The King's Speech

I may be seeming to be going off-format by sharing a movie review, but technology is a broad term, and one that certainly plays a part in The King's Speech.  There is not a lot in pop culture that is so explicitly about communication disorders, which may be just one reason why our profession is not well understood, and I think we should be very grateful for The King's Speech.  The film is attracting a very wide range of moviegoers because of its deserved acclaim, and it is sure to give that other movie about communication and technology, The Social Network (I still have to see this but am really excited to do so), a run for its money in several Oscar categories.

The movie itself transcends the dryness of many dramas about the British Monarchy, thanks to its humor and the excellent performances of its three leads, Colin Firth, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Geoffrey Rush (so well put-together in this film that my friend and I failed to recognize him). The story, also, is brisk and interesting, with a sense of urgency lent by the increasing communicative demands placed on the King and his need to find a way to improve the fluency of his speech.  With the growing power of Hitler and need for leadership from the crown, literally, the world was somewhat in the balance.

From a Speech-Language Pathologist's perspective (though I must admit that the incidence of stuttering in my various settings has been so low that I that I always tread carefully and with a LOT of guidance), there is much that seems on point in the depiction of the King's problem: its origin and complicating factors, failed experiences in "therapy," and its presentation.  Though Lionel Logue lacked credentials (were there any to be had in the 1930s?), his techniques- the focus on relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing, manipulating audio feedback, onsets, singing, and not least of all, counseling- were also similar to modern methods and fascinating to watch.  One of my favorite parts was when Lionel denied his client the freedom to work with a model plane on his desk and, upon getting the "production" he was going for, told His Royal Highness, "Now as a reward you may apply some glue to these struts." Does this motivational technique and use of reinforcement sound familiar to anyone?

Technology plays a huge role in the film, providing both a positive revelation to the King in terms of the fluency he could potentially achieve (with removal of auditory feedback) and a constant source of stress with the expectation that he learn how to speak on the radio. I'm interested now in checking out the book to see how King George and Lionel continued to work to tackle and/or utilize this technology as the war progressed.

I definitely recommend this film! Now I probably only have to see 7 other movies to be ready for the Oscars.

Edublogs' 30 Days to Kick Start Your Blogging-Effective Posts!

For Activity 2 in the Edublogs 30 Days to Kick Start Your Blogging Teacher Challenge, I am choosing to highlight an effective post from a blog that I read. One I loved recently was SpeechGadgetDeb's post: I Can Has Cheeseburger for Language Skills. What do I think made this post effective?

• The post starts by providing a clear context and "big idea" before presenting the resource: humor is motivating.
• Deb gives a great description of the site, along with images that provide examples and attract readers to explore the site.
• Some tech resources require a disclaimer, and Deb provides one! It's then in the readers' ball court to make sure she or he uses the site appropriately.
• The post ends with not one but four creative ideas on how to use the site specifically to target language skills.
• In the end, Deb has directed clinicians to something new and fun, and provided all the information necessary for them to use it right away. A great post!

This is not to say that posts that do not have the characteristics bulleted above are ineffective. Because mine is a resource sharing blog, I chose a post that shared a resource!

Edublogs' 30 Days to Kick Start Your Blogging, Teacher Challenge- Life as a blogger!

I'm jumping on board here about a week late, but I am going to try as much as possible to participate in the Edublogs 30 Days to Kick Start Your Blogging Teacher Challenge. This program seems like a good way to structure some writing, spread the word about my blog and blogging in general, perhaps encouraging other SLPs to start blogging themselves. I'd also like to support Edublogs, as their awards competition brought me a lot of new readers. About the challenge (from the site, you can see the challenges posted so far in the right sidebar):

• The Teacher Challenge is made up of free 30 day professional development challenges where participants are stepped through weekly tasks that increase their skills while working together as part of a global community
• The Challenge is open to anyone who wants to increase their skills – blogs will be used for reflecting your progress while learning and connecting with each other.
• However blogs don’t need to be hosted by Edublogs to participate!
• Participants can complete as many of the tasks as they like and in any order.

You should give it a try!!

The topic I chose for this first activity- Getting Started: Life as a blogger...
I have always liked writing, and studied Journalism and English as an undergraduate. I bumped into a wall when I realized I didn't really like the "go get the story" piece (and the often rigid writing style) inherent in Journalism. However, that love of language led me to pursue Speech-Language Pathology (makes sense, huh?), and I found the writing aspects of the program came pretty naturally. I put writing for myself on hold for some years, until my grad program in Instructional Tech, when one of my courses involved keeping a diary about writing. A few of my friends were playing around with blogging using LiveJournal, and when I gave it a try, it proved a really good outlet for me. Some years later, about a year ago now, I was looking for a different kind of outlet, one in which I could share my ideas and experiences about how technology could enhance interventions. I decided on a blog because it seemed to be a good format for describing, in short, a lot of the great resources that I had found. What is also great about the format is that ideas can (hopefully) reach readers almost instantly and you can let me know what you think about them!

Photo by Eiji Hayashi

But back to life as a "blogger"- right now I am very happy with it. Between some writing and presenting gigs, readership that increases day by day, and an award (thanks!), having started this blog is very satisfying because it seems to be meeting a need in the SLP and education community. How does it work? I surf a LOT, find resources sited by a variety of blogs and other sources, and think about how they could be incorporated into language interventions in order to meet goals and synch with classroom curriculum. I make my own lists and start spinning them into posts trying to explain the resource clearly and always "through a language lens." I try to keep a balance of different post types- the quick blasts about a particular resource, whether it be a site or an app, "how to" posts, and "big idea"/broader posts that talk about issues related to our profession and technology. I write things quite a bit in advance and am always excited to see them publish each morning through Blogger's scheduling feature. It's harder to achieve another balance- since my topic is seemingly boundless (or is it?), I need to figure out how often to post. I don't want to have people lose interest, or on the other hand overwhelm people and run out of ideas. I'm working on it. And of course there's the balance between doing this well and spending time with important people in my life, and other pursuits...

Where do I want this to go? That's TBD. I have really enjoyed making some presentations lately and wonder if that can be a regular part of my work. So that's my life as a blogger. I'm really thankful to you all for reading, as well as to the others out there doing this who provide inspiration.

Interesting App- Singing Fingers

Singing Fingers is a FREE app from the folks at the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten Program, a very creative place.  The app allows kids to "fingerpaint with sound"- as you trace a design, sounds you make are recorded by the app.  When you re-trace your drawing, it plays the sound.

Singing Fingers is an iPhone/iPod touch native app; it also runs well on iPad.

I see this app as having a lot of potential in stimulating and reinforcing speech sounds, but I have to admit, I don't have a lot of artic/phonology/apraxia students historically or lately!  So, experts (with access to an iOS device), give this app a try and please let us know what you think in the comments.  I look forward to hearing how you might use this app, or why you might not.

Here's an article on Singing Fingers in the New York Times.  Thank you to Lillie's iPad for making me aware of this app.

BrainPop Jr's Movie of the Week: Sequence

I touched on the usefulness of BrainPop in the FIVES Booklet, and it is definitely more so if your district has a subscription that allows you to access any movie. However, BrainPop and its spin-off, BrainPop Jr. both feature a free movie each week that SLPs can take advantage of and perhaps use to lobby for a subscription. Both sites are a repository of engaging, animated films that discuss topics in a visual way. Being primarily expository, the movies are a great context to teach comprehension strategies such as identifying text structures (list, sequence, compare-contrast...). Their language topics themselves are ones that are appropriate for interventions. THIS WEEK ONLY, BrainPop Jr. is featuring its sequence movie free of charge. The Jr. site also features a number of interactives: quizzes, a game, and suggested writing, drawing and reading extensions, among other things. Check out BrainPop Jr. weekly to see if its free topics align with your curriculum and would provide a context for strategy teaching.

Thrill of the Catch

I was never a fisherman, but Thrill of the Catch from Discovery Education is a really fun resource.  The site allows you to create a fish from a chosen species, release him into the lake, then do some fishin'!  It's really easy and not frustrating to catch fish, and then you just "throw them back" after finding out their names and who created them.  The site also allows you to move to different areas of the lake and on to advanced boats.

Language Lens:

• A range of descriptive vocabulary can be targeted to describe the fish, and spatial, temporal, and causal words can be used while fishing.  The site also has potential to teach geography, with reference to different areas of the lake, and science with regards to species and biodiversity.
• This site would be great to use along with play therapy, perhaps a camping set, or a story or informational book about fishing!

The Mac App Store Opened Thursday...

...and so far I am a little underwhelmed by what it has to offer. But let's give it time. For those who were not waiting with bated breath like I was for this release, the Mac App Store is a new functionality of Mac laptops and desktops whereby you can access an App Store on your computer and download "Apps" (you must be running Snow Leopard 10.6 and then perform a Software Update-click on the Apple in the upper left corner- to access the App Store).

The definition of the word "App" is definitely evolving, [edit: at least from the perspective of us not-highly-technical people]. Before mobile devices there were Applications-web browsers, MS Office, or other games and programs installed on your computer. Mostly people called them programs. With the recent explosion in mobile technology, people developed a sense that an iPod Touch can do much more than play music, just as an iPhone or Android is more than a phone. This expansion of the devices' usefulness was due to the availability of Apps, mini-programs you can install on your phone to interact with the internet in focused ways (as the Pandora music App or Weather Channel does), or conduct off-line computing with Apps that don't need to be connected to the Internet continuously (say, Cookie Doodle or Angry Birds). At about the same time, we started to hear the term "Web App" which I think of as a website you can use to create something and save that data, such as Kerpoof or Blabberize, also known as "Web 2.0 tools." One advantage of all these types of Apps has been that they are focused and largely free or inexpensive.

