Help me give my students a Boogie Board Sync to help them write their ideas and communicate with their teachers with the ability to sync their notes and work to a computer for their communications and assignments.
My students attend a middle school in an urban area. I have students in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade in a language arts class. They are students with disabilities and 40% of them are English Language learners. They struggle with writing in English and putting their thoughts on paper. They lack the confidence to show their thinking in writing because they lack the vocabulary they need to do this. Many times they come to school without basic supplies - pencil and paper - and looking at a whole sheet of paper is intimidating or they choose not to work because they don't have a pencil or paper.
In addition, I have students who are selective mutes.
They are capable of speaking, but because of fear or language struggles they have chosen not to speak but will try to communicate needs by writing short sentences on scraps of paper. It is difficult for them to work with more than one teacher because these scraps of paper are easily lost when moving from class to class or when changing assignments.
My Project
The inability to communicate with teachers or peers when you are at school is frustrating for students and it limits their ability to improve their skills. Teachers have to guess what a student needs when they are unable to verbally communicate. These tools would support students who struggle with speaking and allow them to write their questions and ideas in a simple format that also allows the information to be saved to a computer. This will open new opportunities for these struggling students and their parents to encourage interaction with others and, in the process, help them develop friendships and connections and increase the desire to communicate verbally.
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