Teletherapy: What to Do the First Week of School

Starting back to school with students is a few weeks away but my nerves are flaring.  I have a new assignment at a new school with new kids and a new staff. As a teletherapist, I have experienced periodic, if not frequent, reassignments. I don't know my caseload yet but I'm itching to prepare. In the past, I have started off the year with get-to-know-you activities, reviewing speech room rules, and collecting baseline data. The first round of progress reports come quickly and I like to be prepared. I am still tinkering with ice breaker activities but I did decide to put a new twist on my typically boring speech room rules review. I made a video of myself on webcam, in Zoom, demonstrating less than stellar etiquette for the students to critique. My goal is to have the students observe my behaviors, discuss my behaviors, and generate a short list of speech room rules. I uploaded the video to You Tube, set the permissions to unlisted, then copied the link to SafeTube to get rid of the advertisements. I made a very basic slide show in Power Point with a link to my video, then saved it as a PDF. I use Adobe Acrobat Reader for my PDF's. This tool allows me to click on the video link, which will open in a new window, then annotate the slides if the students have more ideas or comments. I also plan on creating a Google Document for each group where I can write down student thinking and post the rules list. That way I have a running record of session activities, homework assignments, and a way to review rules as needed. Now I have an activity I'm hoping to be able to use with the majority of my students and their families. 

Teletherapy: Summer Speech Homework Using Shared Folder in Drive

One effective way to share summer speech activities with families is to use a shared folder in Drive. Parents will need to have a Google account to access the documents. With that in mind, NEVER include any Protected Health Information (PHI) about your students anywhere in the documents or in the folder, even if students need a link to access the folder.

Steps for Making a Homework Folder in Drive

1.       To create your folder, go into your Drive.

2.       Then left click NEW, then left click FOLDER. You will see a box called New Folder. Name your folder then select CREATE.

3.       Once created, it will show up as folder in your Drive. Double click on the folder and a large circle that says, DROP FILES HERE, will appear.

4.       You can upload PDF’s and Documents into the folder. Within the folder, you can create sub folders for specific areas such as articulation of language activities.

5.       To create sub-folders within the Homework Folder, right click in the empty folder and a box with options will appear. Select NEW FOLDER and name it to create the sub-folder. The great thing about using the folder is that you can add to it at any time. Many parents may not have a printer or want to print out worksheets. Uploading colorful NO PRINT activities, as long as you have Terms of Use permission, can be an effective solution for families on the go. If parents have Drive as an app on their phone or tablet, they will be able to access full color activities on their devices.

6.       To share the folder with families, you will need to right click on the folder name. You can do this a couple of ways. You can right click on the folder as it appears with your other folders in Drive or if you have already opened the folder, click on the drop down arrow next to the name of the folder. Right click on SHARE. Click on CHANGE.

7.       You will see a drop down next to ANYONE WITH THE LINK can view. Copy the link to share with your families.

8.       You can also right click on the folder and select GET SHAREABLE LINK. If link share is OFF, slide the button right so it turns green then the link will be copied to your clipboard and you can paste it into an email or document.

9.       Below is a link for an editable calendar that can be used to created customized calendars that can be saved as PDF’s and added to a shared activities folder in your Drive. The second link is for a NO Print Calendar that is also editable in Google Slides and can be uploaded into a shared folder.

Teletherapy: Using Google Sites as a Speech Therapy Home Practice Tool

Since transitioning to telepractice almost 3 years ago, my concept of student home practice continues to evolve. Recently, I have been using a Google Calendar and a shared folder from Drive integrated into a Google Site to provide my students and their families with access to home practice ideas and activities. The pros of using Google Calendar are that it is easily updated, easily shared, viewable on a phones, tablets, and computers, and best of all—it is FREE. If parents do not have a Google account, a Google Site will need to be made public in order for them to access it. This of course, has some drawbacks. Making the site public means that special care must be taken not to share any potential student PHI (protected health information) or materials with a copy write. That means, posting a link to the cool activity that you purchased on TPT is most probably a big no-no. When using TPT materials, always check the author’s Terms of Use and if you are not sure, ask the author directly. That said, you can post links to any of your own original content, if you choose. 

Another great tool within the Google Site is the ability to embed a folder of activities that have been uploaded to your Drive. This concept can be expanded to providing designated folders according to goal areas or for your students. Again, DO NOT use student names or any other PHI. Label your folders with other labels such as fruit or animal names. To experiment with creating your own site, go to your Drive, click on NEW, then MORE, then scroll down to find Google Sites. As a website, it is very basic. To speed up the process of making a quick and usable site, make your homework Google Calendar and shared activity folders first. Add pages for your calendar and activities folder and they will appear as tabs on a ribbon at the top of the site. Customize with an image or simply use a title. The site does not need to be fancy to be effective. 

Below is a link for a sample site to give you an idea of how to use and modify Google Site contents. If you need more tips for using Google Calendar or Google Sites, below is a short list of instructional videos on You Tube. Also included is a link for a Draft Google Site with a Google Calendar and shared folder embedded. Links for documents, videos, and images can also be embedded into events in Google Calendar.

 

How to Make a Google Calendar

How to Make a Shared Folder in Drive

How to Make a Google Site

Sample Draft Google Site for Speech Home Practice Activities

Teletherapy: Support for Speech Therapy Home Practice

Providing home practice or home support for students with speech and language challenges is often considered part of providing high quality speech therapy services. My personal view of home practice or “speech homework” has varied over the course of my almost 30 years in the profession. I will admit that providing meaningful home practice has not been my strength. When I worked in the schools, some parents wanted daily homework and summer packets. Of those parents, there were always a few that completed the activities. Sometimes I worried that parents would end up reinforcing poor speech productions or that not completing the homework would result in a privilege being taken away. Towards the end of my time in brick-and-mortar schools, I stressed reading, sketchbooks, gardening, card and board games, cooking, crafts, play, photo albums, scrap booking, 4-H, participation in camps and group sports—activities that encouraged the need for oral communication and interaction. I encouraged parents to “name and notice” what their child was doing and tried to stress that parents can model correct productions rather than focusing on correcting their own child’s speech. That said, not one method of home practice is appropriate for all families. Some families are comfortable with activity suggestions and others want printable worksheets or specific word lists. My most recent hybrid approach to providing parents access to home practice activities is to use a shared folder in Google Drive as well as creating a website using Google Sites with an embedded Google Calendar.