MindWing Concepts Blog

Recently in the Mindwing Blog I featured the Story Patch iPad app, which allows students to create stories according to provided structures or from scratch, resulting in a text and picture-based booklet.

I wanted to follow up that post with a different digital storytelling app that provides an easy means to create and publish dynamic animated stories with spoken audio and music! The app I speak of is Toontastic (an absolute BARGAIN at $1.99), whose creators at Launchpad toys have sought to bridge the gap created when students who primarily express themseves through play are suddenly expected to write stories (i.e. that gap we call “First Grade”). Toontastic uses the iPad’s multitouch interface and a play-like context beautifully as students are guided to create as many scenes as are needed to tell their story. The app would be a great tool to use in order to teach narrative elements and organization using Braidy the StoryBraid™, Story Grammar Marker™, or the Mindwing Autism Collection and their associated manipulatives and story maps.

Here’s a visual tour of Toontastic for you:

Toontastic comes with an audio explanation of story structure that can be easily aligned with Story Grammar Marker®, as can be seen above. You can choose to create five different scenes in your animated movie, or just stick with one!

Choose a setting, then Character “Toys” to put into action! You can also draw your own settings and characters.

Character Toys themselves can be custom colored, then tapped and dragged around the screen.  Tap Start Animation and the app will record as you move the characters and speak to provide an audio narration and/or dialogue. The app will then play back your animated scene!

For each scene, you can pick a music soundtrack that corresponds with the mood of the situation, connecting actions with internal responses of the characters.

When you are done with as many scenes as you’d like to create, tap Done and you can give your movie a title and genre, and share on ToonTube, Toontastic’s online community, if you’d like.  The story is automatically also saved within the app.

Students will be excited to publish to ToonTube, where others can interact with their film by “liking” it.  ToonTube also features model animations that would be a great context for story mapping of others’ creations using the SGM and other tools!

I recently had the opportunity to chat via Skype with Andy Russell, one of the creators of Toontastic.  If you have a few minutes, it’s an interesting conversation about the background of the app, its creators’ sound belief in social interactionist (Vygotskian) language learning, and future plans for the app and Launchpad Toys.

I hope you’ll check out Toontastic- it’s a great app to add to your narrative toolbox!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blogSpeechTechie: LookingatTechnologyThroughaLanguageLens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

Maryellen Rooney Moreau '68 is one alumna who has turned her undergraduate thesis into a lifelong career.

Over 40 years ago, Moreau completed an honors thesis on language development in the department of communication arts and sciences, which is now known as communication disorders.

Her thesis prompted a continued interest in researching the link between oral language development and literacy, turning Moreau into an entrepreneur whose business has changed the way educators teach. In 1994 she began MindWing Concepts, Inc., a company that develops and patents teacher manuals and educational tools for language and literacy, including the patented Story Grammar Marker ©.

MindWing develops research-based products that aid students in building the oral language skills necessary to be competent in retelling stories, reading comprehension, writing, and critical thinking. Located in Springfield, MA, only 25 miles from UMass Amherst, the local business has grown into a worldwide corporation. In classrooms across the globe, over a million children are using MindWing's visual, kinesthetic and tactile tools to assisting them with oral and written expression.

Even decades after graduating with honors, Moreau continues to conduct research, building on her undergraduate thesis. "I have just completed a new manual and game called the Autism Collection to show teachers and parents of children with autism how my tools and methodology relate to that disability," she said.

Typically completed in their senior year, the comprehensive, research-intensive Capstone thesis or project of original scholarship gives Honors students a chance to delve more deeply into an academic subject of their interest. Students build on the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired by pursuing research, creating art, engaging the wider community in action efforts, or by working diligently on one of a variety of other academic projects. The Capstone is designed to provide all Commonwealth Honors College students with the opportunity to integrate their undergraduate experiences and prepare for their careers—professional or academic.

