The Law:
The first day that I went to the conference I was able to go to a fantiastic seminar titled "Transition Today, Outcome Tomorrow". The seminar was lead by the Office of Transition Director, June Gothberg and the assistant director, Maria Peak. They did a wonderful job covering what the current needs and focus of transition in our schools are and need to be. I have attached a copy of the PowerPoint they presented and I will highlight some of the parts that I found to be the most revealing.
During the presentation, they gave us a few pair-and-share questions about the transition process for students with disabilities, that we eventually discussed as a whole group. These same questions were used for a study that the state conducted about transition. At the end of the group discussions, the presenters shared with us the actual results. The first pair-and-share question was about if we believed our schools were doing a good job preparing our students to be successful in the community. The second question had us analyze if our community was prepared to support those students. This was an opened ended question and the results found that many people pinpointed different strengths and weaknesses in our state's transition programming. The results showed that many felt that we excelled with community based programming, collaboration focused on addressing mental health needs, and with collecting and using data. The study also showed that many felt that we needed to make major improvements in providing more consistent services, helping families understand post-school options, and making connections with schools and outside agencies. This study is on page 14-16 of the PowerPoint.
Transition
Another presentation that I had the pleasure attending was "Discipline Considerations for Students with Disabilities". This presentation was done by Michael Ghareeb, the Assistant Director of Special Education for Kent ISD. This presentation focused on how the law describes what is legal when disciplining students with disabilities. One of the major concepts I was able to learn was that the law is specific about the amount of time a student can be away from an instructor before it is called a day removed from school. This presentation took a good hard look at behavior intervention plan(BIP) and manifestation determination plans.
Another presentation that I had the pleasure attending was "Discipline Considerations for Students with Disabilities". This presentation was done by Michael Ghareeb, the Assistant Director of Special Education for Kent ISD. This presentation focused on how the law describes what is legal when disciplining students with disabilities. One of the major concepts I was able to learn was that the law is specific about the amount of time a student can be away from an instructor before it is called a day removed from school. This presentation took a good hard look at behavior intervention plan(BIP) and manifestation determination plans.
Technology:
A great seminar I went to at the MCEC was "Technology Tools for Supporting the Common Core". As soon as you enter the room, the presenters set you up with a laptop and had you start following along with their presentation. Even though I was already aware of the majority of the websites and resources they shared with us, I still learned a lot from this presentation.
Two of the most useful resources that I picked up are from the Google Chrome store. The free apps Readability and Speak it! would be a helpful tool for any special educator. Readability takes a website and gets rid of distracting pop-ups and advertising so only the text is showing. This is a great tool for any student who may be more interested in a dating website rather than an article about the Middle East. Speak it! is another free Google Chrome app that will read aloud text from a website. This app would be useful for making students who struggle decoding long articles but are able to comprehend the text independently.
Two of the most useful resources that I picked up are from the Google Chrome store. The free apps Readability and Speak it! would be a helpful tool for any special educator. Readability takes a website and gets rid of distracting pop-ups and advertising so only the text is showing. This is a great tool for any student who may be more interested in a dating website rather than an article about the Middle East. Speak it! is another free Google Chrome app that will read aloud text from a website. This app would be useful for making students who struggle decoding long articles but are able to comprehend the text independently.
www.tagxedo.com is an awesome website the presenters showed me . It will take website, feeds, or Google searches and make a word cloud using whatever picture you can dream of! Here is a word cloud using the words from my blog.
The possibilities are endless!
Inspirational:
Probably the most inspirational of the seminars I attended was the seminar in which Anthony Ianni was the keynote speaker. Anthony Ianni is not only the first person with Autism to play in the NCAA, he also won a ring with Michigan State. He is currently touring as a motivational speaker throughout the state of Michigan. His speech covers a wide range of topics such as living with Autism, overcoming obstacles in his life, and anti-bullying. He would be an excellent speaker for any group of students. He shed light on Bullying and Autism better than most ever could. Check out this quick YouTube video of one of his speeches to get an idea of who he is and what he is trying to accomplish.
