PEDSPROVT Open Forum April 20, 2020

Transcript

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Haya (00:00:04):

… Mary Ellen.

Speaker 2 (00:00:05):

Hi, everybody.

Haya (00:00:10):

Hi. I just started recording this meeting. I am going to announce this again. But we also are really, really

lucky today that we have… We actually have live captioning happening courtesy of UVM, and that’s also

going to be live captioning that’s available on the recording of this event. So I will make that

announcement again. But if anybody would benefit from live captioning for any reason, you can look in

the chat box, and there should be a link from Norma for the live captioning.

Speaker 2 (00:00:41):

That’s great. Thank you for getting that set up.

Haya (00:00:41):

Sure. It was remarkably easy, and it’s something I’ve always kind of been unsure how to do, and it really

just required making… Writing an email to some very friendly people over at CART services. So turns out

not so bad. Hi, Tracy, Mary Ellen, and Tammy and Tracy. Phoebe, I didn’t respond to your response to

me, but I’m happy to just walk through a little tech support. It probably is.

Speaker 3 (00:01:41):

Whatever’s easier. Okay. And I will change my display.

Haya (00:01:43):

Awesome. Thanks.

Speaker 1 (00:01:54):

Marie, Christine. Hi.

Haya (00:01:55):

Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (00:01:58):

Hello. Hi, guys.

Haya (00:02:04):

Hi. I’m not sure who just said that. I don’t know. There’s Tracy. Hi, Marie. Christine.

Speaker 2 (00:02:28):

Oh, there she is.

Haya (00:02:29):

Yeah. No audio yet. Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 2 (00:02:33):

Is she in her car too?

Haya (00:02:34):

Yeah, she is.

Speaker 3 (00:02:39):

What a good turnout again. I feel like there’s been a good turnout for all of these group calls.

Haya (00:02:45):

It’s true. It has all of the excitement of train and talk, which is really sweet and wonderful. Hi to everyone

who’s joining. It’s really great to see everyone’s faces. I think I’m going to wait just another couple of

minutes. Definitely want to wait on Pam because she’s our note taker. And there’s Pam. We certainly need

to wait on Heather and Sandra so that we can start the session.

Speaker 2 (00:03:44):

Hi, everybody. Nice to see so many people here.

Haya (00:03:47):

Isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (00:03:47):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:03:57):

Hey, Heidi.

Speaker 4 (00:04:02):

How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:04:02):

Doing well, thank you.

Haya (00:04:04):

Okay, I’m going to get started just because I know that we have a lot of things that we want to touch on

and what ultimately turns out to be not all that much time. I suspect that a few more people will join us in

the next few minutes, and that’s okay. I wanted to make a first note that we have access to live captioning

today, which is just really exciting. And one of the things that’s really awesome about it is that this is one

more step towards TRIPSCY offerings becoming more accessible so that we can, in good faith, in good

conscience, add them to the UVM TRIPSCY website. And that’s one of the barriers to adding a lot of the

old resources. So I’m really excited that right from the beginning we’ll be able to make this an accessible

resource. I want to thank you all so much for coming today. We’re living in just really extraordinary times

as people and professionals, and it seemed like there was a lot of questions and answers that we could all

provide each other with some support in this time. So my name for anybody I don’t know is Haya Lechtig,

and I am an OT consultant with I-Team, I-Team Early Intervention [inaudible 00:05:58] Project and the

current TRIPSCY coordinator. Yeah, I’m really so glad to see everybody here. It looks like everyone is

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already extremely familiar with mute. I see that the vast majority of you are actually already muted. That

is really extraordinarily helpful, just so that the sound is clearer. And also because as you can see, this is

being recorded, and the way that Zoom recording works is it’s always going to show the active speaker.

So if everyone else is muted, then it will show the speaker when people play back the recording.

(00:06:39):

One request I’m going to make is that if you can change your name in your box. We’re not going to do

introductions today, but rather if you want to rename yourself with your first name, your initial, if you

have a really common name that you think there may be more than one here, and then your role and

maybe an SU that you work for or the region that you live in. It just kind of gives us a sense of who is

here in a quick way. And if you’re not sure how to change your name, if you look at your own picture,

your own image on Zoom, you’ll see that there’s a blue box with three dots in the upper right corner. Click

on that, and one of the options is rename. So I’ll also say if anyone has any trouble with that, Phoebe

Chesna is acting as our tech support person. You can send Phoebe a private chat, and let me just look for

Phoebe on here.

Speaker 3 (00:07:47):

I’ve also put my phone number in there if anybody wants next to my name in case anybody would rather

just call or text me for anything.

Haya (00:07:57):

Awesome, thank you. So Phoebe is available in both of those ways if you’re having any technical

difficulties. And thank you to everyone that was able to change their name. That’s super helpful. Let’s see.

You can use chat if you have something that you want to add, but you don’t want to try and button the

conversation. You can also use the raising hands function if you’re really trying to enter the conversation.

We will be monitoring the chat and can help deposit and give space to someone that might want to

contribute. The hand raising function you can find by going down to participants at the bottom. Wait a

minute, that is where hand raising is, correct?

Speaker 1 (00:08:53):

Haya (00:08:56):

What’s that?

Speaker 1 (00:08:56):

You can’t raise your hand as the host.

Haya (00:08:58):

Oh, that might explain why I don’t see it on my own, but other people see their hand raising? Thank you.

Okay, one other thing is that as we go along, if someone has a resource that they want to share, if your

resource is a link, please add it in the chat box, preferably with a very brief description about what the

link is, what it links to, if you have a resource that you want to share. And that resource is a document, it’s

a file. The best way to share that is to email it to Tamara. And Tamara, could you please just write your

email address into the chat box? Thank you.

(00:09:49):

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Awesome. Apropos of the certificate of attendance, I had a lot of people asking at the end of the event,

one of the last things that we’ll do is if you would like a certificate of attendance, please, we’ll ask you to

write your name and your email address into the chat box, and we’ll make sure that you’re connected with

that certificate. All notes, resources, and recordings will eventually be housed on the TRIPSCY page of

the UVM website. And again, this will be recorded so it’s extra important to mute when you’re not

speaking so that we know that the picture will show the active speaker in real time. Without further ado,

thank you so much for coming. Our first session today is on the topic of transition to adult services, and

our three facilitators are Tammy Willey, who’s a family resources consultant for the I-Team, an I-Team

early intervention project. Helene Gallagher, who is the regional education consultant for the northeast

part of the state, and Deb Sharp, who is currently [inaudible 00:10:57] project coordinator, OT consultant

extraordinaire. And we’re so happy to have all three of you. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (00:11:05):

Okay, thanks, Haya, and thanks everybody for coming to join this meeting today. The topic of transition

to adult services or community services came up because we had a few teams that were in the process of

having their students graduate and move into adult services. And then this happened. So we’re seeing

teams just wondering how we do this remotely and what resources are available for these students, young

adults that we’re planning on being out in the community at this time. So what we did was… And we’d

like to just start by sharing a few resources and just talking about AOE’s position on all of this and what

their supports are and what their recommendations are, and share a few resources and then move to what

are other folks doing around the state and share some of your stories and your challenges and also any

solutions or creative ideas that you’ve come up with to help out other providers that are in the same

situation.

(00:12:25):

So the first document that I’d like to refer people to and all these documents and resources will be posted

on the I-Team Resources website. So the first one was put out by the Vermont Agency Education, and it’s

titled Implementing Transition Services During Remote Learning. And there’s a lot of good information

in there. They talk about if you haven’t gotten to this point with your student, utilize some of the online

transition assessments. So if you haven’t done that yet, that’s a good place to start and kind of move then

into utilizing some of the online career exploration websites. Again, we’ll go through a bunch of these to

share with you, and some of those career exploration websites really can suggest some meaningful kind of

assignments that tie into the goals, the transition goals, and the students IEP. So you might find those

really helpful. That document will also outline a bunch of transition assessments that we’re not… We

won’t review today, but there are a number of online assessments that are available and on that document

that you can use to get started.

