Final Project!

Along with my graduate studies in art education, I am also working on an add-on certificate through the Thompson Center for Autism Research.  My focus for the final was the "benefits of art and technology in the education of students with autism".  I worked with three very sweet kids to make a short slideshows of a project I titled "Discovering Fall". I only met with the kids a couple of times, so our use of technology was limited. - but we had fun!  The first day, I brought a few digital cameras and we went outside to take photographs of the fall trees.  Each student was assisted by a para and the kids really enjoyed venturing outside and pressing the button to capture images.  After our short photography activity, we headed to art class to make prints of leaves.  During our next meeting together, the students created collages from natural objects on the sticky side of contact paper. One of the students was having a difficult time transitioning, so I quickly pulled up his movie from the previous week on my laptop.  He was immediately attentive and then joined us for the collage art activity. The students were intrigued by the sticky feeling of the contact paper and this turned out to be a great way to make collages as well as attend to sensory needs.  After we finished the collages, the students each wrote their names (or initial) on a slide on the smart board.  My intention was to save the "signatures" from the smart board activity and include them in the slide shows.  However, my smart notebook skills are a little rusty and I did not manage to save the screen shots correctly.  The kids enjoyed seeing their pictures in the digital presentations and I enjoyed getting back into the classroom again.