For Honors students like Moreau, the Capstone Experience can not only culminate an academic career but also commence a professional path.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

ThemeMaker, Mindwing’s expository companion to Story Grammar Marker, helps children break down and produce the more challenging expository text that becomes central to learning as they advance through the grades! I have found that children are more open to working with expository text once they learn that the familiar SGM icons can help them along the way! While each ThemeMaker Expository Text Map (e.g. List, Sequence, Description, Compare-Contrast) is helpful on its own, kids need to be moved toward understanding that ALL of these structures are contained in curriculum discourse and text!

That can seem like an overwhelming task, but it becomes manageable and fun using a recently developed and FREE online tool, GlogsterEDU, a site that tells all students to “poster yourself!” What is a poster, really, but a display of information that utilizes these key expository structures? Using GlogsterEDU, you can choose and research any topic with your students using ThemeMaker maps and icons, then create a “Glog” with pictures, images and graphics, text (structures!) links, and even recorded audio and video if you wish! How to do all this? Well shoot on over to SpeechTechie, where we are wrapping up Glogster Week, a week of posts featuring examples of how to use Glogs in Speech-Language and other interventions, as well as how-to screencasts showing each step of how to use this (again, FREE) resource. If you’re catching up later, you can just click over to see all the posts regarding Glogster.

How do the ThemeMaker icons work with text structures? Well as I mentioned, they can be used to explore any topic, so I thought I’d present you an array of structures that explore GlogsterEDU itself!

And for a specific example, please check out this Glog I created with a student. D. was studying continents, so we used ThemeMaker Maps to research and break down information about Earth’s land masses, then had a blast creating this Glog (be sure to roll over the Glog to find our links)!

I hope you will consider GlogsterEDU a fun and helpful context to use Mindwing’s tools!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Click Here to View Expository Text Structures and Glogster

Click Here to View Glogster

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

I am going to open this post with a language sample obtained from a fifth grade student in 2006, an attempt to retell an episode of the series Full House.

And um something that happened was when this girl named Michelle and this guy Jesse, it was Michelle’s birthday. And Jesse and Michelle got stuck in a gas station and she missed her party.
And um they were there all day, but then finally it opened the next- no it opened a lot later. So um they went back to the house and they had their party and she got an elephant and she got to ride it and all her friends and she got, she felt better. And that’s it.

I collected and analyzed many samples like this over my years in the school setting, narratives that clearly attended to character, setting and “Kick-Off,” but lack cohesion, complexity and maturity due to their reliance on a simple action sequence structure. Do you have a lot of students like this?

I really began to understand how to help students with this type of narrative (who comprised a good chunk of my caseload, and still) when I first worked through Mindwing’s A Day in the Park Student Activity Booklet (and its accompanying lesson plans in the Talk to Write, Write to Learn manual). Many students sort of get stuck at the action sequence level, and don’t generalize the structures needed for a reaction sequence (character, setting, Kick-Off and reaction to the kickoff) or more advanced episodes that detail character responses, feelings and plans, along with complex sentences that link these story elements. A Day in the Park helped me see how I could break down these levels of formulation for students, and as a result I was able to identify other activities that could provide additional practice and skill-building.

One of my favorite recent discoveries is the Zimmer Twins website (based on the Qubo animated series), which allows you to make animated stories from pre-created starters or from scratch! The starters are naturally complex in structure and work really well with Mindwing’s Story Maps as you help students complete the story on a higher level of narrative organization. I found the site to be a great context to focus on moving students from an action to a reaction sequence; here’s one reaction sequence movie I created with a group. Before you get nervous, I can tell you that the Zimmer Twins site is really simple to use!

First, you can view the story starters and pick one that will work for your students.

After clicking “Make Movie From [your chosen title],” you can simply click, drag and modify the rest of your story.

By clicking on the elements in the sentence, you can change character, setting, and other features of the clip. Word and thought balloons can be modified- just click and type. The tabs allow you to add different elements such as actions, reactions and feelings!

Click here to see another way I finished the starter “Surprise!” I hope you enjoy Zimmer Twins, I know the kids I work with really did. Here’s a great tutorial on using the site if you’d like more information before diving in. Be sure to create a free account when you start using the site.

