MindWing Concepts Blog

Exploring Settings with Google Earth

In this post, I will be continuing to describe resources to supplement the lessons in It’s All About the Story, and moving on to the element of Setting. Setting is a key area of instruction for students on the autism spectrum not only because they tend not to observe the “expected behaviors” or script for a given setting, but also because they often leave out details about setting when telling stories to others, thus resulting in loss of a point of reference and confusion on the part of their listener. Students in social thinking/skills groups or individual treatment would therefore benefit from building descriptive skills through the use of the Setting Map contained in It’s All About the Story and other SGM resources...

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MindWing Concepts and Instructional Technology

I have long had an interest in how technology can provide context within our interventions, much the same way a storybook can provide context.  In this approach to intervention, MindWing's tools have served as essential structure to help my students break down language, (as used with a website that provides information, for example) or organize and produce language (when used in conjunction with a creative “Web 2.0” resource that allows students to save and publish work). To focus on this latter "bottom-up" strategy, I suggest you check out Kerpoof, one of my favorite resources for its versatility and ease of use.

Kerpoof* is a free, interactive website recently acquired by Disney and is basically an online version of Kidpix Studio. Kerpoof's interface allows you to choose a background, characters and other setting elements, and add word/thought balloons and caption boxes (sounding promising?). You can create, share, export or print the resulting pictures or multi-picture story sequences...

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