Ipods for Special Education Students

Notes from NETA 2008 session "Leveling the Playing Field for Special Ed Students with iPods"
by Lanita Recob, Misty Beair, Rose Brewer

• Leveling the field for the sped, ELL, SAT students
• accommodations for sped students
• Allows students to be independent in general ed classroom.
  • Hand them the ipod as you hand them the print test.
• Accommodations read only 2 or 3 answers instead of 4
• Matching: give 2-4 word bank for each question
• Essays: you can individualize accommodations and cues (remember to…)
• Kids can skip questions and go back to questions.
• Students are able to take a test at their own speed w/o assistance of staff members.
• Sped ed teacher reads the test into the ipod for each teacher
  • Dyslexic: "I already know the material I just need it read to me because the words get mixed up."
  • Motivation for kids to study for tests because they like staying in the classroom
  • Colleges uses ipod for accommodations.
  • Safe—can put tests on and off ipod
  • Sped teacher can help other students instead of reading tests
• OTHER USES:
  
• Recording lectures for missing students or to review
• Speech practices so students can listen to it
• Learning lines for plays, class presentations
• Memorization work for classes
  
• notetaking: students read and summarize notes from class lectures
  
• Take language sample from all speech kids in fall to be able to compare in spring
• Kids read at least quarterly to monitor fluency
• word list of 10 words with their problem sounds for practice
• kids do self monitoring to compare throughout the year
• IEP meetings let parents listen to progress
• end of year motivation for summer goals

Once it is set up it is easy to maintain.

How to finance:
• Medicaid reimbursement facilitated thru ESP
• Sped funds

Equipment
• Ipods w/cases
• laptops dedicated to ipods project
• usb headsets w/mics

preparation:
• choose resource teachers who are open to change
• familiar with technology
• collaborate to learn the technology
• paid staff $15/hour to take after-hours workshops on how to do it.

• Session 1:learn how to use an ipod, computer, Garageband
• Session 2: create a podcast test, transfer podcast to server, sync with ipod
  

technology issues:
• wanted to find a secure location to save the tests (teacher password protected)

• Consider that you will need to replace the ipods eventually
  
• Griffin or belkin recording devices make sure they match w/ipods

future:
• paras create and sync the tests on an ipod
• assessments, norm ref and classroom evaluations are syced on ipod
• use for iowa basics test instructions (check copyright issue)


open imovie
create titles
create title slide
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• Make the question 1 screen from ppt; save it as a jpg file in ppt