Social stories is a tool used to teach autistic children social skills/prepare them for a social interaction or convention. Although these stories are created for autistic children I feel that they could be used with all children. However you must be careful that the story is not culturally bias. "Care should be given to ensure targeted shills are culturally appropriate (Spence 2008). Digital stories are useful because they can be quickly relearned. Because it can be a video, it can be viewed over and over again, which is useful because a skill can be reviewed without the teacher or parent reteaching the lesson. The student can simply just watch the video again. Also social stories are a great way to differentiate instruction. For example, lets say that the class is having a hard time walking appropriately in the hallways. A digital social story could be created to teach the student what the appropriate behavior looks like. The benefit of this method opposed to just talking to the students is that it will appeal to the learning styles of ALL the students in the classroom.
I created a Digital story, you can check it out here. My wife is the one talking. I didn't like the sound of my own voice.
This digital story was easy to create, however i was not terribly impressed with the program I used. It was set up very strange and you could not make the window larger to see it better. I choose to do a story on "asking for help". I choose this because I have noticed that children often want to do thing on their own, which is great, except for the times where it could be a dangerous or frustrating situation. So I choose to do a social story about when you should ask for help.
David, I enjoyed your digital story! I think that you did a really nice job bringing your message down to an appropriate reading/speaking level for elementary students, and that you really focused on the positive parts of asking for help, rather than the negative. I could see using your digital story in my classroom for a student who was unsure or unable to ask for help!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chelsea! I really liked the way you focused on positive rather than negative. It really is important to focus on positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement and you did a good job with that! I too could see myself using this in a class as well!
ReplyDeleteI think your topic is very important and I'm glad to see you gave some specific examples of when to ask for help. The story tells that it is important to ask for help, but doesn't actually tell or teach the student HOW to ask for help. You might consider having a few slides on how to ask for help (using the first person perspective..."If I want a toy on a high shelf, I can go to my teacher and use my words "Help Please"". I can also show my teacher the sign with my hands that says "help please" (and include a pictures of the sign language)...for example.
ReplyDeleteIt is important that you get the experience of creating this story yourself with your own recorded voice. I know nobody likes the sound of their voice, but as a future teacher, this might be a tool you have to use with your students and it is really for their benefit (vs. ours). So keep that in mind.
Otherwise, I enjoyed the topic, the images and pacing all seemed on track.
Dr. Budin
p.s. Remember to use "person first language" (student with Autism vs. Autistic student)