Speaker 4 (00:14:01):

Excuse me, Haya, are we able to share our screen? Or may I? I don’t seem to have access to that now, and

it’s okay if I can’t, but if I can, I thought I would put that document up for a minute.

Haya (00:14:12):

Oh, I absolutely will. [inaudible 00:14:19]. I will enable that.

Speaker 4 (00:14:21):

Thank you.

Haya (00:14:22):

Yeah, sorry to interrupt, Deb. Nope. And it might take me a moment, actually, hold on a second.

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Speaker 4 (00:14:33):

Okay, so we wanted to draw your attention to one of the items that actually, Mary… Is it able to work?

Speaker 5 (00:14:45):

Pardon?

Speaker 4 (00:14:45):

No, it’s still saying that I can’t share screen. That’s okay.

Haya (00:14:49):

And I just made you a co-host for the moment.

Speaker 4 (00:14:49):

Did let me check that.

Haya (00:14:52):

Okay, here we go. I just made you a co-host and that should-

Speaker 4 (00:14:55):

But Ted knows that.

Haya (00:14:56):

Okay, got it.

Speaker 4 (00:14:58):

Thank you.

Haya (00:15:02):

Okay. Hopefully. There we go.

Speaker 1 (00:15:04):

Yes, you just made-

Speaker 4 (00:15:05):

Okay. Okay. So not to make people dizzy, but that’s the top of the document from the AOA implementing

transition services during remote learning. And here are some assessments that are listed. And all of these,

as you can see are links, career exploration activities. But what I wanted to draw your attention to for a

moment was these items here, and in particular one that Mary Ellen Sivarita pointed out that could be

particularly pertinent right now, which is this item 12. Independent living transition services may not be

able to be offered at this time because of COVID school closures. Special educators should document

what services is not possible to implement at this time to be considered later possibly for compensatory

services. We thought that was particularly relevant for people to be aware of because one thing that I had

run into on a team that I’m working with right now is that the student will be graduating at the end of

November because he’s turning 22.

(00:16:13):

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And our worry was now with the school being closed and community not being available to our students

necessarily, we were wondering how were we going to help this young man prepare for his transition. So

it’s important to be aware that it’s possible to have some compensatory services taking place to make up

for some of that lost time because summer is also not guaranteed to us right now. We’re not really sure if

things will be available then either.

Speaker 2 (00:16:47):

Thanks, Elaine. That’s great clarification and for sharing that document. If you want to, are you able to

scroll down a little bit to career exploration?

Speaker 4 (00:16:58):

Sure. There’s all the… Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:17:03):

So I did not have a chance to review all of these, but it’s a list of online options to kind of go more in

depth into looking at different careers and browsing around. And there’s student-friendly websites and so

there’s just some options for you to look through. And the Occupational Outlook Handbook is another

resource that’s recommended by a AOE and kind of have students do research into different types of

careers and jobs that they might be interested in pursuing. So that’s a good one to check out. So there’s the

AOE contribution for us all, and there’s a lot of useful stuff there. Helene has also found some other…

There we go. Employability skills and transition strategies. So Helene, do you want to speak to this

resource for folks?

Speaker 4 (00:18:17):

Sure. I had attended a webinar and perhaps some of you have attended it also put on by Project Success.

Project Success is putting on open forums similar to this on Thursday afternoons, and they’re actually

doing another one tomorrow afternoon. I think it might be about one o’clock to 2:30, but I’ll look that up

for you and make sure I get that information to you in the chat box. So before each of these weekly

question and answer periods, what they do is send out a padlet and there’s an updated one each week. So

in fact, there’s a new one this week, and they put out what their agenda is going to be, what they’re going

to talk about. They’ll share a little bit of information and then it really becomes resource sharing.

(00:19:03):

So I found it to be really valuable and on each of these areas… So if we go to guiding questions on many

of these, first of all, you can scroll, know that it goes much further to the side, but also it goes up and

down. And this is a document from NTAC that I really thought to be useful. Hopefully, it will work for

us. Yes, choice boards. And they have one for career exploration. So these are some things that perhaps

the young adult that you might be supporting could go in and have some voice and choice around the

types of things that they want to explore. And they all have links to the various activities and then they

have them for the various areas. So they have it for education and training here. And then independent

living.

(00:19:55):

And an interesting bright spot that has come out of some of our students being at home is that it can be a

nice time for them to work on some of these independent skills because they do have time to be home and

cooking if they have that support or making a bed or setting the table, doing some of those chore type

activities and perhaps exploring some hobbies that they might be interested in doing. Just let me go back

from that one. Hopefully, I can figure that out. Okay. And this was a example of a week at a glance, so

thinking about how you might map out the work that you want to do with your client and the various

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areas that you might be working on, education, employment, independent living, and then they have a

way to break it down by activity and supports needed. So for some families, it can be really

overwhelming. I’m sure you’ve run into this. People are having difficulty thinking about how to structure

the day. And so this is a way to think about, well, if I just had to think about something to do Monday

morning, afternoon, evening. But they can have flexibility around when they want to do those types of

activities. And there are some opportunities for training. Here we go, upcoming professional

development. And some of these are occurring in the summertime also. And these are all the previous

past, the padlet that Project Success has put out prior to these forums that they’re doing. So lots of good

stuff in here. We can kind of poke around and pick and choose things that might work for you.

Speaker 2 (00:21:45):

Thanks, Helene. This is awesome information, and I love the choice board and I love your comment about

making sure in whatever way you can to include the student’s voice in these planning activities. And I

want to put Tammy Willy on the spot for a minute because I know this is near and dear to her heart, and

you can articulate that a little bit for us, Tammy.

Speaker 5 (00:22:14):

Yeah, I totally agree. It’s really important to have the student’s voice in this discussion, but I also think it’s

equally important that students have information about what their choices are. So information in terms of

what is choice, what are my choices, what is employment, what is volunteer work? I mean, I think there’s

a lot of sort of pre-teaching that needs to happen in advance of decision-making. So to include students, I

think it’s always really important to remember that they have as much information and prior knowledge in

advance of discussion as possible and also really including obviously the family’s input, doing sort of

little check-ins to see how is this working for you, what additional things can we support you with?

Speaker 2 (00:23:08):

Absolutely. So I want to make sure that we kind of stay on track and give folks a chance to share some of

your stories and what you’re running into now with transitioning your students in a remote learning time

into adult supports and community-based activities remotely. So if anybody can share any successes or

any challenges that you’re having right now, that would be really welcome.

Speaker 3 (00:23:48):

I think kind of what Helene was saying, it’s a great opportunity to have the students working on life skills

in the context that they would actually be doing it, which is great. And I found that to be…

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:24:04]

Speaker 6 (00:24:00):

Which is great. And I found that to be going really well for some kids who have a solid support system at

home and parents who have a good understanding of how to support them in all of this. I think one of the

challenges is in the situations where you don’t quite have as solid of a support system at home, it’s kind of

like, how do you do it? Kind of figuring out how to reach them and support them in a way that is helpful

and kind of doable for the family, if that makes sense.

Deb (00:24:42):

Yeah. Any other thoughts, or has anyone run into some real challenges with this? I know with one of our

teams, they are opting to graduate the student early instead of hanging in there until his birthday in

November. So that’s one consideration that we’ve run into, and it’s a frustrating one because there’s still

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work to be done, and didn’t know if anybody else had run into that scenario. And that’s good if you

haven’t. How are other people supporting their high school young adults right now with some of the

community-based things that they don’t have access to right now?

Speaker 4 (00:25:52):

Is anybody working with voc rehab closely or are you having… Hopefully you’re still having your team

meetings on a semi-regular basis and voc rehab is involved for some of these students. Can somebody

speak to how that might be working?

