation of the activities (for example, SuperSpell,
Spell Track, etc.) in the Spelling Bundle into our learning environment
will further improve our students’ ability to clearly communicate
their detailed ideas through correct writing.
In addition to our efforts during the school day we offer writing
tutoring before school. In an attempt to make this less stigmatizing
our tutoring is not referred to as tutoring. In fact we are a
club, the Communication Club. This club participates in authentic
writing experiences that not only benefit students’ writing
ability but also benefit self-esteem. Currently, our club is sponsoring
a school wide bowl-a-thon in order to raise money to help children
with cancer. This undertaking provided a variety of opportunities
for writing (writing business letters, making promotional posters,
writing scripts for morning announcements, etc.) and we feel that
the offerings of this grant could help us to enhance this experience
as well as the students’ learning. We are always on the lookout
for ways to "teach" skills in a way that fits our philosophy
of meaningful learning. A camera would have enabled them to incorporate
photographs on to their posters and into their Power Point presentations.
Practice with spelling strategies would serve to enhance the writing
practice, resulting in successful writing pieces.
As a follow up activity our students are creating craft bags
for patients with cancer. When children are admitted to the hospital
they will be presented with a brown bag with materials and directions
for making a craft - all prepared and supplied by our students.
The patient will follow the written directions made by our students
in order to complete the craft. Our students can utilize the camera
to add pictures to their written directions as they carefully
plan and follow through with accurate steps to perform the task.
Our idea produces two products: one tangible -the craft bags
- and one intangible - the process of developing the steps to
achieve a successful community service activity. The idea of extending
and enhancing our students’ growth through engaging, meaningful
activities is extremely exciting to us. Our minds went into overdrive
as we learned about this grant and the products offered by Tool
Factory
Score: 4.75 out of 5.00
Kathleen Stannard
Holland Township School, 710 Milford Warren Glen Road, Milford,
NJ 08848
Phone: 908-995-9404 kathy.stannard@hts.k12.nj.us
We are the Champions
Holland Township School is both an elementary and middle school,
located in North West New Jersey in a small rural community situated
on the Easton Pennsylvania border. Our total student population
is 720 students, with approximately 12 % of the total population
consisting of special education students.
Each spring Holland Township special education students participate
in a county wide Tournament of Champions for a track and field
competition. They put on their red t-shirts
(provided by the Parent Teacher Organization) and travel by bus
to a local high school and compete among their peers for awards.
Before the competition begins over 400 special needs students
from all over the county, walk around the track with banners representing
their school to the tune of “We are the Champions.”
They truly do feel like champions as they walk around the track
listening to the cheers from their friends and families. The smiles
and excitement are certainly a sight to behold. With the struggles
that these children face on a daily basis it is just so rewarding
to see them in all of their glory.
The regular education students from the high school work very
closely with the elementary students, not only encouraging them
with high fives, but providing whatever support is necessary for
the students to be successful. They help the students throw that
basketball and run alongside the wheelchairs to get to the finish
line. The benefit to both sets of children is remarkable. The
special education student sees this older child as a role model
and the high school student sees first hand the trials and tribulations
of a child with a disability. Our students display a wide range
of disabilities from cerebral palsy to autism to learning disabled.
Each and every child is unique in their own way and this event
allows them to shine! Many of our eighth graders have chosen to
participate in track and field events at the high school level
due to their success over the years at this event.
Approximately 6 weeks before the competition, the children begin
to practice after school in anticipation of the event. Two teachers,
two paraprofessionals and some volunteers work with the children
to practice the events that they will be competing in. This is
extremely important as it allows them to be prepared for what
they will be asked to do on the day of the competition. The events
include Frisbee and softball throw, 25 and 50 meter runs, basketball
throw, long jump, obstacle course and of course a relay race to
culminate the day’s activities.
After the competition an awards ceremony for the students and
their families is held at the school. Every student gets at least
one or two awards. What a celebration!! Cake and juice are served
after the students are honored. Everyone is a champion that night!
If awarded the grant we have many plans to use the Tool Factory
software:
Tool Factory Word Processor/Digital Camera: The students in resource
room and self contained rooms often have difficulty managing a
conventional word processing program. We would love for the students
to take pictures with the digital camera of practice, parental
support and the actual competition day. Using the Tool Factory
Word processor they will be able to hear the words as they type
to ensure accuracy. They will also be able to arrange the pictures
that they have taken throughout the timeline into a formal presentation.
