Fun Activities with Monoculars This video is posted online with the following chapter markers: Chapter 1. Monocular Skills Chapter 2. Games- Spotting & Scanning Chapter 3. Making a Bird Feeder Chapter 4. Tracking a Remote Control Car Chapter 5. Games with Grids or Arrays Chapter 6. Crossword Puzzles Chapter 7. Mazes Chapter 8. Resources Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start [Music] Fade up from black. Animation: Text for TSBVI transform into braille cells for TSBVI. [Music face out] Fade to black. Chapter 1. Monocular Skills [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired Outreach Programs Content: Fun Activities for Teaching Kids to Use Monocular Telescopes on a Low Budget November 13th, 2017 Presented by Scott Baltisberger, TSBVI VI Education Consultant baltisbergers@tsbvi.edu Chrissy Cowan, TSBVI VI Education Consultant cowanc@tsbvi.edu Description End: Chrissy Cowan: Welcome, I'm glad that you joined us for fun activities for teaching kids to use monocular telescopes on a low budget. [ Slide end: ] I'm Chrissy Cowan, and I work here at TSBVI, this is my co‑worker. Scott Baltisberger: Scott Baltisberger, and I'm also here at TSBVI. Chrissy: And we love-- we love working with kids with telescopes, otherwise known as monoculars, so you will hear us use those words interchangeably. Ultimately, monoculars are used to be able to access the environment outside the school and inside the school. But we both, Scott and I were planning for this, we both realized in our training with kids, we liked to do a lot of games. So that was the birth of this webinar. But just know that these games lead to-- to real use in real settings inside and outside of the classroom. So the typical monocular telescopes that we're talking about today are the ones that have been prescribed by a low‑vision specialist, or you may have seen them in the APH kit, Envision, I think it's called, or you may have purchased some and are trying them out with some kids. These are the typical kinds of monoculars that we're talking about, excluding those ones on the glasses. But all of the others are very classic kinds of telescope monoculars. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Typical Monoculars Content: center photo: Figure 1 Various monocular telescopes typically prescribed by the low vision specialist Description End: These kinds of telescopes are used for, in the classroom, they are used during calendar time for younger children, field trips and sporting events and reading and copying from the board. The information attached to-- to classroom walls. PE demonstrations, assemblies. Locating house numbers and in fast food restaurants. The list is pretty exhaustive, it's up to your imagination how you want to use those. [ Slide end: ] But I do want to say in the book-- Looking to Learn-- there's a chapter on the monocular skills training and also a lot of different activities. We're not going to go through what those skills are, other than to just mention them briefly. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Games can help teach: Content: o Spotting o Focusing o Tracking o Tracing o Copying Description End: So the skills that the games are going to teach include spotting, that's locating an object, focusing, which is increasing the clarity of the object, tracking, which would be-- the object is moving, tracing, and then copying. And for copying that means copying from the board or a chart. The games can help with that. [ Slide end: ] Chapter 2. Games- Spotting & Scanning So let's launch right into the games. One of the first things that I do with a student, I want a controlled setting. So I will be in a classroom with them-- that is empty, by the way. And this is just a little game we would play called Feed a Frog. And I have targets, so those bugs you see are plastic bugs and this is just a simple Mr. Froggy likes to eat bugs kind of thing. What I have done, though, is I have increased the contrast by placing these bugs on-- on a piece of paper. So in the next slide you will see what I have done there. You will notice that I have numbered those cards. So those cards are about four‑by‑four, what I'm after there is to increase the contrast. Then I will tape those cards to a flat surface and all the student has to do is sit in their chair, a distance away where they cannot see them with the naked eye, and then they have to find them or locate them with the monocular. And they do have to scan across to find the bugs to feed Mr. Froggy. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Spotting & Scanning Content: center photo: Figure 6 Multiple toy insects on various numbered, colored papers placed randomly on a whiteboard Description End: I don't let them get up to the board and go get them, because once up there they can see where everything is. They have to stay back and I might say "What is it at No. 4? Find No. 4. It's a" whatever it is-- it's a spider. I will get up and get it and bring it back. That's a very simple game that you can use with any kind of target. So the skill I'm working at there is spotting and scanning. [ Slide end: ] The when you are going to be doing something like that you want to review focusing with the monocular. I have to say with younger kids, focusing is actually more complex than you would think. So I don't just spend the whole lesson on focusing. I will focus the monocular for them if they are having a problem with it. And then we go on to spotting and scanning. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: left-side graphic: Figure 8 Cartoon image of a frog on a lily pad right-side graphic: Figure 9 Cartoon image of a snake center text: • Review focusing, spotting, and scanning • Find the foods Ms. Frog will eat. Watch out for the snake! Content: Description End: So you just find the foods Ms. Frog will eat and watch out for the snake. The snake that you saw before was a rattle snake thing from-- you know, my back yard. Chapter 3. Making a Bird Feeder So-- so the next activity is-- is one that I do with just everybody and it's making a bird feeder. And I'm sure-- [ Laughter ]. Wow, that's a big bird! This is Abby, she was a student of mine. She was in kindergarten at the time. I was used this with kids as old as sixth grade. You assemble all of the materials. And that's going to be a chart that I have made with instructions to copy. It will be a paper and a pencil and we can go to the next slide. And see the list of these. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Bird Feeder Materials Content: • Chart with instructions to copy • Paper/pencil • Monocular (of course!) • Peanut butter • Birdseed • Large pinecone with wire hanger • Dinner knife • Newspaper (!) Description End: There's the monocular, there's peanut butter, bird seed, a pine cone with a wire hanger already wrapped around it, a dinner knife and newspaper, of course. So if you look at the next slide, the chart that I make, is-- is-- this is a sample of what the chart would look like, but I use chart paper and I print very clearly the instructions for this. This particular student, Abby, could not-- this was not her reading level, but I asked her to find the chart for the younger student and find the number and I would read it or she would copy a couple of words, actually Abby was very good at this. And then-- then just a word of caution because you are handling peanut butter, you want to do all of the copying at once and then pick up the peanut butter and following the steps. Otherwise you get peanut butter on the monocular. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Abby at Work/Fun Content: left-side photo: Figure 11 Abby looking at her monocular center photo: Figure 12 Abby writing on a piece of paper right-side photo: Figure 13 Abby writing on a piece of paper center graphic: Figure 14 Cartoon image of a cardinal Description End: Here you see Abby focusing. She has her little piece of paper there that says how to. She's focusing the monocular, copying what she can and then we're going to start with the activity. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Ta Da! Content: center photo: Figure 15 A completed pine cone bird feeder Description End: Then the finished product is-- is the pine cone with peanut butter that you have rolled in-- you've rolled in seeds. Then you take this thing outside and tie it to the tree and you sit on the porch or you sit in the school yard in her case, and you watch for birds. [ Slide end: ] Of course, they are not going to come up at this moment. But it is fun to be out there with a monocular, and again get the student far enough back to where they have to find that in the tree, using the tree as a landmark, and tracing along the tree trunk, and along the branch and down to the pine cone. Lots of skills can be done with that. Chapter 4. Tracking a Remote Control Car Another game that I really love to do is the remote control car game. And so you know, this car, you can get them at Toys‑R‑Us or wherever. This particular one has a GoPro camera on top, the ones that you buy are not going to have that, but you will see why in a moment we put a GoPro on this one. So I am going to take a student into a gym or a large area where we can really spread out and get some good distances. And I have made targets. These are pieces of card stock that have an animal. An actual photograph of an animal glued to them. And then underneath it has a number. And each card has a different number. And those cards-- those numbers are going to be points. So, for example, if you knock over an elephant with the car, you get 100 points. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Remote Car Game Content: center photo: Figure 16 Yellow remote controlled car and controller right-side photo: Figure 17 A white card with and elephant and the number 100 on it along with two small plastic toy figures left-side photo: Description End: Now, you see these little guys next to it, one is an Avenger, one is-- what are those guys, turtles? Scott: Ninja Turtles. Chrissy: Ninja Turtles. If you hit the Ninja Turtle you get points. I make sure that the student understands ahead of time, we practice ahead of time how to play the game and the skills that are involved. So the next slide shows you the layout in the gym. It has the avengers, the Ninja turtles, cars all over the place. Now we have a video of what this game actually looks like in action. [ Video start: ]. [  MUSIC PLAYING ]. Chrissy: Remember we talked about you're going to be scanning. Scanning is when you look around the room. At these stationary objects and we talked about tracking. Do you remember what tracking is? Student: Tracking is when you [indiscernible] moving you follow it. Chrissy: Okay. So the car is going to be moving, you are not going to have to track it when you've got the controls. But you are going to be tracking it when I've got the controls. Okay. So we're going to keep points. Your name and Chrissy. Scan the room and find where the little red guys are, the Avengers. Student: I can see three. Chrissy: Can you track with your monocular now. What I like to do is start left and move right. Student: [Indiscernible]. Chrissy: Okay. So what happens-- Student: [Indiscernible]. Chrissy: Okay. [Car sounds]. All right. Stop. Student: 20 plus 15, and then minus five. [Indiscernible] Chrissy: You can drive a minute while I add this up. 605 points. Think I can do that good? Okay. First we have to set it back up. Why don't you do a little scan and figure out where these are because you're going to have to then keep track... the car. I will tell you what, I'm going to head it this direction, just as a practice. You see if you can keep the monocular on the car. Student: Okay? Chrissy: How is that working? Student: Slower. Chrissy: Go slower? [Car sounds]. Did I get it? Student: You got-- how many points you got-- [indiscernible]. [Car sounds]. You've got-- 70? Chrissy: 70. [Indiscernible]. Student: Minus five. Chrissy: Minus five. And then minus 10. I'm up to 60. [indiscernible]. I knocked down an Avenger and a turtle. Student: 55, 15-- 70. Chrissy: What did I just miss? Do you see what I just drove by? Student: [Indiscernible]. Chrissy: Where should I head? What do you do think would be the best target for me to hit? Student: I think that the target-- the target could be [indiscernible] turtle. Chrissy: The elephant? Student: [Indiscernible]. Chrissy: Okay. That's a good strategy. [Car sounds]. So I've got 220. What have you got? Student: I got 605. Chrissy: Who won? Student: Me. [Car sounds]. [ Music ]. [ Video end: ]. Chrissy: So that's the remote control car game, and you saw me counting on my fingers. [ Laughter ]. And then that kid was clearly-- he was doing it in his head. But in actuality, the skills were expressed really when he was watching me. And-- and I was a lousy driver. But that's a pretty fun and simple game. Every time I've trotted out that car, the kids pretty much go nuts over it. So it's-- it's an easy one to do. In your materials for this training, for this webinar, those little cards are printable. You'll have a handout with all of those cards on it. But, really, you can use milk bottles, you can use anything that you can knock down and have a point system for. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Play a target game Content: left-side photo: Figure 19 A boy throwing darts at a dart board right-side photo: Figure 20 Many plastic bottles filled with various colored liquids with a blue ball on the lower left Description End: Let's see. Another target game that's pictured here is going to be darts. And I-- I like to try to find something with velcro. And so those-- those little balls underneath, that's an example of a Velcro dart game or target game. Where you get the student far enough back, they take an aim, a shot and then they use the monocular to see what the score is. The same thing on those bottle, I think those bottles are filled with colored sand. And you would put numbers on them, adapt it in that way, and see-- total the ones left standing and the high score loses. Again, it's just up to your imagination what kind of distance game you can make up for kids. [ Slide end: ] And so those-- those are my games. Now Scott-- it's Scott's turn to talk to you about his really cool games. Chapter 5. Games with Grids or Arrays Scott: Okay. Well, before I get started, I just wanted to mention to everybody to remember that this is-- these webinars are interactive. So if you guys have any questions or comments about any of the-- any of the games or the activities that we're showing here today, if you have ideas of your own or have questions about them, you can go ahead and put that on the chat. And we'll be monitoring that and we can, you know, get a two‑way conversation going. Because that's always nice to do during these sessions. Just for my own part, I want to say I really enjoyed what-- the thing-- the activities that you showed, Chrissy, I really like the one about the bird feeder. That one is so neat. Well, both of them were neat because they get the kids out of the classroom and gets out of that sort of mentality-- like anybody else kids may get a little tired of sort of engaging in academic pursuits, and also... it shows like different ways to use the monocular. And kind of maybe gets them a little more excited and a little more enthusiastic about it. You know, that bird feeder, you could go online to those science projects for kids and find just about anything that would apply for about any type of thing. If you had a kid that wasn't that interested in birds, you know, Lord forbid, but they might be interested in some other topic, you can find another science project that you can construct like that. That can be applied across the board. Chrissy: I use science a lot so I would have the materials for an experiment and then the instructions for the experiment were written on a chart and they had to copy down the instructions and then put that copy next to them and then follow through with whatever the instructions were with-- with their stuff. Scott: Uh‑huh, yeah, yeah. Just-- yeah, that type of a thing. So it's really adaptable for a lot of different situations. So anyway-- oh, Bri Jordan asked Chrissy, is a remote control included in the materials? No I don't think so. Chrissy: [ Laughter ]. There's a picture of one. No, there's not. You would have to buy one. Interestingly, I needed a backup for this car in case something happened. I don't know if you all have heard of Next Door. It's an app, I call it an app, but something you sign into and you enter your neighborhood and then you can communicate with all of your neighbors. So I just put something out there that said could I borrow a remote control car from somebody and I was really surprised at the number of people that-- I told them why I was using it. I got a lot of hits on that. People in my neighborhood willing to share or let me borrow a remote control car. So that's a freeway to just borrow it for a little while. Scott: Yeah. Good idea. So-- so what I'm going to talk about, I'm going to talk a about a couple of different activities today and the first one is battleship. And so-- so I don't know how many of you guys-- I know when I was a kid, this was one of my favorite board games. And board games can be really good things to use with-- adapt for a monocular. A lot of them are easy to do. Just battleship is easy to do but kids love to play games. This is the old game battleship. Nowadays of course it's electronic, these buzzers, all of these jazz that goes off, back in the day it was this plastic setup. You can kind of see it behind you there. You can go back to the next slide. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Rules of the Game left-side photo: Figure 22 A commercially available Battleship game right-side graphic: Figure 23 A printed out grid for playing homemade Battleship Content: Description End: There you go. So anyway, the one on the left is the commercially available game. So the way it works, for those of you that didn't have the good fortune of playing battleship when you were children, so you had this box, each player has this box. And there's a grid. And it's a-- it's a-- it's a he-- the columns are numbers and the-- and the rows are letters. Or vice versa. Yeah, the-- the columns are letters and the rows are numbers. And so what you do is you set up your ship and a-- in the commercial game you set up these plastic ships and then you can't see each other's Navy. You would call out your shots. So, for example, on the right, this is-- this is a schematic of it. This is more of a homemade style, you know, that you could use if you couldn't afford to buy the game. But for example here they've got a ship set up on 1 A, 1 B and one set on A 3, 4, 5, 6. Then down there toward the lower bottom of that, you will see that there's a ship at 8 A, 8 B. This one has had two hits called. The on appropriate