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

I always love finding resources that serve as a context for addressing many speech and language-related skills. The wonderful book Edwina- The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She was Extinct by Mo Willems is one of those resources; it can be used to target narrative and expository formulation, as well as social thinking skills in several areas.

To begin with, Edwina is a story that will engage and delight children from early to late elementary ages, beginning with its title and the name of the main character, Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie. Reginald has a problem: everyone around him is enthralled by Edwina, the friendly town dinosaur, and no one heeds his increasingly emphatic pleas to accept that Dinosaurs! Are! Extinct! The structure of the story is perfect for mapping as a complete episode using Braidy or Story Grammar Marker, as can be seen below:

Though this story has the twist of having the main character be both strangely right and wrong at the same time, it also provides a great context for building skills essential for children with autism spectrum disorders and other social pragmatic issues. The key problem in the story is mainly one of perspective, and could be visualized for students using the SGM Universal Magnets, Perspective Taking Maps (with icons down the middle and competing perspectives on either side), or Critical Thinking Triangle as discussed in the Making Connections volume of Mindwing’s Autism Collection to develop perspective taking skills.

Edwina also is a nice teaching tool if you are using Michelle Garcia Winner and Stephanie Madrigal’s terrific Superflex program, which reviews Social Thinking skills in the context of a comic book world. We can all relate to the ongoing battle between Superflex, who helps us use flexible thinking and problem solving skills, and the Team of Unthinkables, characters who try to force the citizens of Social Town to act in certain “Unexpected” ways. One of the leaders of the Unthinkables is Rock Brain, who gets us “stuck” in patterns of rigid thinking and on our own wants and ideas. Although Reginald does exhibit some flexible thinking in the varied ways he approaches his problem, the fact that he views Edwina’s existence as a problem at all is an example of a “Rock Brain Moment,” one you can analyze with students using that program’s “Find the Unthinkable Rock Brain” activity. One illustration in Edwina provides a perfect stopping point and discussion of Rock Brain thinking, as Reginald protests Edwina’s distribution of cookies in the park by carrying a sign that reads “This is NOT happening!!!”

Finally, Edwina can be used to target expository language in several ways. Try researching extinct animals and make a list (BrainPop’s clip on Extinction is a great place to start if you have a subscription or free trial) using Thememaker’s List Map, or perhaps a sequence of how a particular animal died out. As we only see a bit of Reginald’s presentation on “Things that are Extinct,” perhaps your students could continue his project in PowerPoint form! The story also has several embedded lists, such as the ways Edwina helped the townspeople, and cookies play a key role, so why not work on writing and completing the sequence of making actual cookies!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts – which is right around the corner from MindWing’s office. The Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden is located at the Springfield Museums near our office as well. The influence of Ted’s (Dr. Seuss’) memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work.

Photo courtesy of http://www.holyokeinphotos.com/

In keeping with the spirit of the holiday season, we wanted to share a lesson idea from MindWing’s book: East Meets West for the Holidays by Maryellen Rooney Moreau and Judy K. Montgomery. This lesson is based on one of Dr. Suess’ most beloved holiday stories: How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Below is the view of the neighboring town of Easthampton, MA from the top of Mt. Tom. Perhaps this is the view that inspired Dr. Seuss to write this entertaining, heart-warming tale that has become a holiday tradition and been made into a cartoon, a musical and a movie. It has been thought that “Who-ville” is actually Easthampton and that the Mt. Crumpit, the mountain upon which The Grinch resides, is actually Mt.Tom! Maryellen Rooney Moreau lives in Easthampton and travels over Mt. Tom every day to work.

So, IS Maryellen actually “Maryellen Who?"

Click Here to access this rich lesson on How the Grinch Stole Christmas that filled with narrative development, story sparkle, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, expository text, rare words, cultural aspects. Also, when you watch the movie, you can use the Perspective-Taking Maps from the Story Grammar Marker® Manual to Map and talk about the different perspectives of the Grinch and the Whos.

