AR Treasure Hunt App

ARrrrrgh is a free app that lets you perform augmented reality treasure hunts, and is lots of fun (and meets the FIVES criteria). The title of the app is a play on both pirate-speak and AR, augmented reality, the technology that allows us to display digital information over the real world. Sounds complicated, but this app is very simple. One student goes into a space to hide a virtual treasure chest in the floor (in an open area, the camera is activated and can detect walls, furniture etc). The controls are very simple. The student is then prompted to hand over the iPad and the seeker(s) are given a visual guiding them toward an X that marks the spot. When they successfully navigate to that area of the room and dig, a "treasure" is revealed.

App Store Screenshots

My students greatly enjoyed this app! I'd suggest you try it out yourself first so you know how to guide them. Wi-fi connection is best. A number of skills can be worked on with this app:

• Social Thinking®: The Group Plan, Thinking with the Eyes, Body in the Group, Smart Guess, Sharing Imagination (also this app could be a good play followup to We Thinkers Vol 2 which has a pirate-themed story/unit)
• Executive function skills of spatial awareness, planning, time management (I had a highschooler who took an excessive amount of time to bury the treasure and a re-do helped him with this skill)
• Language skills of spatial concepts and giving clues

MA area SLPs and educators- Free EdCampAccess event May 5, 2018

I am happy to be helping to organize the EdCampAccess unconference again this year. Hope to see some of you there. Information is below!

EdCampAccess, in the tradition of EdCamps that have taken place around the world, is an unconference devoted to K -12 educators who work with struggling learners. It is not limited to special educators, but anyone who wants to reach students who struggle with reading, writing, organization, behaviors, executive function skills, etc. An unconference is a "collaborative conference" where the attendees build and create the experience. As is the format for unconferences, we do not schedule formal sessions in advance; instead, we do so together as a group at the start of the day via a crowdsourced session board. Attendees may choose to facilitate a session, lead or participate in discussions or attend sessions of interest to further their professional learning.

Some ideas likely to be discussed in sessions are already up on the EdCampAccess website, as is a link to free registration.

Where: Marshall Simonds Middle School, 114 Winn Street Burlington, MA
When: May 5, 2018- Registration begins at 8:30, 9:00-2:00
Cost: again, FREE

Organizers (on Twitter):
Patric Barbieri - @PatricBarbieri
Karen Janowski - @karenjan
Beth Lloyd - @lloydcrew
Sean Sweeney - @speechtechie

Using Google Slides as a Visual Support and "Workbook"

With my older students, I appreciate the role of technology as a visual support. Having a screen involved-- not necessarily to be touching or interacting with-- can be engaging, regulating and motivating. I often say I am fascinated by how much my students will attend and converse with the topic when I am simply typing into a slide. We do have Apple TV present in our clinical rooms, which helps, but the same effect can be provided when connected to a projector or interactive whiteboard, or just with a laptop on the table (less ideal but it works).

With one of my groups I am working on problem solving and self-regulation. Westby and Noel (2014) created a great acronym (BEST PLANS) for problem solving steps you can read about here. In an activity I incorporated this as well as Ward/Jacobsen's STOP strategy for situational awareness, and the 5 Point Scale. I was pleased with the group's engagement as I presented a made-up problem (similar to what they would face and probably struggle with at home), and the tools within Google Slides let me mark up the visuals (boxes, making stuff bold or underline, typing into shapes) as we came to some decisions. The link to this file is here and you can feel free to make a copy (File>Make a Copy) to your own Drive and change it up.

SlidesCarnival is a free resource featuring many engaging-looking Google Slides templates you can use for this sort of work.