Dispatches from ASHA, Part 2

My second session (I was super lucky this year!) at ASHA revolved around visual supports and the ease through technology tools of...

Co-engagement: presenting a visual material and scaffolding language around it
Co-creation: using a tool that allows us to make something (an image creator, animation tool, book maker, video shooter) and scaffolding language through the process of using the app (not worrying so much about the product).

I stressed that we need to continue to provide visual supports to our students across the lifespan. Since everything to me is narrative in some form, I shared that when I arrived at the convention center I felt very dysregulated and confused by the layout, and that it was helpful for me to make a visual support of where my sessions would be over the two days!

One type of visual support I discussed is the 5-Point Scale, which I have talked about here before. A theme of the presentation was that simple visual tools such as PowerPoint, Google Slides or Keynote are great for making visual supports because (feature-matching for us!) you can easily add images, text, and whatever and move them around. I sometimes make visual supports live with students on these tools and use the Apple TV to engage them visually and verbally (you can do this via a projector or interactive whiteboard in a classroom situation as well).

I made a new 5-Point Scale for a group I have that is occasionally having difficulty with Tone:

An additional visual support is to create comics, which also can be done using technology. I described how I find Pixton (web only, won't work on iPad) to be a still useful tool because it (feature-matching!)

-has a simple mode for you to make a comic

-has built-in characters and settings 

-once you make a comic, you can copy it and change aspects to show nuance/reaction change.

I integrated Pixton into a discussion context with my group (co-engaging over 5 comics showing the different levels) and a game with Kahoot. Kahoot can be both a visual and interactive support as you can add photos and videos to your questions. At my presentation session we viewed these comic examples and the whole crowd played the game:

View the examples here.

Play the game here.

Hope it was helpful for you to see this snippet of this session. Thanks to those who made it to this or my other session!