So what's up with the expansion of the term "App" to mean something that you install on your computer? I am not sure what I think of this yet. First of all, let's take the Google Chrome web browser's "Apps" and "App Store" that popped up a few months ago. This is a screenshot of what I have installed in my Chrome browser so far:

My sense so far is that these Chrome Apps really are just bookmarks! The Google Reader App brings you- guess where- to Google Reader! No difference in the user interface. Some Apps, like Autodesk Homestyler, bring you, again, to an interactive website that has potential for a language project. Others, like PBS Kids Play, bring you to an entry portal for PBS content that you have to pay for. WHY would we do that at this point, when the PBS Kids website itself is so rich that I haven't even begun to mine it?

So this brings us to the Mac App Store, which as I said JUST opened. Surely not that many developers have undertaken the translation of their iOS apps to the Mac platform. Yet. And on first glance it has potential- these are real Apps, small, focused programs that will live on your computer and do a specific thing. I started with Twitter, which was free, and looks like this:

Well, I am not sure I want Twitter to look like this when I am sitting at my computer. If I wanted it to look this thin, I would look at it on my iPhone; on a large screen, in my opinion, it should take advantage of the real estate (Tweetdeck or the web version itself do fine for that). Other offerings in the education section of the Mac App Store included Stack the States (I have to review that one later), a fun geography game, and a cute paper doll app, Dress Up. Neither was free, but I am not opposed at all to paying a few bucks for a good app, and much more for one that has extensive clinical application. What I didn't like to see in the Mac App Store was the education section of the software aisle at Staples, and unfortunately I kinda did. There was a whole bunch of, to rename discreetly, "Bear Teaches 1st Grade Skills!" type of stuff, at hefty prices, and a reincarnation of the Living Books Series, which was nice to see for sure, but again perhaps not at this price point:

I suppose I am spoiled. People do need to make money. But I think as educators and clinicians we can do better given our limited funds, and I do trust/hope that the Mac App Store will do better also in time. But for now I will return to browsing the App Stores on my iPhone and iPad, and keep looking for free web sites for you to use! And let's keep calling an App an App.

Check out these well-written analyses of the good and bad points of the new Mac App Store.

Guest Post on Social Thinking®!

At the ASHA Convention this past November, I was very excited to have had time to
accost, I mean, converse with Michelle Garcia Winner, creator of the Social Thinking® Methodology for teaching students with Asperger's, High-Functioning Autism, and various quirky characteristics. We chatted for a few minutes at her booth in the exhibit hall about all the great web tools that are available to help students visualize and apply some of the concepts and vocabulary in her programs and books.

As a result of that and further conversations, I now have a guest post on the Social Thinking® Blog (with a link to an instructional handout) regarding xtranormal, a great "text-to-movie" site that allows you to create simple dialogues between characters, often with hilarious results (you may have seen some on Facebook). It is applicable to all kinds of language instruction in terms of teaching about characters, dialogue, and social exchanges. The wonderful thing about it is that you can actually have kids create movies that illustrate the fleeting and abstract aspects of social exchanges you are teaching about, e.g. nonresponsiveness, interruption, etc. The timing of my post, written in November, was really pretty unfortunate, because on December 27 xtranormal announced changes to their site resulting in free features becoming unfree. However, a few points:

-I do think xtranormal is worth paying for in order to make a core group of movies you can use and reuse with students-- the same way you might buy a DVD that you would use with groups, but much more customizable!

-You can create dialogues with students and run them in preview mode without cost.

-xtranormal will be opening up some features to educators by request and at no cost.

-I have made a diigo list for xtranormal videos people have created about social interactions, so please email me if you made one you'd like to share.

Please click on over and see the post- I am really excited to have contributed something to the work going on at Social Thinking®--they have helped my work immeasurably!

Wolfram Alpha

I have recently done a lot of writing about the benefits of Google for SLPs, but as a counterpoint I want to point out a different (non-conflicting) resource: Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha looks like a search engine, but is actually a "computational knowledge engine" that returns easily readable results for many questions (with more answers each day as the site grows)- not webpages as Google does.

Wolfram Alpha is best explored in order to be understood as a resource for SLPs, particularly in teaching students the ever-important skill of categorizing, though I think its applications go beyond that to encompass many more language topics and research skills.  Check out Wolfram Alpha's example page, which allows you to click through and view a large variety of "computations."  You can try out a search of your own "from scratch" at the main page.

Here's a little video on Wolfram Alpha.  This resource is so broad, it's almost hard to fathom.  How do you think you might use it?  Let us know by leaving a comment!

CAST UDL Book Builder

CAST is a Massachusetts-based organization promoting UDL, or Universal Design for Learning. I first saw their Book Builder presented at a conference a few years ago, and must say it has improved greatly in selection and ease of use. The UDL Book Builder is designed to present books created by educators in a way that is accessible to all, with a screen-reader and skill-building helpers built into the site. There are now hundreds of books available on the site, ranging from early to advanced grade levels and aligned with curriculum topics. For each book, and on many pages throughout each book, three characters can be clicked on to pose skill-based questions around predictions, interpreting illustrations, etc. It's a great resource within therapy sessions and also one to bookmark in classrooms as part of your consultation activities.

Pedro, Hall and Monty can be clicked on during the book to pose strategy-based questions related to the text and pictures. Generally, each character provides a more explicit cue, leading to a model of the skill by Monty, the 3rd character.