Sandra (00:26:16):

I am not with any of our high school students working with voc rehab, which makes me feel sad. I note to

self that we need to beat that up a little bit. But on a personal note, I have a young adult with

developmental disabilities, and everything has come to a screeching hall, all supports for her have been

pulled, job coaching, things like that to support her in the work field. So she’s not working, and probably

won’t be until everything is lifted. And it’s challenging. It’s really hard to fill time productively. So it’s

interesting to see your schedule because her sister said, ” Alex, you need a schedule.” And they

implemented choices and she can decide when she doesn’t, but she has to check off all the boxes by the

end of the day. And it is really challenging for these young adults, and even job shadowing and how you

learn about what your choices are, all of that is so diminished right now. That sounded kind of negative. I

didn’t mean it to be, I just realized that it was like Debbie Downer or something. Sorry about that.

Speaker 4 (00:27:43):

No, I think it’s reality.

Heather (00:27:45):

Yeah, I think it’s important to know the barriers and to be able to paint a picture, an accurate picture of

what the barriers are. I wouldn’t call that Debbie Downer.

Sandra (00:27:54):

Right.

Speaker 4 (00:27:59):

This is your daughter. Is your daughter’s team still meeting? Sandra?

Sandra (00:28:05):

No, they’re not. A lot of the employees for the local agency have been temporarily laid off. So she has

someone call once a week to check in, which is very nice. And I feel badly for the families where anxiety

is way high and the parents have the wherewithal to help support their young adults, and it’s got to be

super challenging.

Kim (00:28:41):

I don’t work with children in high school either, I work with younger children. But I similarly have my

own son with a disability, and things have come to us. He was in Special Olympics, he was supposed to

go to dance competition, he had all of this stuff going on and everything got canceled, boom, Monday

night bowling. And his worker is no longer working with him and taking him out into the community, and

his job is no longer open. So I get what you’re dealing with. Part of what we’ve done is his worker, instead

of coming to the house and working with him, they FaceTime. So they go through his daily schedule and

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check off things, and she’ll check in with him from time to time to see how he’s doing. And she’s really

his cheerleader so that I don’t have to be on his back all the time making our life situation even more

stressful than it is right now.

(00:29:39):

And he also has become my assistant. So while I’m down here in my basement of Doom, if I have

laminating to be done or things to be cut out for me or anything, he comes and he sits at the desk next to

me and he is doing all these little and ends jobs for me just to kind of give him some self-worth because I

think that’s what’s really lacking in a lot of our kiddos lives right now. They don’t have their sports, they

don’t have their friends, they don’t have anything that makes them feel like they want to get up and out of

bed in the morning.

(00:30:13):

So on a personal level, that’s what I’m doing for my own family, just trying to give them jobs and make

them feel like, really, you are needed and you are appreciated. And that’s all, it seems to be working for

him. I don’t know that it would work for everybody else, but there’s kind of a little bit of the life skill in

there and having to follow a process of doing whatever task it is that I give him to do. So hopefully other

people are finding those kind of things to do with their kiddos at home. I know it’s hard with people

working and raising families and everything.

Pam (00:30:53):

I love that idea so much, Kim. This is Pam. I love it. I think that that’s just a great idea and it helps you

too. And that sense of accomplishment for both of you is great.

Kim (00:31:03):

Yeah, he enjoys it. So it makes everybody’s life easier, right, when everybody’s happy?

Margaret (00:31:10):

I also have a daughter who’s 31 at this point who unfortunately is not able to work at this point who also

has special needs. And I initially wanted to write, put a little more structure to her day and to write out a

schedule. And she’s within earshot right now. I’m sure she’s around. She wasn’t very thrilled about that.

And what she did is she came up with her own, and I didn’t realize that until two weeks in, and she had it

up in her room, and she’s been checking off everything. And I said, “No, Colleen, do you really need

relaxing on there?” She goes, “Yes, because it makes me feel good to check it off.”

(00:31:54):

So I was pretty impressed. And the other thing that’s been helping her tremendously is setting up, and

she’s been doing it, but setting up a lot of Zoom calls with friends and family, and family will give her the

time to talk. And she’s been Zooming with cousins and that type of thing. So she just got off 30 minutes

with her personal trainer who is now Zooming with her. So anything to add a little bit of structure to the

day, and to have contact with people other than her family has been extremely helpful.

Speaker 4 (00:32:31):

Yeah, I think, Margaret, you just brought up so many really good points. So one of them is building a

routine, that’s so helpful to all of us. I know I need my routine. It’s really helping me through this school

closure period. Also, the visual supports, it’s interesting that she made her own visual supports, but

making it known to the student, what is your routine? And again, adding that piece of choice. So it may

be exercise time, but you can have your choice about what that could look like, right? Do you want to go

for a walk? Do you want to do a dance video? That type of thing. All of that is really important, so thanks

for sharing that. And also the piece about remaining social, having those social opportunities, and

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continuing to work on our communication skills is always so important. So with the student that I had

mentioned, I’m actually emailing with him using my Proloquo to go on my device, and then he’s using his

device to email back and forth. So that’s a good time to work on literacy and the social skills, and that’s

been really fun.

Speaker 7 (00:33:40):

I just wanted to say as a box checker, I think it’s really important that we make the task lists include the

other things they’re easy to check off, so that they do feel like they’re able to check off a lot of really good

things and they don’t just have five really big, daunting things to check off.

Speaker 4 (00:34:01):

Yes. Thank you. You’re right. Balance is super important.

Deb (00:34:04):

Yeah, thank you. So just being mindful of the time and our next facilitators on deck. Thanks, you guys.

And the AOE document is already on the iTeam resources website, and we’ll get the other ones up for you

all.

Haya (00:34:24):

Deb, you can actually-

Deb (00:34:26):

Haya (00:34:26):

Oh, I was just going to say, this conversation can actually have a few more minutes. I actually allocated

for you guys to have a half hour from when you started, which wasn’t until a little bit after 1:30. So if

anybody else has additional comments or any wrap-ups or anything, there’s a little more time.

Speaker 4 (00:34:44):

If there are particular resources you’re looking for because we gathered much more than what we just

shared. So it might be something that, while we haven’t displayed it, we might have it or someone else on

this lovely call today might have it.

Speaker 8 (00:35:02):

I also just have just a question to put out to the group. If there’s anyone that has a successful experience

with a student that isn’t particularly screen friendly, like connecting via a screen doesn’t seem to be

working for that student, if people have creative ways they’ve supported a family to support that student at

home, I would love to hear that.

Speaker 6 (00:35:27):

So a colleague of mine has a student in that sort of situation, and they’ve actually been doing videos of,

it’s a PT. So during their PT activities, the family does it kind of without her and takes a video of it. And

at first she kind of was like, “Oh boy, this is going to be interesting to just give comments.” But they’ve

actually found it to be really useful and helpful, and it kind of gives a different perspective. So basically,

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they send the video, she takes time to kind of watch it, make notes, and then they consult afterwards. And

it’s actually been more successful than she was expecting. So might be an idea.

Tammy (00:36:09):

That’s great [inaudible 00:36:11].

Speaker 4 (00:36:11):

I had a question. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Tammy.

Tammy (00:36:16):

That’s okay. [inaudible 00:36:16].

Speaker 4 (00:36:16):

I had a question about, along the lines of visual supports, are there people that are successfully using

visual scene displays to help practice some of the skills we might be doing typically in the community, or

video modeling? Are there people that are working on that right now, the students?

Kim (00:36:42):

I know, so I had involved Tristan in making a few videos for a couple of kiddos that I work with and

sending them. Luckily he loves to be the star, so it worked out nicely. But I haven’t received much

feedback on that. But I also know as far as kids that don’t like the screen time, Shelly is working with a

student and she reads books to them to a couple of different students, and she’ll read books and then she’ll

give them a little task to do afterwards. So the parent will sit and watch the video of Shelly reading the

book, and then Shelly will be like, “Well, now you go find, go through your recycling bin and find

something that you think will flow and check it out in the bathtub or the sink.” And they have to go and

do their little experiment. And that seems to be working for those two families that she’s doing that with

without the student having to interact over the screen.