would say call out A 8. Of course you would say that's a hit. You would mark it. You might call out, B 6. And of course that would be a miss. You would mark that. So you can see this would be something that would be pretty easy to adapt for-- for distance work on a monocular. [ Slide end: ] Here's what I would do with it is I would take it and I would put that grid, a grid similar to the one that's on the right side, and so I would put that up on the screen, on-- back in my day, it was an overhead projector, you know, the old style. But you today every classroom has a projector like a Promethean, a device that you can use. You could put that on there. That's projected. That's what they are firing it. That's what the student is firing at. They may call out A 1, I don't answer whether it's a hit or not, I would just mark that with either an X-- a red X I would usually do to show it was a hit or a black circle to show it was a miss. The student had to proceed accordingly to see where they got it. And there's a copy of this grid in the handout. So if you guys want to download this and print it up yourself and do your game, it's in there. One thing our-- you know, you can make your-- I mean, the way I made this particular grid, though, was just to go into the table making function of-- on my computer, on word, and just build-- just make a grid and label it that way. It's pretty easy to do if you don't want to use the one that I have or if you want to change the size of it. The one problem that used to arrive consistently with battleship, I mean, the nice thing is that kids are learning a grid system. They are learning to coordinate a grid system. But the thing, the problem that would always arise, they would learn it too well. They would make their first hit like for example here the student might call out A 1 and it's a hit. Then they would know, well there's got to be either A 2 or B 1, so they wouldn't use their monocular anymore, they would sit back in their chair, put the monocular down and start calling out the coordinates that would have made sense to do. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Jumbled Arrays Content: left-side graphic: Figure 25 Grid with various animal names in each box right-side graphic: Figure 26 Grid with randomly selected numbers in each box Description End: What I did was I came up with the idea to adapt it, so jumble the arrays. So here's some jumbles that you can do. The one on the right is just the numbers are all jumbled up, you know. So instead of it being-- instead of using the grid in the sense of like it's an A 1, A 2, A 3, I just marked it directly into the grid. The one on the right are just numbers, random numbers. They don't go in any sort of order. So the student actually has to look and see which ones they are. They can't just call out random numbers and hope it's right. The one on the left, I really like, because that's obviously animal names. So you-- you know, there's no telling what will be up there. I mean, I've got, you know, I've gotten kind of your typical, you know, cat, dog, lion, puppy. But there's then also thing like typically you don't have tick, [ Laughter ], and what else? There's-- there's frog, there's tiger, bull, clam. Clam. Usually doesn't come up a lot. Squid. So this makes it a little bit more-- forces the child to use their monocular. [ Slide end: ] And, again, you can do the same. This one is also-- this blank grid, this type of blank grid is also in the handout. If you want to come in and input your own information, whether it be animals or some other subject that's maybe interesting to the child, whatever they are into nowadays. You could put anything in there to kind of like spark their interest and get them motivated to do it. So those are the jumbled arrays. I think there's a couple more examples there. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: More Jumbles Content: center graphic: Figure 27 Grid with various letters across the top for columns, and various numbers down the left side for rows Description End: Here's-- if you really did want to work on them using the grid, you could do this, you know, where it's just the letters and the numbers are jumbled up a little bit. So there they would still be using the grid to sort of track and-- in a more-- organized manner, but they couldn't cheat quite as easily. Chrissy: And, Scott, Donita is asking what size font are you using when you create those grids? Scott: When I created them, I think that you was using maybe 11 or 12 point. But keep in mind that they are projected on to a screen. So the-- that's not the size that they are projected at. The size that-- the projection size I can change by adjusting it. Chrissy: And I think if I didn't have a projection device, I would get a poster board and I would probably draw that out. And keeping in mind that the whole goal in using a monocular is that the student use the monocular, so if you get the font too large on whatever you are using and they don't have to use the monocular, then you've defeated the purpose of the game. Scott: Correct. If I were doing that, if I were doing it old school, drawing it all out by hand, like we used to do, yeah, I would do a little bit of preliminary work to figure out, like, where-- what was their threshold, when would they have to use the monocular, because I certainly wouldn't want to draw an entire battleship grid and find out that they could easily access it without their monocular. Before I go on, Leila Couzyn, I hope I got your name right, you asked what age do you start with the monocular, that's a good question. Chrissy: What age do you start? Scott: Well, I guess it depends-- it depends, but with a students who was physically and cognitively where he could-- take advantage, I would start in-- in probably kindergarten, maybe even Pre‑K. I might start with-- we were talking today about kind of pre-activities where you right use like a cardboard tube just to teach them spotting and tracking, but a lot of times I would use like a lower power, wide focus, but they don't help that much at an extended distance, but they are good for training on those kind of skills, basic monocular skills. When did you like to start, Chrissy? Chrissy: For the typically developing child, I, too, would start by four. So if I had a-- an older three‑year‑old, I might sit with them in my lap and show them the telescope at something. But again it was the 2.5 X or the 2.0 X and the things were relatively close, and it was just a peek through and then I would-- I wouldn't leave it with them. I just played around with it. But then with the four‑year‑old, we really were able to get into more of the spotting. And I would hide things out in the grass, like beanie babies or something, toys, and I would again sit with them, starting with a-- a rolled tube, toilet roll. Scott: It's a toilet roll, yes, it is. Chrissy: Whatever. And just spotting something and teaching them how to find something and then putting the telescope up in front of their eyes and doing that. A four‑year‑old is actually capable of managing a monocular fairly well. Scott: Uh‑huh, yeah. I think the earlier you can start, the more it sort is normalized, sort of just becomes a natural part of their repertoire. And it is-- I think that kids at that age are-- they have the motor skills and cognitive skills to do that. The other thing that I did sometimes when I was starting out with children, I would use binoculars, like a small set of binoculars, again, just to keep them the concept. You know the concept of looking through this thing and that would take sometimes-- sometimes it helped, sometimes it doesn't. But, you know, some kids have more difficulty closing or figuring out which eye to put it at. So that was another thing that I would do. Chrissy: You keep it fun, that's for sure, with the younger ones. Chapter 6. Crossword Puzzles Scott: Uh‑huh, yeah. Okay. So-- so let me get-- let's get back to my-- my games. So I want to talk about‑‑ now I want to talk about crossword puzzles. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Crossword Puzzles Content: center graphic: Figure 28 Example of a crossword puzzle Description End: Everybody knows what crossword puzzles are. Here are some that are in various languages. I think we have Hebrew, Japanese and English. They are very common. Everybody knows what one is. It's real easy to find crossword puzzles. If you don't want to create your own from scratch, you can find lots of books about-- they are for all ages. Age graded crossword puzzle books, you can find them on line. There's a lot of information out there. [ Slide end: ] Crossword puzzles are cool, again, because if you do want to do your own, you can sort of tailor it to the child's interest. Whatever they like to talk about, you can put into this crossword puzzle. You can make a crossword puzzle that deal was their fellow students, like peers. You can have questions about their peers or their teachers, that makes it kind of fun and interesting to them. So the crossword puzzle the modification is similar to battleship. You have this grid. Again, I created this one using the table function on Word, on my computer. Then you just go in and, you know, figure out where your text is going to be and then you use a fill, the fill-- fill ‑‑ Chrissy: Formatting option. Scott: Formatting option to fill in the squares that you don't need. Now, you can do this either way actually. You know, you could put this up on the-- the puzzle itself up on the screen. I did that because I found what actually worked better was to put the questions on the screen. Chrissy: Okay. Scott: Or you could put them both on the screen. You could have-- if you could have each one beside each other, you could have the puzzle and the questions and then they would read the questions and you could fill it in when they got the answer right or whatever their answer was. They could determine whether use-- using their monocular they could determine whether it worked. That's really all there is to it. Again, there is some blanks-- here's an example. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Modifying for Monocular Use Content: left-side text: Figure 33 Example of crossword puzzle clues right-side text: Figure 34 Example of crossword puzzle answer key Description End: So you would do on the left would be your questions and you would have those up there. And then after they've answered it, you can put the answer key up and have them go through and check their answers. And so this one, looks like this is something that I did for a really young kid, relatively young elementary student so, you know, down is it lives in the sea and likes to bite people. Of course that would be a shark. Chrissy: Could be a lot of things. Scott: Well, yes, but classically it would be a shark. It does not have arms or legs, you know, a snake. If I really needed to make it-- help a child with the answers, I would give them at their seat I would give them a separate sheet, like a sheet of potential answers. Chrissy: Oh, okay. Scott: So you might have shark, snake, whale, ant, rhino, skunk, a few other what do you call it where you try to throw them off the trail. Maybe about three or four other words. If the student needs that extra assistance. But anyway, that's how the-- that's how that works. That's how the. Chrissy: Crossword puzzle. Scott: The crossword puzzle works. It's really cool, can be adapted in a lot of different ways. So-- so any questions about the crossword-- we do have a couple of questions here. James K wants to know little kaleidoscopes are a fun way to introduce some pre‑MT skills, also. Chrissy: It's not a question, it's a statement. And he said that he's just telling us little kaleidoscopes, which is a great idea. Thank you. Carry on, Scott. Chapter 7. Mazes Scott: Okay. Next up, I wanted to talk about-- another thing that kids like to do it mazes, right? So a maze. You have a starting point and you've got to get through the maze, you know, find the right route to get through the maze safely. Now, this one, this particular activity I'm going to talk about, I'm going to like branch out at bit from solely the monocular and I'm going to start incorporating something that you would use with an electronic magnifier or what we used to call a CCTV. So it's going to incorporate a little bit. So first of all, let's look at the first maze. Okay. This is a maze that I made, called "Rescue the Prince". And I had-- I had a student, this was-- this was so long ago. Chrissy: Did you draw these pictures? Scott: I did. I drew these pictures. But I wanted-- all of the pictures that you are going to see, I actually drew myself. [ Laughter ]. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Rescue the Prince Content: left-side graphic: Figure 36 Cartoon example of a prince center graphic: Figure 37 Cartoon image of a castle right-side graphic: Figure 38 Cartoon image of a dragon Description End: But I don't know if that's-- well, keep in mind, you know, you don't have to-- you don't have to draw them yourselves, you can find a lot of imagines if you want to see-- if you want to customize your maze, for your childlike I was doing with this, you can find pictures. Like I probably could have found a picture of a prince and a castle and a dragon and all of those things online. But what I decided to do was to draw them myself. If you can go back to the previous slide, please-- Chrissy: He is-- yes, but he's an artist, so he's going to be able to draw those things. If I were to draw a prince, a castle and a whatever, it wouldn't look anything like that at all. So I would have to get a coloring book or something and cut them out. Scott: Yeah, yeah, get a coloring book or just do a Google search for images on line. All of those things will work. I personally like incorporating this, so I used to do it. But I had a student and she really liked fantasy, novels and cartoons about dragons, princes, warlocks and all of that jazz, so I came up with this idea of the "Rescue the Prince" maze. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: The Maze Content: center graphic: Figure 39 Example of "Rescue the Prince" maze Description End: Here's the maze. Let's show the maze. This maze was actually done to help her learn to use the CCTV, the electronic magnifier. So the idea was that you would start up in the upper left hand corner, which is where you usually want to start when you are scanning a document with a CCTV, you would start up there where the castle is. She was supposed to follow the red line, avoiding all of the dragons and find the prince. And once she found the prince, she had to make her way all the way back to the castle safely without encountering another dragon. That was the CCTV portion of the game. [ Slide end: ] But what I did before that, if we could go back to the previous slide again. What I did before that was to these images, I showed-- I had several sizes of these, I would show her one near, she would learn what it looked like. I would tape them to the board, or the wall of the classroom, and have her spot them and tell me where they were or what order they were in. That was kind of the way to incorporate monocular with the distance using the monoculars, with the near using the CCTV. Chrissy: So would you be putting that maze that we saw that could be projected as well, you could do this activity not just with a video magnifier, like the CCTV, but you could also be doing it with the telescope and they-- they you could watch them as they tracked and, you know, you could-- they could tell you where they landed with the telescope. Couldn't you? Scott: Yeah, you could do that. You could do that. This particular child I wouldn't trust to do that. [ Laughter ]. But you could do that. That did occur to me. [ Slide start: ] repeat previous slide This size, if you look at the size of this maze, in order for the magnification for the closed circuit TV to work with that, it had to be this size or else you were seeing too much information. I didn't want her, traveling on the one line, I didn't want her to really see that there was a dragon over there. Chrissy: I see, I see, you could also modify it for the magnifier just like a hand held? Hand magnifier that-- Scott: Yes, you could do that as well. You could do that as well. So that was the activity. Anyway, it was a lot of fun doing that. [ Slide end: ] Of course you could write little stories, tell little stories about what happened afterwards, you could use that time when you are practicing your keyboarding skills, to go in and work with that. It was a way to kind of incorporate a lot of different-- different accommodative skills into one activity. So that was one maze that I did. And here is another one. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Los Bichos Content: Cartoon images of a scorpion, beetle, spider, slug, bee and a worm. Description End: Here's another activity that I did. This was called-- this I did for-- again, this was years ago. This was another little girl and this one was called Los Bichos, which is the bugs. And so there's a scorpion, a slug, a cockroach, a fly, a spider and a worm. And so again these were on cards and these cards, as well as the-- as well as the "Rescue the Prince" cards are all in your handout. If you want to download those and do this activity, you can download those cards and just use those. But this activity, again, she looked and found what all of these bugs were, you know, identified them and we could put them on the-- we could practice by putting them up on the board, and we could put them in a different array, kind of like the activity that you showed, the spotting and scanning activity, where you put them on the board in different arrays, and she has to move across and they can tell what order they're in. [ Slide end: ] You could do the same thing with letters of the alphabet, but take my word for it, it's more fun with bugs. [ Laughter ]. It's a lot more fun. Chrissy: Everything is better with bugs. Scott: Everything is better with bugs. So the activity the maze was this. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: The maze for Los Bichos game Description End: So you have-- she was supposed to go and collect all of the bugs. Now, again, on your CCTV, you always start up in the upper left hand corner, she would start and there's a jar. And I don't-- the jar you can't see very well. I think there's a-- there's a larger version in the next slide. Can you jump to the next slide for just a second? [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 47 Cartoon image of a jar labeled Los Bichos Description End: Yeah. So there's the-- that's the collection jar. So she's supposed to take her collection jar. She takes that jar, she's supposed to go around and collect every single bug. For example, when she comes down and moves over to the right and then goes up, and moves over to the right again, she'll find the slug. At that point she had the actual card for the slug and she would take that and slip it inside the-- the jar was actually a sheet projector-- sheet projector? Sheet protector? And so the bug would actually slip inside the sheep projector-- protecter. Chrissy: Sheet protector ‑‑ sheep ‑‑ Sheet. Sheet protector. Scott: It would be in that. She would have collected the bug. Then she knew there were six bugs. So she had to go around until she had found each and every one of them. Then the activity was finished. So that was-- that was-- that was Los Bichos. That was that game. [ Slide end: ] So those are the two-- the two I had. I wanted to go um-- I wanted to look back. Somebody else commented, James K said little kaleidoscopes are a fun way to do pre‑MT skills. D Tex says in place of toilet rolls. Chrissy: D‑Tex is Nate, right? Room: That's Andy. [ Laughter ]. Scott: Okay. Oh, the pictures would look great through a toilet tube. [ Laughter ]. All right. This is just-- let's move on. This is-- let me show you the next-- this is another example of a maze. Oh, there we go. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Example of a maze with animals Description End: So again this was done with cards and-- and, you know, first we trained on the cards-- actually I do have some of the cards here. And, you know, you would train them with these cards and then they would go in and do the maze. And it was just a fun way, these were all farm animals. That's what we did with that. [ Slide end: ] You know, so here's the card. Here's an example of the cards, you know, you've got your horse, you have your snake, you've got your-- I guess that's a robin or a red chicken, I'm not sure. Your cat, your lizard, of course your pig, and your fish. So-- and the other thing that I would-- when I was using the cards, the cards are in the handout, you can actually blow-- expand them, increase or decrease their size. So I can make-- I could use these same cards but use a much, much smaller-- one that had been shrunk or expanded in size. Again, talking about that idea what is their threshold for being able to see, being able to access it with and without the monocular. That is the way that you can use the same image to sort of if you go into the copier, you can make-- you can blow it up or you can reduce it. So you can do several versions of these and kind of get an idea about where they were, you know-- where their sweet spot was. Chapter 8. Resources Chrissy: Okay. Well, those are the games that we have pictured here. There are some other games that I used pretty routinely or fun ways to teach the telescope that are-- these are listed in this book, "Looking to Learn" in the chapter on monocular telescopes. But one of my pretty frequent activities that I would do, I would buy those chart tablets that were lined, and let's say that I had a child with albinism, or whatever etiology, and I would just write about four steps that were facts about albinism. And we would read a little article about it and then they would copy down some-- some of those facts. So that was a copying activity. Copying is a very unfun thing to do. But if you-- if you incorporate something that's of interest to the child, then it becomes a little bit more entertaining. I would do riddles. I would make charts with riddles and they would make a riddle book and they would-- well, I would make a book. I would staple it together and it just had lines to write on. And they would write the riddle, I can't think of a riddle off-- can you think of a riddle? Anyway, a riddle, they would copy a riddle, then they would put the answer on the back, so that they could read it to a little brother or sister, or brother or sister and then they would draw a picture to illustrate the riddle. So we made in a-- in a sitting, we may do about three riddles and they have their little book. Also jokes. I will caution you that young children don't-- their sense of humor in regards to riddles and jokes is pretty-- not immature, that's not the word. They don't get the joke or they don't get the riddle necessarily. So it is the real simple kinds of riddles and jokes, unless you are working with older kids. Another thing that I would do frequently, because I'm a lover of science, is to go on nature walks where we simply point out things and find things. I love to go to lakes and places like that where there are ducks swimming, or birds in trees, but keeping in mind that a bird in a tree is one of the most difficult things to spot and find. But just getting outside the school building and out into nature. One time I had a little boy who-- who we were out in the school yard and we played "I Spy." That's a real fun game. It was my turn and I said: "I spy something black," and it was a black bird sitting on a telephone wire. And the-- Billy, you know, found it and he said, "It's a bird." I said, "You're right." He stayed for there for the longest time looking and he said, "How does it stay still like that in the sky for so long?" Well, he hadn't-- he didn't understand the whole concept of telephone poles and wires and so it gave me the opportunity just to increase the lesson on here's a stationary object, you trace it, and the telephone pole and you trace along the wire and there's the bird. So you can-- you can work on so many skills through games and through fun activities with the telescope that-- that-- I-- we're encouraging you just to get out there and make it fun. We have included in some handouts that-- links to some other kinds of fun activities and the materials that we have talked about today are in that. I have also included the-- the monocular skills and-- for you to reference. Patrick Healy says-- you could use these games-- oops, go back up. Oh, ho, wait a minute. There we go. You can use these games and writing games to test informally and here's a test template that you could use to measure a student's progress. What's this about? I don't understand what you are talking about. Use these games and writing games ... to test informally and here's the measure of student's progress. Okay. I'm not sure Patrick, in your next write‑in, tell me exactly what you are testing. Scott: Here's Cynthia talking about I spy herself. An outdoor activity we used to do was go out in a neighborhood and look for a nice