In the middle of the Grinch’s attempts to carry out his plan to “steal Christmas,” Cindy-Lou Who catches him stealing her Christmas tree. The Grinch has to “trick” Cindy-Lou in order to continue to carry out his plan. The motivations and intentions of the Grinch in this situation may be difficult for children with Social Learning Challenges to comprehend and express. Our new Autism Collection contains a new Critical Thinking Triangle™ Map that can help to elaborate and discuss the Grinch’s plan for trickery as well as Cindy-Lou’s perspective of the situation.

Click thumbnails to Enlarge Images

We also found this website http://www.seussville.com/grinch/activities.html that has some fun activities with The Grinch theme.

We wish you the happiest of holidays and all the best in the new year!

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

Picture of our Team last year at ASHA in New Orleans!

It’s that time of year, again – time to reconnect with our friends and colleagues at the American Speech and Hearing Association Conference, this year in Philadelphia.

1. We will be at Booth #215 with product demos, videos, special give-aways and prizes! If you mention reading this BLOG or getting our E-Newsletter, you will be entered in a special drawing with a chance to win The Autism Collection Kit!
2. In addition to our Booth #215, Maryellen Rooney Moreau will be presenting on the topic of Autism Spectrum Disorders in session #0303, Thursday, November 18, 9:30AM-10:30AM in Room CC/106B. This session is entitled: “It’s All About the Story: The Language-Thinking-Social Connection” and will highlight our new Autism Collection: It’s All About the Story and Making Connections.
3. Learn about RESEARCH ON THE STORY GRAMMAR MARKER® by visiting Poster Session “Effects of Story Grammar Marker: Listening Comprehension & Oral Expression” #2148, Poster Board 201 SA, Saturday, November 20 from 3:00PM-4:30PM, Poster, CC/Hall C. This session is being presented by Linda Lafontaine, Curtis Blake Day School of American International College and Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MindWing Concepts, Springfield, MA.

For those of you interested in the research from the poster session, we will post it on www.mindwingconcepts.com after it is presented at ASHA.

We look forward to seeing you at ASHA Booth #215!

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

Help them ask Who, What, When, Where & Why Using the Story Grammar Marker®

Children often “don’t know” what they “don’t know!” Using the Story Grammar Marker® manipulative, parents, teachers and specialists can give children the ability to ASK AND ANSWER “Wh” questions such as: Who, What, When, Where and Why. Development of these abilities improves children’s oral language, writing, critical thinking and comprehension. It also especially can help children in social situations and conversations.

In this video Maryellen demonstrates how the Story Grammar Marker® can be used to scaffold “Wh” questions. The Character is the “Who.” The setting is the “Where/When.” The Planned Attempts are the “What.” The Critical Thinking Triangle™ elements of the SGM® (kick-off, feeling, plan) are the “Why.”

In literature, television, movies, plays and in real life often we are left to infer the “Why:” motivations, feelings and plans of characters and people. Using the SGM® provides an organizational structure for children (and even adults) to “hang on to” while telling or listening to a story and observing or participating in a social situation. The SGM® is a tool for “inference,” thus helping children comprehend and express what they “don’t know.”

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

It’s really exciting when a speech-language material is published that provides clinicians with a ready-to-go resource that jibes well with strategies we already have been teaching. Such is definitely the case with the excellent We Can Make it Better program recently released by Think Social Publishing and written by Speech-Language Pathologist Elizabeth Delsandro. We Can Make it Better is a set of 20+ stories in which social interactions go quite wrong due to “unexpected behaviors” by one of the characters. The materials and activities unfold in a very logical therapeutic structure that challenges students to “make it better” by deciding alternative actions for the characters, “rewrite” the story as a more positive “Second Edition” and act it out, thus providing a great context for teaching social problem solving.

To be quite honest, social problem solving has been an area that, when providing a rating each semester in my private practice’s progress notes, I have wondered if I adequately assessed or addressed. Of course we have “teachable moments” in sessions where problems arise between students, and discussions of problems in the real world, but I have been wanting for a fun material that could foster some take-home skills in this area!