Speaker 4 (00:37:39):

That sounds great. Thank you.

Sandra (00:37:42):

We’re going to show you this after, but has anyone used Screencastify, where it’s a Chrome extension?

But I wonder, for these kids that are screen shy, if you could be interacting like they’re doing a worksheet

and just your little picture is down at the corner of the worksheet or something, so it’s not as in their face,

and maybe that would be a way that eased into that 2D interaction on the screen, and they’re focusing on

an activity. It could be coloring, or a chart, or a worksheet, but you could be dialoguing maybe while

they’re doing that. Just an idea.

Deb (00:38:28):

That’s a great idea. I love that, Sandra. So I think this is a good time to segue over to you guys since

you’ve already opened that door. So I’m going to sign off and mute, and let you take it over.

Haya (00:38:43):

Am going to pop in for just a second and say thank you so much, Tammy, Deb, and Helene, and to

everyone else. I’m going to also make Sandra and Heather co-hosts right now, so that you can share your

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screens and your resources in real time. I also want to just clarify that the place that all of these resources

are going to be housed is going to be in a file on the [inaudible 00:39:11] page rather than on the iTeam

page, just so you know where to look for them. And I will make sure and send that link along. There were

many people who wanted to be able to attend today who couldn’t, and we said that we would have a live

recording transcript and all the resources and links available. So that’s where that’ll be. Heather and

Sandra, please take it away.

Sandra (00:39:38):

Well, Heather, do you have your screen handy?

Heather (00:39:41):

I have my screen handy. I’m going to cut and paste the, oops, I definitely cut that. So Sandra and I thought

that we could use this time as sort of information sharing and tips and tricks on what we’ve learned along

the way this last month about technology, some strategies that we’ve used that colleagues have used, and

hopefully you guys, this will be an interactive one where you guys can share ideas and strategies as well.

So I am going to hopefully send a whole bunch of links right now of some of the information that we’re

going to share. But do you want me to share my screen, Sandra, and you do the talking?

Sandra (00:40:34):

we’ve used it?

Yeah, why don’t you do that, Heather, and then we can open up each thing and talk about it and how

Heather (00:40:43):

Okay. What would you like to start with?

Sandra (00:40:46):

Why don’t we start with… We were talking in the previous dialogue about schedules and picture, visual

support. So why don’t we start with that?

Heather (00:40:59):

Okay. Can you guys see my screen right now? All right, let me take away the Zoom chat. So I’m not

following the chat here. All right, so you guys should see Ozzie’s task list. Is that, Sandra, can you…

Sandra (00:41:19):

Yes, I can.

Heather (00:41:20):

Are people nodding that I can’t see? Okay, go ahead. Take it away.

Sandra (00:41:22):

Oh, I know. I can’t see anyone either, so, okay. Well, so this could work. This is for a second grader, but

this could work for any age level. This was through a Google classroom and the student was getting just

the written task list each day and was frustrated. So we added the visual picture support of him doing

what he’s supposed to be doing, his clipboard work or the iReady stuff. And I think it’s been helpful. He’s

more independent, at least knows what the expectation is getting through the checklist. So that’s with a

Google classroom, but super easy to add pictures, and I know I can’t see anybody, but you’re all probably

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like, “Yeah, yeah, we do this all the time.” Similar to visual schedules, the visual schedule planner or

Choice works. I am sure we’ve all been changing those quite a bit to help support all age levels at home.

What’s the next thing, Heather?

Heather (00:42:41):

Well, let’s see if, does anybody have any questions about this? So this was done with Google Forms, so

it’s a form that we’re finding teachers are using frequently in the Google Classrooms. Okay.

Haya (00:42:58):

Heather, I’m wondering if I were able to click on the image. Does it click through to a page or anything

like that? Or is it just a discrete task list?

Heather (00:43:13):

It is just a discrete task list. I don’t think that there’s a way that we are aware of that, that you can link

pages to a task list. I’d love to throw that out to the group, has anybody found a workaround around that?

Because that would be really fabulous. But this is what it looks like once you’re done there, you click the

tabs, it highlights them, and then goes through.

Sandra (00:43:43):

We could take it a step further though. Heather would Google forms if the teacher pre-planned ahead and

did the Screencastify with it, the teacher could do a video walking the student through all the task

expectations, and then send that to the student.

Heather (00:44:04):

Yes. That’s a great suggestion. So I pulled up your Screencastify, Sandra, Right?

Sandra (00:44:13):

Okay. So don’t judge me on this. It was my very first trial using it.

Heather (00:44:19):

So this is a Google extension, is that right, Sandra?

Sandra (00:44:22):

Correct.

Heather (00:44:22):

And it’s free.

Sandra (00:44:23):

Hi. I am going to show you [inaudible 00:44:35].

Haya (00:44:36):

It’s quite quiet. If there’s a way to turn up the sound on the… Yeah, there you go. Thank you.

Heather (00:44:49):

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That’s my Wi-Fi, yeah. I’ll keep playing here.

Sandra (00:44:52):

Hi. I am going to show you how to use Castify [inaudible 00:45:00] is free. And so download and add it

on, and it’s a nice way to have a personal touch while-

Heather (00:44:52):

Can you guys hear that?

Haya (00:45:10):

It’s pretty quiet, but it got louder after the first moment, I think, as Sandra came closer to her device.

Sandra (00:45:20):

… via telehealth so that they can see you. So you can talk [inaudible 00:45:25] them through an activity

worksheet, whatnot. So I’m going to try and demonstrate one thing that you can do is, there are different

tools-

Sandra (00:45:40):

I’m just going to talk over this. So basically there are different tools with Castify, you can use your

highlighters. So say you’re working on a worksheet or you’re using a rating scale of exertion or whatnot,

you can use this highlighter tool. There’s a pencil, so you can draw. So this is something, again, that

you’re engaging with the student at the same time. As far, you can see, this picture, my picture, I can take

it away or I can add it back. I can make it bigger or smaller or move it to the side. So it’s a nice tool, I

think, for telehealth.

Heather (00:46:39):

Any questions about this one? Is this a tool that others have used? Do others have any experience with

this that they want to share?

Speaker 9 (00:46:55):

Can you just repeat the name of the program? I was having trouble hearing, and my internet was wonky

for a minute.

Sandra (00:47:01):

Okay, I’m going to put it in the chat.

Speaker 9 (00:47:03):

Perfect. Thank you. This sounds exactly perfect for my needs at the moment. So awesome. Thanks.

Heather (00:47:11):

Screencastify highlighted it up here in the bar, but Sandra put it in the chat as well. All right, are you

doing that now, Sandra? Or should we do it after?

Sandra (00:47:23):

Yeah.

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Heather (00:47:23):

Okay.

Sandra (00:47:24):

I did it. So again, it’s a Chrome extension. It’s free right now. You can pay for fancier tools that go with it,

but I think the basic version’s pretty good as is.

Heather (00:47:48):

Okay. A visual schedule, we get at a glance, Sandra?

Sandra (00:47:52):

Yep. Heather and Erin did this with one of their students, and it’s a family, I think, that needs more

support.

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:48:04]

Sandra (00:48:00):

It’s a family, I think, that needs more support. The parents are struggling and the kids need routine. And

so, they have different team members checking in every day, but at the same time and doing the same

exact path. So it’s something that the student can rely on and expect and I… Heather, how is that going for

you guys?

Heather (00:48:28):

It really is going well. So this was a family that was really struggling and wasn’t able to really access and

complete many of the activities. Lots of the activities had to be significantly adapted for his needs. And

so, it just was a huge struggle. Even the things that were really fun for him in school, like riding his

adapted trike, he was flat out refusing to do at home.

(00:48:51):

So the team came up with this idea, and actually, the general educator came up with this format with the

background changes. Each theme changes each week because this kiddo’s in preschool. But the idea of

having the same start, a middle activity, the saying goodbye, and then if the parents wanted to do

something, there is an optional activity.