cluttered front yard. One person would be the spotter and the other would be a seeker. The spotter would locate an item in the yard and then tell the seeker to look for the item, for example, a yellow plastic butterfly. The seeker then had to find it and tell exactly where it was, such as in front of the red flowers next to the hose. If the student could find it he got the point. Then the roles would be reversed. To make it more interesting for the more advanced student, there would be a time limit to the spot. Good for using exact location vocabulary. That's a good idea. Chrissy: Thanks for writing that in. If anybody has anybody else-- Scott: Patrick included a link, however when I clicked on it, it told me I needed permission to access the drive file. We're not sure, maybe we could-- Chrissy: Pat, send that to me. Send that link to me in my email, which you have. And then if-- if we can-- I think we can blast it out to the people that registered. Scott: Yeah, we can do that. Chrissy: Or you can contact me to get that as well. Scott: Yeah. One thing that I was-- that I started to think about, made me think about whenever you were describing how your student didn't have the concept of telephone wires, that's like with-- with students who are blind, students who are a braille student, we often take into account the idea of the difficulty that they have in incidental learning. That there's a lot of concepts, a lot of information that they are not picking up because if you are blind, you don't have access to that sort of a visual observation. And I think a lot of times with our low vision students, because they are visual, we assume they are getting that information. Or they are getting a lot more of it than perhaps they are. You know, the monocular, the type of activity that-- that you were talking about, are really a nice way to kind of fill in those gaps or kind of check on those things, you know, to go out in the environment and sort of look at things and wait for those questions to arise and allow them to get that direct experience with the concept. Chrissy: You know, I would go with the telescope and the student would spot something and then we would take a picture of it. With a camera. And now that even the kids have-- have smart phones, they can take a picture or I would take a picture of it, and then we would print the pictures out and make a little experience story of-- or a book about what they spied, again, in the environment with the telescope. Scott: Yeah, uh‑huh. Chrissy: And that kind of worked on those concepts, as well. Scott: Yeah. Leila Couzyn says can you restate how to find the point at which the student needs the monocular as opposed to straining to see? Well, um, I think when the student is straining to see, [ Laughter ], is a good time. I mean, you can kind of tell that when they start to lose-- fluency? When they start to have a really difficult time, and you see a lot of the sort of grimacing, and squinting and that type of a behavior. When it's not easy-- if it doesn't occur for them with ease is when I start to think, you know, really you need to bring that monocular into play. Chrissy: When I see an acuity that is 20/80 or great, 20/90, 20/100; I can predict that that student is going to have difficulties beyond 10 feet. And so-- then of course the smaller the object, the harder it is for them to see that. So, having fun with a monocular means just putting it in front of-- giving it to them and then starting to point things out, having them point things out to you. I think-- I became such a proponent of monoculars, because one of my very first students, Brandy, who was 2/400 in one quadrant in one eye, when I handed a monocular to her, she literally said, "Oh, I can see, I can see it." It was that Ann Sullivan moment for me, and I realized that this device had the potential to really enhance the life of a child. Not just their education. But to open up the world to them. So I say try it, you know. Just try it with a child. I have one in my kit for my functional vision evaluation, and I'll do my functional, but I will always introduce a telescope at some point and say, "Now can you see it? Tell me what you see." Scott: Uh‑huh. Yeah, I mean it's sort of the-- kids will try to pass very frequently, you know, a lot of times it's the-- you know, the stereotypical response that a child doesn't want to use a monocular, they prefer not to. I remember when I was a child, I didn't like to have extra things. Like, I wouldn't even wear a coat to school because I didn't want to have to carry a coat with me. I didn't want extra things. The monocular can be seen as an extra thing. So again the earlier you kind of start getting it in there and the more you can give them opportunities to kind of see the usefulness of it. Because a lot of kids may be able to see certain things, you know, they maybe able to do pretty well at certain-- with certain tasks and certain places. But there may come those times, or there will come those times when that's not available. That sort of perfect situation is not available. And so it-- if they've got the skill in place, you know, if they've already been exposed to it in a-- in an enjoyable and fun manner, then they are much more likely to be able to start using it in those situations. Chrissy: So if you don't understand the concept of a cow or a bull because you haven't petted one, or been up close to one, and every other child with sight has driven by a pasture with one, and you are reading a story in school about cows, or bulls, or goats, or sheep, or whatever, a giraffe, you don't have the same concept or knowledge base. And so for me, teaching a child how to use a telescope is a part, or plays a part in concept development. Scott: Yeah. We're pretty much out of time here, guys. So we appreciate you joining us today. Thank you, everybody, for your comments and your questions. Again, look-- the download, the handout has all of that information for you and thanks again for joining us on this webinar. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Thanks for Joining Us! Content: Fun Activities for Teaching Kids to Use Monocular Telescopes on a Low Budget November 13, 2017 Description End: [Silence] Fade up from black. Animation: Text for TSBVI transform into braille cells for TSBVI. Fade to black.