Interesting Tidbits I Learned at CEC

This past weekend I attended the 2010 CEC Convention and Expo (Council for Exceptional Children). Aside from the intriguing assistive technology devices, I learned how one group of teachers used technology to reach their special needs preschool students. I attended the "Visual Strategies and Assistive Technology to Support Students with Autism and Developmental Delays" lecture presented by Jennifer Simonaitis and Jen Bartelli. In this lecture they discussed various visual strategies that work well with children with autism or developmental delays. One of the proven interventions is the use of social stories to teach children how to play with toys or prepare for a special event. While these stories have been proven valid by research, the children were not paying attention to them, so they were not learning from them. Because the children are so TV, video game, and computer immersed, or brainwashed, they did not know how to listen to a book being read to them. The teachers decided to take photographs of the pages of the books, record their voices reading the text, and complied them into a video using Windows Movie Maker. The children immediately took to the videos. The children responded to the videos so well that they have began making videos for everything that they do, and even make videos for the parents if the child will be experience something new at home. These teachers recognized that a proven strategy was not working for their students and used technology to make it more meaningful and beneficial to them. This is not only a trait of a great special education teacher, but also a teacher that is capable of integrating technolgy into the classroom.