(00:49:15):

But really liked how we made it a visual schedule for the families to follow, and for him to follow, with

our pictures, and our faces so he knows who to expect that day. That the time is the same, and that the

routine is the same to try and help build a little bit more success with implementation and to reduce

caregiver stress. And we’re in week two for this and it’s been fabulous. The team meets on Mondays to

create the content for the following week. And the special educator creates this document each week.

Speaker 10 (00:49:56):

I can say for a fact, Heather, that it is working well. And the family, definitely, is enjoying that. And they

look forward to 10:30.

Pam (00:50:11):

How is this being created? What is the…

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Heather (00:50:16):

So this…

Sandra (00:50:22):

Was that through Kami?

Heather (00:50:24):

Can you remember the name of it?

Sandra (00:50:26):

Was it through Kami, K-A-M-I?

Heather (00:50:29):

No, this wasn’t Kami. I have to take the screen off screen-share for me to go… Oh, hold on. I can look on

my phone. Talk amongst yourselves. I will get the information for it. The preschool teacher is really

into… She’s so tech-savvy and she creates beautiful visual schedules like this for all.

Pam (00:50:52):

Is it Canva? That’s what I was thinking, is it Canva?

Sandra (00:50:52):

Okay.

Heather (00:50:52):

Say the name of it again.

Pam (00:50:59):

Canva, C-A-N-V-A.

Heather (00:51:00):

Yes, that’s it. That’s it. C-A-N-V-A.

Pam (00:51:02):

things like this.

Heather (00:51:08):

Me too.

Pam (00:51:08):

Yes.

Heather (00:51:09):

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I’m happy that I only had to just show my picture and give an idea for an activity and get to be part of

something that’s so fun.

Pam (00:51:18):

And great idea too. I love the idea of that each person does the same structure to their time with the

student. That’s really helpful.

Heather (00:51:28):

Yeah. This is such a nice example of a collaborative approach to meeting a family’s needs, and I’m so

grateful for this team because it really feels like we’re doing right by this family and we’re not siloed in

this process at all.

Speaker 12 (00:51:49):

Heather, that was … Oh, excuse me.

Sandra (00:51:49):

Oh, go ahead, Haya.

Speaker 12 (00:51:53):

That was exactly my thought was I was looking at this and I was thinking, “This is so beautifully

collaborative and it’s such a wonderful ‘less is more.'” You could easily create more of the same for a

family that has more bandwidth and you could easily also shrink it down. But it’s so nice not only for

students, but for their families, even the highest capacity families to kind of know what to expect from

day to day. And so I think this is a really wonderful model above and beyond the technology, but also just

the structure that it can help bring to a student and family’s life. So it’s great.

Heather (00:52:36):

And it’s nice, too, when there’s subtle changes. Like we each decided in advance what our day was going

to be, but like on this week, my day was going to be Thursday, but I co-visited with the speech therapist

that day because we needed to do a check on positioning for a breath control program that he’s working

on. And so being able to switch around, we all have that time blocked off of that 10:30 time, but being

able to switch around makes it really easy for the family to understand expectations. And they get this on

Sunday night so they know that week-long expectation. So even though I’m not there on that Thursday or

Friday, I’m coming on a Tuesday, it’s so visual that it’s easier for students to understand. And families,

like you said, Haya.

Sandra (00:53:22):

Heather (00:53:24):

All right. So that’s that that guy. It looks like the next one… Oh, hey. That’s a zoom. Didn’t mean to do

that. Were the distance consultation summaries that we’ve started?

Sandra (00:53:35):

Yeah. So this was for a family that we see every two weeks, so we wanted-

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Heather (00:53:45):

I’m just looking for that one.

Sandra (00:53:47):

…to remind them what mutual goals that we agreed upon. Like one was drinking from an open cup. And

if you’re wondering why we chose that cup, the canning jar, the bumps on the rim, I think, give the little

girl more [inaudible 00:54:04] input so it’s the only cup she’s actually drinking from well without spilling

from her lips.

(00:54:11):

But anyway, so they put this on the refrigerator and it reminds the whole family.

(00:54:16):

‘Cause there are grandparents and the parents, so it’s like a lot of adults with this child. So we wanted

something that everyone could see. And so this lives on their refrigerator until we meet again and then we

will do a new one for them. So it’s like a little post-visit summary, again with visuals. And then we put on

the second page…

Heather (00:54:41):

So that’s the refrigerator page is the first page?

Sandra (00:54:44):

Yeah. So that one is by itself. And then this is what our job, our homework was so that the parents knew

what we would be doing and getting back to them about and then we wanted to try and structure the next

visit. So these were just some leading questions and the link we included for them so that we could re-

Zoom. What are other people doing for their visits? How are you documenting and are you using

something similar for families?

Speaker 6 (00:55:33):

I think it’s been a little bit different for each family for me just because everybody kind of seems to want

something different, but I really like what you’ve done with this. I feel like it kind of shows, well

definitely shows what you’re doing and providing for the family, but I like that it gives something for

them to go off of the rest of the week and a place for them to jot down their thoughts and ideas throughout

the week. Because I think sometimes during that weekly phone call with the parents, it’s like they kind of

forget about it and you call and then it’s like, “Oh, I think everything’s going good, yeah…” So I think

giving them time To think about it when it’s convenient for them too is nice.

Sandra (00:56:23):

Yeah. And this, someone mentioned earlier with the young adult conversation we were having about

having… Oh God, I’m losing my words. You want the family or the student, whoever you’re working

with, invested. And so these ideas really came from a conversation with Dad and things that he felt they

could take on and do. So that was really nice as well.

Heather (00:56:54):

And we-

Speaker 14 (00:56:56):

What about the families that can’t print?

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Sandra (00:57:02):

Good question. I guess we would send them a hard copy in the mail. But you’re right, there probably are a

lot of families that would have that issue.

Heather (00:57:13):

At each of our schools, there are systems in place for printing and sending materials to families. So we

would just access those. That is our best guess.

(00:57:29):

I also send this link to the families too so that they could have an electronic copy as well or you can send

it as a PDF in an email. There are two other examples of this, and just like Sandra said, they’re really

tailored to what the families wanted. So I’ll just show you, this was one that wasn’t a co-visit, it was just a

PT visit and the family was looking for ways to keep the child motivated to be moving. ‘Cause that was a

battle that the family was having and this particular student is really into math and graphing. So we talked

about riding his bike on daily walks with the dog, with mom, and I created a little chart for him so that…

Hang on, this is still loading. So that he can input, I’m going to wait for my spreadsheet to come up. He

can say, okay, I went for a walk for 20 minutes today and it shows up as a graph. And each day that he

walks with his mom, he’ll see that show up on his graph. And that, for this particular student is going to

be wildly motivating. So I’ve linked that into his daily program and that way with these Google Docs,

they’ll show up here when the information comes in, I can kind of see it in real time as well and send a

quick email and give them props.

(00:58:59):

This is for an elementary school student who is in early elementary school, so has the ability to read and

can answer emails. So I can be able to have a little bit more of a connection with the families. The

family’s biggest concern was staying motivated to move and so I tried to think out of the box how I could

use some technology to help. Take what his strengths are, which are in numbers and graphs and things

like that, and pair that with his least preferred activity, which is movement. So that’s another strategy. And

you guys can use this and copy this document in Google and once you erase the numbers you can use it

for anybody that you want. So you can use this format if you’d like, I’ve shared that far and wide.

Pam (00:59:50):

Heather, I love that so much. That’s really awesome. And can you make me one for my workouts and

Speaker 10 (00:59:59):

Mine too. Thank you.

Speaker 15 (01:00:01):

What I love about this is it’s sort of like a Fitbit for early education

Heather (01:00:09):

And there’s so… You could embed. So math is his strength and this kiddo doesn’t necessarily need a

whole ton more of math work, but it’s what makes him motivated. So

Speaker 15 (01:00:18):

It’s so great

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Heather (01:00:19):

He and I came up with this together at our last visit.

Speaker 15 (01:00:20):

Even better

Heather (01:00:23):

And so linking that into this format. And this child isn’t, I would say doesn’t have… I don’t have as much

involvement in him as the last example that Sandra and I gave where I feel like we have a lot more

involvement with that family. Because his needs are different. So this was a one-page summary for him.

It’s just a couple of things, a couple of pictures and then talking points for our next visit so he knows what

to expect for our next visit.

(01:00:58):

I was telling Sandra, I really struggled with the idea of not… We have to do our documentation different

in our district and I struggle with not having a place to write my plan because I feel like my PT

documentation and defensible documentation, we always need to have our plan. So this was my family

friendly version of what my PT plan is going to be for the next visit.

Speaker 12 (01:01:21):

Heather, someone was wondering where you would share that graphing spreadsheet.

Heather (01:01:28):

So this is a family that’s tech- savvy. Oh, where I will share it?

Speaker 12 (01:01:33):

Yes. ‘Cause people want to use it.

Heather (01:01:36):

You guys have this, you guys have this consultation summary sample too in the chat.

Speaker 12 (01:01:47):

Oh look at that. And the link is embedded in the page. Thank you.

Heather (01:01:49):

Yeah. The link’s embedded in the page there and I mean I can send it out a different way if people need it

a different way.

Pam (01:01:57):

I’m just thinking again, this is something that whole graphing would be absolutely would not work for so

many people and kids, it’s the last thing they want to do is open something to document but-

Heather (01:02:07):

Totally.

Pam (01:02:08):

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…this works so well for him. It just reminds me of a student I had in high school when I was working in

Chittenden East and he was so about his phone, everything was the phone, the phone, the phone. And we

found a fitness app that we both could be on so we could see and there was all sorts of stuff like that and it

was so motivating for him. And knowing it was accountable because I could see it as well, it worked

really well for him. Again, using what the student likes and motivating them that way. It was great. Love

it.

Heather (01:02:43):

There was one other example, we don’t need to go through that one, but this was another example of a

distance consultation summary with photos, supports follow up plan and then talking points. AT, any

questions about that consultation summary? And I got to be honest, I have to give Ann, Ann you can pipe

in and raise your hand to show them who you are, where you are, credit for the idea because Ann and I

co-visit, she is the early intervention birth to three PT, so we co-visit for a student and I really learned a

lot from our conversations about what families need after the visit to help sort of make that visit more

effective. And so I picked up on that piece of the puzzle from Ann Parson. So I need to tip my hat to Ann.

Pam (01:03:51):

This is Pam again. I agree. It’s been interesting. This has come up a couple times that a lot of the stuff that

we think about for early intervention home visiting has been applicable to some of what’s happening now

for students because we’re in their home, sort of in their homes. We’re more in their homes than we

typically are as school therapists. And I was thinking that exact thing, this chart you’re showing, this

consultation summary of what the plan is but also what’s going to happen next And even this way of

families documenting, this is just stuff that you wouldn’t do in school because you don’t necessarily,

you’re not asking families to be that responsible for these parts, but early intervention you often are. And

sometimes it’s just as simple as the one recommendation this week and that refrigerator sheet, just check

mark when you’ve done it or what your questions are as they come up. I just think these are all really

valuable. Good job you guys.

Heather (01:04:53):

That was another strategy that I thought that we might mention in this just as tips and tricks was the co-

visiting with early intervention, especially for kids who are transitioning, is a strategy to think about as

well. Because it’s no more stress or usually not a significant addition of stress to the family because the

visits are typically scheduled for the early intervention providers and if we’re just going to hop on board

to get to know this child before they transition or if they’re transitioning over the summer as part of their

90-day transition plan, to include some of the co-visits with them I think is a great idea.

Speaker 10 (01:05:31):

It works really smoothly. It does. Heather and I have been doing it for a while and the families get

comfortable with two and then you fade out into separate entities.

Sandra (01:05:45):

And I think it’s also a different version of co-visiting doing like OTPT or OTPT speech all at the same

time with families right now during this covid time. Because I think the families are just overwhelmed,

anxious, trying to work and teach their kids. And so we’ve been buddying up when we get in touch with

them to use their time wisely and I think that’s been super helpful.

Heather (01:06:14):

Yeah.

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Sandra (01:06:22):

All right Heather, what’s next?

Heather (01:06:25):

We’ve got the announcement about AT ed for all. So do we want to… we can just-

Sandra (01:06:35):

Yeah, let’s do.

Heather (01:06:36):

Sandra and I went to this conference with a few others here in this group and the presenters for this

assistive technology for education were excellent.

Sandra (01:06:50):

Fantastic.

Heather (01:06:51):

This was shared with you guys from our last meeting as a resource with the apps that are available that we

compiled this matrix for. They are doing a live training that we wanted you guys all to know about. So if

you want to have some direct training from these ladies, we highly recommend it, they were awesome.

Super functional for our jobs in schools and it’s happening next week. Did the link, did that link… It’s a

Zoom meeting and I don’t have access to the chat room, but is it in the info from the chat room that I put a

Zoom link in there? If not, I will. I can’t go into my files while screen sharing because of student names.

Speaker 11 (01:07:45):

I’m not seeing it right now-

Pam (01:07:46):

No, you didn’t, Heather.

Heather (01:07:48):

Okay, so that’s next Wednesday. Is it next Wednesday, Sandra?

Sandra (01:07:55):

Hang on.

Heather (01:07:56):

Okay. Check your stone tablet, see what you [inaudible 01:07:58]

Sandra (01:07:58):

I’m going to. We’re talking about technology. I’ll pull out my stone tablet paper schedule. Everyone’s

supposed to laugh. Yeah, next Wednesday 12 o’clock.

Heather (01:08:12):

Okay.

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Sandra (01:08:13):

Yeah, the six, according to my stone tablet.

Heather (01:08:20):

I’ll send that link out. I’ll put it in the chat.

Sandra (01:08:25):

Have people, are you guys aware of how to help teachers and other people with sending a PDF so that it

can be edited for families? Like for kids that where writing is difficult and you want to simplify it and

digitize it, are you guys doing that a lot or do you know that how to do it? So we’re over time probably,

but we’ll include a link for a YouTube video that’ll walk you through that and it’s with using Google

Slides. And it’s not hard to do, you insert text boxes for families.

Speaker 11 (01:09:12):

Awesome. Thank you. And again, we have about five more minutes. I wanted to leave about 20 minutes

at the end for an open conversation just about anything that’s coming up for providers, but if people have

other resources that you want to provide on the topic of technology and AT, how you’re using technology

or questions and barriers you’re coming up against that you’d love some brainstorming around, this is a

time to ask.

Speaker 13 (01:09:55):

When we share our resources. I will add… There were two sessions from that app matrix and then there

was a separate one on executive functioning with an additional matrix and I can add that to the resources

as well. There’s a lot of overlap, but there are some different ones that are in there that people might find

it useful.

Sandra (01:10:21):

Yeah. And then just pay attention to the columns that are checked. ‘Cause some are iOS and so you just

have to kind of keep the two separate and know what device your families are using.

Heather (01:10:46):

Are there other districts out there that have access? Our district went with full-time access for all of our

students for Google Read&Write. Or the read and write for Google Tools app. Are other districts in that

same boat or is that still an app that’s not accessible to all? I’m just curious.

Speaker 11 (01:11:08):

I’m at NCSU and we have it for all of our students and have had since the beginning of last year, I

believe.

Heather (01:11:15):

That’s awesome, yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:11:17):

ACSD has it for all students as well. That’s one thing that I’ve spent some time with families who are on

Macs or who are newly getting them and helping the families be able to connect. It’s been tricky for a

couple of people to understand extensions versus apps within that.