During Language Arts they will work on sentence structure, paragraph
formation and overall presentation format which are all part of
the Core Curriculum Content standards. With guidance, they will
capture the events of the weeks before and up to the competition
to share with family and friends. This presentation will be displayed
as a celebration for the students and parents to enjoy the night
of the awards presentation.
MultiMedia Lab V and Digital Camera: To address technology and
language arts goals, the middle school students would also take
pictures before and up to the competition. During Language Arts
they would then learn how to create a web page centered on Tournament
of Champions for family and friends to view, incorporating sentence
structure, paragraph formation, and overall presentation format.
After becoming proficient in the use of the software they would
stand as the school experts on building a child-centered web page.
They would then share their web sites with their mainstream peers
as well as offer to assist other mainstream grade levels. Not
only does this help teach other staff and students how to build
a web page, it allows the special education student the ability
to help a mainstream student learn a new skill. Imagine the degree
of confidence and pride that will envelop the special education
student!
Sound Beginnings-Making Sounds and Digital Camera: We have several
autistic students; however we have one 9 year old that is non-verbal.
He has utterances and often tries to express himself when he gets
excited. I would like to use the digital camera to record his
own personal events of the Tournament of Champions day; for example,
pictures of him with mom and dad and grandparents, pictures of
him running, and doing the softball throw, as well as pictures
with him and his teachers and related service providers. His Individualized
Education Plan has many goals to encourage vocalization and Sound
Beginnings would certainly help in the process. This child has
several Peer Leaders (regular education students from the middle
school) who come down to work with him. Sitting with a peer leader
and blowing up the balloon on the “Blow Up the Balloon”
game would certainly enhance his opportunity for success. These
pictures would spark his interest and hopefully encourage new
sounds. Any vocalizing from him would certainly be encouraged
throughout the activities of the Jigsaw, Racing and Blow up the
Balloon.
Budget:
Equipment to use during practice: clipboards, timers, frisbees,
tennis balls, hula hoops $75.00
Award certificates for each child: $50.00
Water for practice events: $50.00
Tournament of Champion Hats to match their shirts: $250.00
Cake and Goodies for the awards ceremony $75.00
Score: 4.5 out of 5.00
Karee Orellana
Lakeview Elementary School, 455 Rural Hill Road, Nashville, TN
37217
Phone: 615-360-2912, karee.orellana@mnps.org
Learning Safari
This grant will benefit up to 23 students with special needs
in two Life Skills classrooms. Students in this program have disabilities
including autism, Down syndrome, mental retardation, Cerebral
Palsy, speech-language delays, and developmental delay. The students
enjoy working on the computer, but have very little technology
that is available to them. They will enjoy working with the Tool
Factory software that is on their level and is also switch accessible.
Students will become “safari hunters” to learn more
about themselves and the world around them. First, students will
use Tool Factory’s Memory Skills and Sorting Skills to develop
matching and sorting skills related to colors, objects, letters
and numbers. After developing these skills, the “safari hunters”
will use their new Olympus digital camera to take pictures of
familiar items in the classroom and school. They will then play
matching and sorting games with their teachers and peers to generalize
these skills.
Next, the students will use the Tool Factory Picture Builder
software. This will help the students with visual discrimination
skills. The “safari hunters” will take pictures of their
classmates and other people in their school. Theses images will
be loaded into the Picture Builder program so that students can
work puzzles of themselves and familiar people in the school.
A teacher will work with the child to ask questions regarding
the images on the computer.
Tool Factory Alphabet Track software will be the next program
used by students. The students will work on learning letters of
the alphabet. After using the Alphabet Track program, the “safari
hunters” will hunt around the school with their cameras to
capture pictures of items that start with the letters they are
learning.
Finally, the students will also use the program Switch on Zoo
which uses animals to teach cause and effect, picture matching
and choice making. The overall grant project will conclude with
our annual field trip to the Nashville Zoo. The “safari hunters”
will take their new digital camera to the zoo to take pictures
of the animals they have been learning about. The pictures will
be printed and the students will create a scrapbook as their final
project.
Score: 4.5 out of 5.00
Carly Rokuson
The Hebrew Academy for Special Children, 920 Eileen Terrace,
Woodmere, NY 11598
Phone: 516-410-0779 info@hasc.net
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Sounds
“Lauren” ate a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch on
Monday. To most people this may seem unremarkable; however this
was a monumental moment in Lauren’s life. Lauren has a feeding
tube, as well as been struggling with eating almost her entire
life. Her private nurse promptly took out her mobile phone, as
there is no digital camera in our classroom, and took a picture
of Lauren eating her grilled cheese sandwich. Lauren was extremely
proud of herself as she looked at her tiny picture on the mobile
phone of her successfully eating. This became a more valuable
positive reinforcement than any other material reward. Her other
seven classmates all gathered around the phone after they finished
their lunch to see the picture of Lauren eating. They were all
very proud of Lauren and expressed that by clapping their hands.
Imagine not being able to express your basic wants and needs.
Imagine being angry but not having the necessary verbal skills
to communicate what is making you angry.
Imagine wanting to do a particular puzzle but you are unable
to tell anybody. This is what all of my students experience in
some form every single day. I am a teacher assistant in a special
education school where my students are truly special. I have eight
students that are three and four years old with various disabilities
and developmental delays. Everyday they struggle to express their
thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs. However, everyday they also
come to school with smiles on their faces, eager to learn more
skills. Every time their speech therapist comes to our classroom
to work with one particular student or the entire class, my students
light up as they are excited to use the skills she has taught
them. My class is so proud of themselves when they succeed and
they are always looking for positive reinforcement.
My class loves to see pictures of themselves and their classmates.
When Lauren saw the picture of her successfully eating her lunch,
it became a positive reinforcement for her to eat lunch for the
rest of the week. The students in my class are visual learners
and follow a picture schedule. They love to do puzzles when there
are actual pictures of people on them. I believe that if my students
had software programs with pictures of themselves or things that
they were familiar with, then it would become an incentive and
positive reinforcement for them to speak. I have chosen the programs
“Sound Beginnings” “Sound Beginnings- Making Sounds”
and “Speak Up!” for my students to use.
I think that all the activities on “Sound Beginnings”
as well as “Sound Beginnings-Making Sound” will help
our students of different abilities to produce sounds and say
words. The one activity that our students will really enjoy is
the Jigsaw puzzle. Using the digital camera our staff will take
a picture of each student so that the individual student can work
with their photo. They will get more meaning out of this activity
and will be more likely to make sounds in order to move the puzzle
pieces if it is a puzzle that has their picture on it.
Another program that our students can benefit from is “Speak
Up!” The staff will again take pictures of our students and
have them use sounds to make them move and grow. This experience
will motivate them to make different sounds. We will also take
pictures of different objects and people for the students who
are more verbal. For example, we will take pictures of their therapist
and various other people in the building that they should be able
to identify. We will also take pictures of different shapes and
colors that have meaning to them. For example, we might use a
stop sign that is outside our school. Once identifying the object
they can work on sounds that they are struggling with, thus making
these objects move. Some of my students cannot produce words,
only sounds. Since different students have varied verbal abilities,
I think this is an ideal program to implement.
In order to track the students we would test the children with
this program to determine where their starting point is. We would
use the automatic record track that “Sound Beginnings”
and Sound Beginnings- Making Sounds” provides so we would
see our students’ progress. This would enable us to know
when to add more puzzle pieces to the jigsaw puzzle. In the program,
“Speak Up!” we would initially record how many objects
the children could identify and move. At the end of each week,
we would record their progress. To be certain that the students
will get full use out of these programs, we would allot a specific
time of day for its use. By setting aside time for these programs,
this would ensure that each student would have time to participate
at least once a week.
With these programs, I believe that the students in my class
will be able to say more sounds and words than they are currently
producing. This will lead the children to express their basic
wants, needs, and feelings. I think with the help of these programs,
they will be able to tell me when they want to play a certain
game, when they need to eat something, and when they are feeling
happy. When the students are able to communicate those statements
I will know that a picture is worth a thousand sounds, because
it will be a motivating factor that will get them that far.
Score: 4.38 out of 5.00
Jeff Calvin
Keystone Charter School, 903 Methodist Road, Greenville, PA 16125
Phone: 724-813-4486 jeff_calvin@keystone.k12.pa.us
Art Integration in a Personal Way. (Target population-special
needs students).
The use of different medias for instruction not only helps students
comprehend ideas, but helps them communicate their understanding
to others. The inability to communicate in academic environments
contributes greatly to the frustrations and poor self-concepts
of these individuals. To alleviate this situation we must provide
alternative avenues for students to share their ideas and feelings
with others. Instruction in technology and fine arts and the integration
of them with other areas of the curriculum throughout the school
enables individuals to participate in the learning process more
comfortably and more effectively.
It is within the artistic works that people discover the morals,
values, social habits and achievements of different cultures,
past and present. When people are educated to understand others’
needs and feelings then they can better communicate.
It is the intent that students will learn to communicate with
teachers and peers their individual cultural diversities. The
classroom will de divided into cooperative-learning groups according
to common ethnic backgrounds.
The students will assume the role of educator by extracting and
organizing specific information pertinent to their culture and
then presenting the information to the class. Through the integration
of technology, fine arts, language arts, and social sciences they
will educate one another about the world and various cultures.
All students will work together in a cooperative effort to publish
an international book. The book will contain information pertaining
to their presentation, poetry, artwork and ethnic recipes of their
cultural background. To extend the program to others, the presentations
would be videotaped and made available to other teachers, as well
as creating exhibits to be displayed throughout the school. The
presentations would be developed in a newscast format. This would
allow the students hands on experience with video material and
script writing. The students would host an international banquet,
where presentations and books would be showcased. Food created
by the “international recipes” would also be served.
Instructional Goals:
1. Students will be provided packets explaining the project.
2. The art teacher will instruct groups on the use of TOOL FACTORY
ART BUNDLE so that they may create multi-cultural art drawings
to incorporate in the international book and also to use for their
presentations. FRESCO would be used to develop illustrations for
the book as well as using TOOL FACTORY PAINTER to design page
borders, clipart sections for recipe pages and cover designs for
individual chapters. Students will be instructed on bookbinding
and presentation formats.
3. The students would be instructed on the use of WRITERS’
WORKSHOP. Writer’s Block would assist the students in learning
how interview and write script for their presentations. The software
would also help students to develop self confidence by providing
newsroom “roles” for each member of the group to fulfill.
4. The students would be instructed on the use of TOOL FACTORY
PROCESSOR. This software would be ideal for our students because
the voice engine would reinforce auditory learners. It will also
assist students with embedding pictures and captions for their
international books.
5. The students would be instructed on the use of OLYMPUS DIGITAL
CAMERAS. The cameras would be used on various field trips to cultural
centers and sites selected for their ethnicity. The photographs
would be used in their books and presentations. The students would
also be given the role of “photographer” when accompanying
“reporters” on interviews of local community members.
Project Goals:
1. To expose students to art, poetry and facts from all over the
world.
2. To learn about cultural differences to help students appreciate
and respect one another.
3. To provide students with a variety of experiences with technology,
art and writing.
4. To instill self-esteem and pride with the accomplishment of
presentations, international book and banquet.
5. With the use of the software be able to increase writing and
research skills.
6. To develop cooperative learning skills.
Student Story:
My students are very special!! The students at Keystone Charter
School consist of a highly varied population. Keystone is a charter
school for at risk students, meaning students may attend our school
if they have difficulty in school attendance, academics or social
interactions. Students arrive at Keystone from forty different
school districts and are successful at overcoming their shortcomings
which have brought them to us. Furthermore, our student population
consists of 50% special education and 100% Title I due to the
poverty level of our families.
Many times our students come to us with little self- esteem and
even littler success in their past. At Keystone, we focus on bringing
these students to a level of success through focusing on their
strengths and strengthening their weaknesses. Our academic structure
concentrates on basic fundamentals of math and reading in order
to bring the students to grade level performance. However, we
have found that our students often excel greatly in art-all areas
such as music, drawings, paintings, sculptures and writing poetry
and short stories.
Discovering these talents has led several students from circumstances
involving the legal system through probation and children and
youth services or being at risk of dropping out of high school
to winning art awards and attending art schools or other colleges
of choice. All students do not choose to move on to professions
in art, yet they have learned a hobby in which they can enjoy
and excel, bringing up their self-esteem and giving them methods
by which to express their feelings.
Recently, our school has added computer graphics class which has
opened a whole new world for many of our students. Our students
have been able to create documentaries, commercials, music videos
and biographies. This year we had students enter competitions
with these new artistic endeavors and are eagerly awaiting the
results. Obtaining new software will aid the students in furthering
their personal talents whether it is paintings, drawings, poetry,
graphics or any other area that may be discovered for our students.
Outcomes:
1. To instill self-esteem and sense of accomplishment by creating
a cooperative project that also reflects their own individuality.
2. To target all learning styles in one educational and creative
project.
3. To design a project that is student driven.
4. To promote the school through the presentation and banquet.
Conclusion:
This project was organized so that students can actively participate
in various skill development and group problem solving assignments
to enhance originality through visual and written expression and
to promote self-worth. The attempt is to encourage a level of
risk taking through multicultural exposure. We hope that students
will foster an appreciation for the cultural diversity of our
student body and gain a greater understanding for the history
and ethnicity that makes each of them unique. Thank-you for your
time and consideration.
Read the applications
of the five runner-up finalists.
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