As a busy Orientation & Mobility Specialist working in a large county school district I am constantly thinking of ideas and lessons that can be easily tweaked from one student to the next. When the weather makes it more challenging to be outside in the community AND the student needs basic orientation skills…How do you make a familiar school environment exciting and new? How do you incorporate low vision travelers and no vision travelers?
Create route cards with QR Codes and or MP3 audio files and get walking!
I love the season of winter so I created route cards using various Snowman drawings from free graphic files. Then I searched my winter music collection, downloaded these to my computer using windows media player to an MP3 file format.
I used QR Code Generator in a free trial format that lets you try the service for 13 days with full capability. Making the QR Code was easy with the websites three step process. I also used word PDF files with written content that will read with voice over turned on when the student scans the code.
I mounted the Snowman Cards to a letter size piece of high contrast card stock with a QR Code.
The cards can be placed at random or deliberately based on the lesson objective. (Note you can have fun asking the student about same and different characteristics as they collect snowman on the route.)
Example: 3 snowman cards were placed in a school at general common hall intersections or near braille/print signage naming the location, (media center, office, art room)
The student was asked to walk to 3 familiar places and tell the instructor the 1,2,3 sequence of the route, and locate the Snowman. The student was also using the long cane practicing indoor beginning constant contact technique along with visual scanning.
As the student discovered each snowman card, I gave the student my iPhone with QR Code Scanner for the student to activate and music or word content followed. I incorporated 3rd grade science standards about liquids and solids, temperature of freezing water etc.…
The music files were songs about snow and snowmen, and holiday related.
The cards go with me to many schools and are limited only by my imagination!
The last Snowman in the sequence asked the student if they would like a recipe for making a melting snowman at home. A braille or print version was created to give to the student.
Lastly:
We reviewed the basic routes on a large print school evacuation map and I drew lines connecting the card locations to create a triangle, three routes three sides, three angles. And you of course you could have the student trace the routes they just executed, using a map copy on the IPad made with the SAS Gloss App!
Happy Winter Indoor Trails!
By Cscarborough-hakin