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Children with autism seem to learn best when the instructional material is presented in visual form. In this case it might be worthwhile to try different educational programs via a computer. Using a computer is a fun way to learn. The majority of educational programs are highly visual. Many of the games available involve storylines, plots, and realistic human behaviors. Some of the skills autistic children can learn from carefully selected video games are language skills, reading and math skills, and social skills. Visual learning devices are highly effective and can be accompanied by various rewards to reinforce what is being learned. For instance, food and extended leisure activities can be used as rewards that will encourage the child to want to learn. In addition, the use of positive reinforcement will help develop a bond between student and teacher, and create a sense of trust that will help strengthen the learning environment. Social stories are another way to make learning fun for children with autism. Since one of the aspects of autism is the inability to interact normally in a social situation, social stories can be utilized in a variety of different ways in order to model appropriate behavior.

Whether it be researching and creating spreadsheets with data, generating graphs or charts, or creating Web scavenger hunts, ideas abound for using technology in your social studies class today

Students aren’t just passive users of social media tools, either. One in five stated they post online comments on a daily basis, with 41 percent doing it at least weekly. Similarly, 22 percent of students admitted to uploading videos at some point, with nine percent claiming they do so on a weekly basis. And a whopping 30 percent of them publish their own blogs, with 17 percent of them updating them weekly.

if you are going to get students to use another social system, like WebCT, you better be damn sure it is well implemented

Students don’t want to manage 2 or more social systems.

The other method is to do the above, but also create a group for the class. Within the group you can post homework notices and other class notices, as well as have an interface for students to discuss class issues. I also like having the class group because I can see all the students have joined, and I can manage the class a little easier. If I want to send Timmy a message I can do that very easily without having to scroll through my list of friends to find him. Other students can do the same.

I created a music based teaching system called Sounds into Syllables® which is designed to assist these children with their communication and social development difficulties by teaching them how to spell, read, classify words and correctly identify the facial expressions for six universal emotions. Part 1 of the system applies the musical component of ‘pitch’ or ‘tone’ to the process of learning letters and words. The child learns to listen to the letters as musical sounds as well as spoken sounds. With the mastery of the alphabet, the child begins to learn 26 different nouns (animal names). The senses of touch, sight and hearing are further integrated with the introduction of textured words, drawings and sound effects. There is an accompanying teaching book entitled A to Z Animal Book as well as a companion CD and A to Z Animal Workbook. In Part 2 of the system, the 26 animal nouns are matched to 26 related verbs such as dog/bark and lion/roar. There is a second book entitled Animals in Action with the textured words and drawings of the animals in their passive and active states. The child learns the related verbs in the same way he/she learned the nouns. To establish the conceptual relationship between the animal and its action, an animated computer program has been designed specifically for the teaching system. Part 3 of the system addresses the difficulties of social interaction, by emphasizing face perception and emotion recognition. Musical harmony is introduced with the creation of six three-part harmonies each linked to the six universal emotions of happy, sad, afraid, angry, surprised and disgusted. In addition, three two-part harmonies have been created and linked to nouns, verbs and adjectives to further expand word classification for the purpose of sentence creation. These three and two-part harmonies as well as the musical alphabet have been integrated into a forty page book called The Story of Little Bear. Textured letters and color coding are used throughout the book which has also been formatted as a computer book with a number of additional features, such as rollover images and animations. In October, 2006 I implemented a research study with a group of 20 children ranging in age from 6 to 17 who were diagnosed with various forms of autism. The criteria for participation in the study were demonstrated interest in music or musical stimuli and limited or no letter/word recognition. This longitudinal study in ongoing however preliminary results are encouraging. In addition, the system is benefiting a group of children who are diagnosed with learning disabilities other than autism.

Children with autism are often visual learners. They often have poor fine motor skills, and writing is often a chore. Their math and language arts skills are often at different levels. They often learn routine social interaction behavior from observing others or through explicit instruction. Children with ASD need a highly structured education plan.  

what makes an angle, the parts of an angle, and how to name rays

As students observe their world in creative ways, they can utilize technology to record their explorations. They publish what they have seen and learned so that others can collaborate with them and share experiences.

they can harness the web 2.0 technologies to share their experiences with a larger, global audience

Easily create and share timelines with pictures and videos

IBM is helping companies of all sizes across the globe to derive significant value from Web 2.0 and social computing technologies.

At the University of North Carolina, for example, administrators created a pair of dummy Facebook profiles to demonstrate what can happen when students reveal too much information about themselves. These dummy personas, Ivana Bea Stalked and Lloyed Unemployed, reveal more info about themselves than you’d probably want to encounter, from their personal contact information to images of what they look like inebriated or in limited clothing.

Last fall, Malavenda caught a group of students selling cocaine and kicked them off campus. In response, they started a Facebook group called “We hate Pablo,” complete with directions to his house and instructions to hurt and eliminate him.

Or should schools stick to doing what they know best and leave it to higher ed to tackle these issues when students graduate and move on? The answer is probably somewhere in between. Schools, quite rightly, are concerned about online safety and student responsibility, yet it’s hard to teach proper behavior in a vacuum. Given the current environment, though, is it possible to craft the right kind of compromise and make it useful to students and teachers alike?

Teachers are starting to explore the potential of blogs, media-sharing services and other social software - which, although not designed specifically for e-learning, can be used to empower students and create exciting new learning opportunities.

Technology Breakthrough in Communicating with Autistic ChildrenAuthor: mom_to_one, 05 16th, 2008 CALIFORNIA – New technologies are helping autistic children communicate like never before. At the Pacific Autism Center for Education in Santa Clara, each morning begins with a Power Point presentation, launching a day filled with technology and a new type of autism therapy. Two out of every three students at the center are non-verbal, but thanks to a voice output device 12-year-old Alex is able to get the snacks he craves. Malique also uses the device to “talk” for him. “The largest benefit is the ability to give them a voice, gives them a voice that offers a breadth of options and the third benefit is the social interactions that come from having the ability to speak,” explained the center’s Kurt Ohlfs. Technology also makes communicating less cumbersome. Imagine trying to carry around a book with pictures of everything you wanted to convey in a day. Now the students have all that information at their fingertips; 21-year-old Daniel is using a more advanced, hand held device that offers him a menu with hundreds of icon options. He selects the ones he wants and the computer talks in sentences, conveying his thoughts. “It’s amazing when we’ve given some of this technology to our students and it’s opened up that door and now the students are surprisingly prolific when it comes to expressing their thoughts,” said Ohlfs.

A novel educational environment for kids with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs), namely NOESIS, is presented in this paper. NOESIS takes into account ASD kids’ individual characteristics (level of autism, source sensitivity, reaction target, etc), their emotional state (stress level, hyper-/hypo-tension) during their educational procedure, and creativity during guided- and self-activity (e.g., gaming). It adapts to each kid’s specific characteristics through system adaptation and self-regulation procedures. Moreover, it provides assistance to the educator for preparation, customization and optimization of the educational material for each kid and provision of enhanced evaluation procedures (scores/tools) via well-managed Web Services. Parents’ updating is also provided via reporting material with learning curve descriptions. Overall, NOESIS contributes to the provision of opportunities to all ASD children to be educated by facilitating access and tuning innovative technology to social needs.