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Heather (01:11:48):

The Google Read&Write for tools app, for those that aren’t familiar with it, I feel like that’s a great tool

that helps to level the playing field for a lot of the students who maybe don’t need significant

accommodations or maybe didn’t need accommodations at all in the school-

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:12:04]

Heather (01:12:00):

… significant accommodations or maybe didn’t need accommodations at all in the school setting, but in

the home setting, where the student expectation is a couple of hours of homeschool work a day, it’s taking

students four hours a day or longer. And that having an option like the Google the Read&Write tools

helps to, helps to shrink that timeframe down and still get the same amount of content for some students. I

think that was it for-

Sandra (01:12:32):

It’s really like a tier one, tier two type of thing. And I feel like Heather [inaudible 01:12:38], our district

treats it, we have to get special licenses for kids and this would be great for everyone to have access to it,

I think.

Speaker 16 (01:12:50):

Yeah.

Haya (01:12:52):

Heather, Sandra, could you briefly explain what Google Reader, Read&Write is for people who may not

know the basics of what it is and how it works?

Heather (01:13:04):

Sure.

Sandra (01:13:08):

Heather, do you mind sharing your screen?

Heather (01:13:11):

That’s what I was just doing.

Sandra (01:13:13):

It’s free for educators and for OTs, PTs. And it’s actually free right now during this COVID time. But you

can see the little purple puzzle piece. And then Heather just activated it, so across the top of the screen

you have all these different tools. So you have text to speech, speech to text. You have a dictionary and a

visual dictionary, which is nice. So, yeah, Heather, there you go.

Heather (01:13:14):

So I use the regular.

Sandra (01:13:49):

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So you can look at a traditional dictionary, or use the picture one, and it will show you what that word

means, which is super nice. I’ve been using it quite a bit, actually, lately. I like that.

(01:14:08):

The highlighters are nice for students that are working at generating a short story like your beginning,

your middle, your end, so you can color code. Again, it’s just visually helping them know what thought

goes where.

(01:14:29):

It’s great for research, again, color coding things, and then you can round up all your colors and organize

them into different categories.

Haya (01:14:41):

What is the one called again?

Sandra (01:14:43):

It’s Read&Write for Google.

Haya (01:14:46):

Google. Thank you.

Heather (01:14:50):

Let me go back, because this is, come on, calm down.

(01:14:56):

So this will read it to you.

Sandra (01:15:01):

Mm-hmm.

Heather (01:15:02):

(01:15:09):

It should just be reading, right?

Sandra (01:15:13):

Huh.

Heather (01:15:14):

I don’t know why that’s not working.

Sandra (01:15:15):

Refresh your screen, Heather.

Heather (01:15:17):

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I may need to, yep.

Tracy (01:15:22):

Sometimes you have to turn it on and off. I find that it’s a bit buggy.

Sandra (01:15:27):

Yeah.

Haya (01:15:32):

While we’re getting this going, what else have you guys used that’s been super helpful.

Heather (01:15:41):

Oops. Voice to text.

(01:15:47):

This is the button that comes on when you do voice, oops, oh, well. This is the button that comes on when

you want to do voice to text.

Marie Christine (01:15:54):

Yeah, I was going to-

Heather (01:15:55):

An awesome, awesome job.

Marie Christine (01:15:59):

Heather, I think that is, that’s what I was going to say. We’ve been using voice to text just within Google

in the last couple of years. Their algorithm has been amazing. It does a great job.

Heather (01:16:10):

Yeah.

Sandra (01:16:10):

Mm-hmm.

Heather (01:16:12):

And I think that my son uses this, Sandra taught him how to use this program at school. And that was at

the beginning, when was that? So he’s middle, second grade. And he is fully, we are not what I would say

a tech family, I don’t do a lot of tech stuff at home. The kids had never typed on computers before this.

And he learned that program, and is independent with that in the classroom, and uses this at home, and

taught his older brother how to use it. And it’s amazing how user-friendly this can be, and how we can

empower students to use this, and be able to use it independently, and complete work more

independently.

Haya (01:16:48):

It’s encouraging for me.

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Tracy (01:16:54):

And I just want to say for schools that don’t have Read&Write school-wide, you can download the

extension for free still, and the text to speech tools. So the read-out-loud feature is free forever. The

highlighting tools go away, and the dictionary goes away, but the reading tool, which I find is one of the

better reading tools out there, remains free.

(01:17:21):

And then for voice typing, as someone else mentioned, they just use Google’s voice typing engine, which

is also free and available directly in Google Docs to anybody, so you don’t have to pay for the full version

if you just need the reading and the writing supports.

(01:17:38):

And then while I’m on, the Vermont Assistive Technology Program, which is the program that I work for,

we’re still up, and running, and available for brainstorming technology ideas if you guys are feeling stuck.

We’re a free program. We’re all working from home, but we all have ability to meet virtually like this. We

use Microsoft Teams, but we can hop into whatever video platform you’re more comfortable with to help

brainstorm ideas.

Sandra (01:18:12):

Thank you.

Heather (01:18:13):

Tracy, is that brainstorming ideas, is that for individuals, or is that for school teams, or what does it look

like at this point in time?

Tracy (01:18:23):

We don’t really have any restrictions around that. I’ve been helping teams and individual families. So it

really just depends on who’s involved and what the problem is that’s trying to be solved. We work in

living, learning, and working communities, so we’re not restricted to who we can talk to.

Heather (01:18:44):

Awesome.

Haya (01:18:48):

I’m going to step in. And I’m going to say thank you so much to Heather and Sandra for being willing to

come on in and share your awesome knowledge and resources.

(01:18:59):

And as I mentioned before, we are going to accumulate all of these resources, place them on the UVM

Tripski page. I will send a link out when that is ready to go.

(01:19:12):

If you have any resources you haven’t shared yet, if it’s a link, place it in the chat box. If it is a file, you

can send it to Tamara. Her email address is at the top of our chat.

(01:19:28):

For our last little bit of time, I know it seems too terribly small in light of everything that’s going on, but I

wanted to create at least a little bit of space as an open conversation for people to share, outside of the

couple of topics that we touched on today, if there are either really significant successes you’d love to be

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able to share with a group? Or, really big challenges that you’re hoping this group might be able to help

you address, perhaps, in one of our future sessions?

Heidi (01:20:08):

I had a question. I do a lot of early intervention. I’m doing a lot of telemedicine visits for most of them,

but being in a very rural county, a lot of my patients do not have good cell or internet connectivity. So I’m

just wondering, what else we can do to help support them?

Pam (01:20:45):

Do they have landlines, Heidi?

Speaker 17 (01:20:47):

I was going to say, past-

Heidi (01:20:49):

A lot of them don’t. And a lot of them, they’ll have a cell phone, and it’ll work for five minutes, and then it

won’t work, and then…

(01:20:58):

So for some families it’s working really well, but I’ve got some other families that they’re just so frustrated

with the technology piece that they’d rather throw the phone out the window.

Pam (01:21:10):

I think that if you have the ability to make some brief videos of what you’re trying to share, of course,

then, that needs to be sent on a phone if that’s a way that they can get it. If not, do you have the ability to

create programs, brief, one or two ideas at a time, and just send them in the mail to them? I don’t know if

you have that capability? Just using the low-tech that we have to give that ongoing support to families?

Heidi (01:21:43):

Yeah, and luckily, Medicaid’s been really good about supporting telephone calls right now, so I have, at

least, been able to touch base verbally with a lot of them, which has been super helpful. So I’ve been

really pleased about Vermont Medicaid’s coverage for right now.

Ann (01:21:58):

So early intervention should be, as well, paying for that.

(01:22:04):

Sorry, Pam,

Pam (01:22:05):

Go ahead, Ann, and can you just repeat that?

Ann (01:22:07):

I was just going to say early intervention is also paying for telephone calls.

Heidi (01:22:07):

Yep.

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Ann (01:22:11):

Okay. Just wanted you to be aware of that.

Heidi (01:22:13):

Yeah.