It is wonderful how We Can Make It Better perfectly compliments some of the programs I am using already with students, namely, of course, Story Grammar Marker and Social Thinking. In using the program over the past several weeks, I have found the narrative context in which stories are presented is motivating and amusing to my students, and it is very easy to weave in use of the SGM as we recap the presented stories, analyze the actions of characters, and develop an alternative story script and outcome. Many Social Thinking concepts, such as “Expected/Unexpected” behaviors, “guessing plans” and “smart guesses” are also natural targets within discussions of the stories.

The picture below illustrates a simple modification to the program- using the Mindwing Universal Magnet Set as a way to plan “Act it Out” activities that follow story presentation and discussion. The character, setting, action and wrap-up icons (though you could use more complex structures also) also fit well with activities in the program such as completing the “Not So Good Board,” in which kids brainstorm what went wrong in the story.

The program’s generous number of stories (and tips on how to write your own) make it ideally suited for classroom and group programming, and the accompanying CD-ROM with stories and forms in electronic format opens many possibilities. For example, I have been able to use an LCD projector to show the stories “writ large” on the wall, an attention-grabber for our students, and PDF files on the CD can be easily inserted into programs such as PowerPoint so I can annotate our group discussions (i.e. inserting text boxes to display alternative actions that kids suggest, then making the best choice, after discussion, appear in green font). Additionally, using a Flip Video camera to record the role-plays has been a great motivator for kids in the “Act it Out” portion, and provides great feedback on scripting, body language and other nonverbals.

Even if you are only in the early phases of using the SGM, I highly recommend We Can Make It Better as a great context for developing early learners’ storytelling and problem solving skills.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |

Last weekend in San Francisco at the Social Thinking Providers’ Conference, we felt lucky to have met so many like-minded people who all share our goal: making children successful in school and in life. Social Thinking and MindWing Concepts have amazing synergy. We both take abstract concepts that are challenging to teach & learn and make those abstract concepts concrete, teachable and child-friendly. What an effective combination of methodologies and materials! In light of this synergy, Sean Sweeney has written this Blog.

Group Activities to Complement a Focus on the Character Icon

Recently I wrote about students with social-cognitive deficits and their tendency to lack strategies related to character description and traits. Another manifestation of this weakness is the fact that a group of kids could be in a group with me for weeks and still not know each other’s names. Or mine! I have learned to engineer lots of activities in which kids practice using each other’s names and character traits, and the Braidy and SGM Character Icons provide a key visual and common thread through these activities.

I first like to emphasize the concept of Friend Files, described in Michelle Garcia Winner’s Think Social. As Winner says, it is expected that we remember certain things about people we know by keeping an imaginary file in our brain (and first of all it is helpful to label our friend file with the person’s name)! Drawing from that file allows us to a) use the oft-positively-received behavior of showing interest and b) have a wealth of conversation starters. Maryellen writes in It’s All About the Story about a kiddo we probably all know: “To make conversation, it would be essential for John to know that the classmate liked baseball, but more specifically liked the Red Sox, and disliked the Yankees.”

The SGM Character Map is a great resource for developing actual, physical Friend Files. Try getting some colored manila folders to add motivation (pick your color) and attaching the Character Map inside. Over the course of some weeks, kids in your groups can “interview” each other in a rotating fashion, with the Map serving as a visual to prompt great questions. The Map can later serve as a context for the kids to make “Smart Guesses” (see Winner’s You Are a Social Detective) to practice social inferencing. After the maps have some accurate and more robust content, try making some quizzes (or having the kids do so) with a site such as StudyStack or ClassTools. I can guarantee it’ll be a lesson that reinforces your students’ ability to recall facts about each other and thus foster some great connections.

There are also some great games that develop a sense of character in a fun context! Try prominently displaying the SGM Character icon while playing any of the following:
Cranium Whoonu
Cranium Conga
Loaded Questions Junior
Things (edit the cards carefully)

Using any of these games would provide a great opportunity to add to the Friend File Character Maps as a post-game wrap-up. What did you learn about John during the game?

For more ideas on therapy materials and technology, please visit me at SpeechTechie or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |