Day 6- Wed., July 11th, 2012.

Blowing your nose- something we do without thinking too much about it, except maybe once it starts to run down our nose. . . Well today we thought about it more in depth than I ever imagined. We developed a task analysis of the processes our brain and body go through to blow our nose. Here is Nancy and my task analysis of blowing our nose:

Need a tissue?!

Kids can have difficulty at any point of these processes when trying to complete this task. It could be with the tactile grip, the sensory feeling of tissue, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, working memory, and the list goes on. Knowing the process enables us to identify the steps involved in the sequencing so that we can figure out where the student is having difficulty in the sequence and employ assistive tech to help them complete the task. Some things we can develop for a student are video modelling appropriate behaviour is, video sequencing, and using the apps such as pictello, pic collage mentioned

An informative series to watch is PBS DVD series- "The Secret Life of the Brain"- In class we watched "The Challenge of Reading" section. It had great visuals and explanations to help me wrap my head around how all the brain processes work together for the reading task and how the processes were working in a different way in a dyslexic boy. I feel as though I need a science degree in brain functions to completely appreciate the work the brain does!

I started researching and shopping for apps to support the reading process. I am very thankful for in class time to do this, however once again I never feel that there is enough of it. I spent time researching apps that may help, then by the time I downloaded a few and played with them I realised they were not as great as originally thought. So it was back to the research process again. Tomorrow I will be posting 10 apps I have researched, tried, and recommend to support the reading process.