(01:22:17):

But I do find the value in the video. I do think it’s really been helpful for the families that have been able

to, even though for early intervention, it can be challenging to follow a toddler or a moving infant around

with one hand while you’re trying to hold the phone and do some recommendations that I might try to be

making at the time. But it’s been working really well, overall.

Haya (01:22:42):

Excuse me.

Pam (01:22:43):

words about that.

I was going to say I see that Marie Christine mentioned Flipgrid. I didn’t know if she wanted to say a few

Marie Christine (01:22:52):

It’s another resource, I guess, it’s not meant to be used in the same way, as, well, it’s meant to be used in

the same way as some of what Heather was sharing earlier on. It’s actually set up for teachers. And so,

you can put an account if you have an EDU account. I think even all of the school email accounts should

work and it’s free. And so then you create boards by topic. And then the students would be able to, and

the families would be able to record videos up to five minutes, as long as they install the app, and it

becomes free for them. And so you can send a program. And then they can respond to it. Then you can

comment directly within the software. And it’s all free, as long as the videos are no longer, no longer than

five minutes.

(01:23:42):

And som we’ve used it for teaching purposes, but I think it could work well, clinically, if you need to do

some asynchronous video, but you want to store them all in one place.

Heather (01:23:55):

Marie Christine, do you know about HIPAA or FERPA compliance with that?

Marie Christine (01:24:03):

It’s got to be FERPA compliant, because we have access to it through the University. I do not know about

HIPAA compliance.

Heather (01:24:11):

Okay.

Marie Christine (01:24:11):

Unfortunately, I haven’t had to worry about it, so I haven’t paid att-, I know that there’s been a lot of

HIPAA guidance that have come out, but I haven’t paid full attention to it.

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Haya (01:24:23):

Thanks. That sounds like a really great resource. And I found that, even just speaking from my own

experience as a parent, when there’s a continuous thread of conversation on a topic, versus just emails

going back and forth, I’ve found that to be a much clearer way to communicate about things that are going

on with my own child.

(01:24:42):

Heidi, I was going to say that. One strategy, just piggybacking on what Pam said, one strategy that

families have used, not only to address spotty internet connectivity, but also camera shyness in their kids,

has been to take a video, and then, potentially, if you could, respond with a video. It’s giving you the

opportunity to do some of that same modeling. And for the family potentially to be able to watch it in a

time or place where they may have access to better internet, and also to send you that video when they

have better internet. It’s obviously, it’s not optimal, it’s moving from synchronous to asynchronous

support. But it is a way to be able to see what’s going on with the child and then also potentially see how

your recommendations are on handling and support might modify something. So, it’s one way you could

move forward with that.

Heather (01:25:36):

I’m wondering if anybody has any ideas if for that type of situation for shrinking the size of videos, does

anybody have any suggestions for that because, I know, if I get a ten-minute video, sometimes it takes

forever to load. And I wish I could just get it in a smaller version so that it would load faster, even though

the quality might not be as great.

Marie Christine (01:26:04):

So in Flipgrid, you record directly within Flipgrid, so you solve the problem. It’s available pretty much

instantly to the families. You just [inaudible 01:26:16] five minutes.

(01:26:18):

Other than that, you have to use some video compression software. I don’t know any video compression

software that’s free, other than YouTube. Also, with an EDU account, you can have an unlimited

YouTube account for free. And so, I use YouTube a lot to post videos. And then YouTube does the

compressing for me, which makes it a lot easier and I just send the links to the families or students.

Haya (01:26:59):

Heather, do you think it would work better if the video was housed remotely, versus having to upload and

download it? That’s one thing I’m wondering about, and I’m not sure what the right platform would be.

Heather (01:27:12):

I am not exactly sure. Just speaking from personal experience with internet connectivity the last couple of

days, even the ones that were housed in Google Classrooms and I just was required to play them, those

just took a long time to open and I just wished that it was either shorter or compressed. So they didn’t

need to be downloaded. They just needed to be opened.

Haya (01:27:53):

Great.

(01:27:53):

Well, does anybody else have any either thoughts on that topic or any additional last thoughts that you’d

want to bring to the group for the day?

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Mary Ellen (01:28:05):

Hi, this is Mary Ellen. I just wanted to mention that in listening to one of the Governor’s press releases,

someone from the Department of Public Service was talking about the connectivity issues. And that they

really wanted to hear from people, specifically, where they are and what their connectivity issues are.

Because unless they know where the pockets are, they can’t help. And they have some new initiatives

during this time.

(01:28:47):

So, I wondered if, I think it was, was it Heidi in Middlebury, who was talking about the connectivity

problems with families? So I just wondered if that might be a resource, and we could maybe provide the

link to the Department of Public Service, and some of the new resources that are available.

Pam (01:29:13):

That’s such a great suggestion, Mary Ellen, I saw that press conference, too. That woman who was the

head of that department was so passionate about finding the people who needed connectivity, they can’t

do anything if they don’t know they don’t have connectivity. And there’s a lot of stuff going on to help

with all the different parts of the State. So, thank you Mary Ellen. That was good, good point. Good

connection, I was going to say, but I didn’t.

Haya (01:29:40):

Well, thank you all so very much for coming. I’m going to ask, if you would like a certificate of

attendance, please put your name and your email address in the box below. Additionally, if you have a

topic that you are really, that’s a really, either something you’re working a lot with right now, or

something that’s really interesting to you, or really confounding you at this time, I would really encourage

you to bring that to me, as the coordinator, and potentially to participate in co-facilitating it. We’re trying

to make it as easy and smooth as possible. We’re supporting all of your resource consolidation and all the

logistics around it, and we hope for it to be really low pressure.

(01:30:43):

We are going to have two more of these events, two weeks from today on May 13th and then again on

May 27th. And we hope to have as much really active, vibrant participation as possible. This has been,

really, a wonderful event and I want to thank everybody for your time and energy in support of all of the

children and youth that we care so much about. So thank you very much.

Mary Ellen (01:31:21):

Thanks, Haya.

Haya (01:31:23):

Thank you.

Ann (01:31:24):

Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone.

Mary Ellen (01:31:28):

Thanks everyone. Thanks for the great information.

Speaker 16 (01:31:30):

Thank you.

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Haya (01:31:31):

Thank you everyone for coming.

Speaker 18 (01:31:33):

Thanks, Haya.

Haya (01:31:35):

Thank you.

the Tripski emails, too.

Speaker 19 (01:31:57):

We just lost Kendra.

Haya (01:31:58):

Okay.

Speaker 19 (01:32:01):

Are we staying on for a minute or-

Pheobe (01:32:03):

That’s interesting.

Speaker 19 (01:32:08):

Go ahead, Phoebe.

Pheobe (01:32:10):

She’s had a problem with that. So I’m glad she reached out again.

Haya (01:32:15):

Yeah, I’ll find out. I’ll send a note to myself to make sure that happens.

Kendra (01:32:20):

Oh, Kara, did you call to me as I disconnected? This is Kendra.

Haya (01:32:26):

Oh, hey Kendra.

(01:32:26):

Kendra, I was just saying that I saw your message, that you’re having trouble getting the Tripski

messages. Can you just tell me which email address you’d want it to go to? And I’ll reach out to Lisa who

manages the listserv and just make sure that you’ve got the right email address and everything on file. I

wonder if you have some, I don’t know, some firewall or something.

Kendra (01:32:51):

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Yeah, I was getting them before. And now I’m not getting them anymore again, so I’m not sure what’s

happening. But it’s the same one that I sent to you for the certificate, [inaudible 01:33:01]

Haya (01:33:05):

Yeah. I’m sure I have it. Yeah. All right, well, we’ll look into it. Thanks, Kendra.

Kendra (01:33:09):

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 20 (01:33:11):

Bye Kendra.

Haya (01:33:12):

Bye.

Kendra (01:33:12):

Bye.

Haya (01:33:16):

Our last guest is Norma, who is our valiant transcriber. And Norma, thank you so much for, thank you so

much for being a part of it.