Case study of "J"

“J” is an eleven-year-old boy who is entering Grade Seven in September. He is a quiet, sensitive student who has a dry sense of humour. He likes race cars, playing chess, and socializing with his friends.

“J” has been diagnosed with dysgraphia and struggles with written tasks. He makes good use of his personal laptop, but he continues to need close support to ensure that he expands on his thoughts as he is a reluctant writer. Also, he needs to be monitored to ensure that he completes tasks and that any paper products are organized as they often go missing.

Through working with groups this year he has come to understand that his difficulties in one subject should not colour his overall view of himself as a learner. This has caused him to take risks in other subjects and feel more positive about school in general. He possesses very good math skills and is at or above grade level in various areas in this subject. In fact when working with groups during math class, his group needs to be carefully monitored to ensure that “J” isn't completing their work for them.

Fast and Furious: Test Drive Edition: This APP is a single-player, fast-paced, exciting game in which the goal is to get to the finish line before your opponents. Since you are playing for the "pink slip" (car registration), if you win the race, you win your opponents' cars. However, if you lose, you lose your car. When choosing your car, you have the choice of two types of cars and various colour options. The graphics for this game are quite realistic and would undoubtedly peak the interest of car enthusiasts. To play the game you need to hold the iPod vertically and steer right or left by tilting the iPod. To slow down you touch the screen.

As "J" is a reluctant writer, he often struggles to find a topic of interest to write about. Given that the "Fast and Furious: Test Drive Edition" reflects a topic of great personal interest, it is hoped that he would feel motivated to share his thoughts. He could be encouraged to write a daily log on his experiences as a race car driver. Also, he could write from different vantage points - as a driver to that of an observer.

As stated earlier, "J" makes good use of his personal computer and this has helped him to create his written work. He continues to need support with spelling words as he has been diagnosed with Dysgraphia. As he is receiving close support in Resource and in the classroom, it would be beneficial that any other support in this area be somewhat enjoyable. To help him practice word families and strategies to make and create words, I have downloaded the free app named "Jumbline Lite." Similarly to Scrabble, a player would make words from a given set of letters that is jumbled. However, in this APP all of the words that are possible to make (from three letter words to seven letter words) are included in a blank block form above the jumbled letter. This allows you to see how many words you have left to find and what size each word is left to make. While this is a timed game, the focus of the APP for "J" would be to experiment with word families and to focus on finding words out of letters. This would help solidify learned strategies that he is exposed to during his time during Resource and in class. The advantage of this APP over other spelling practice games is that it does not contain juvenile graphics and the timed element makes it highly addictive! Morever, there is room for "J" to grow with playing with this game as he can move beyond making three-letter words and be challenged to try to find words that contain four-, five-, six-, and seven-letters.


Finally, the third APP that I chose for "J" was Stick It - Free Sticky Notes for iPhone
"J" struggles greatly with organizing his materials and completing tasks. In past, putting a "daily to-do" list on his desk often got lost in the shuffle of papers. To help him complete tasks and organize his materials, I've chosen "Stick It - Free Sticky Notes". This free APP is basically an electronic version of the familiar paper stack of sticky papers. However, the benefit of having this electronically is that all of the notes can be located in once spot. One of the best features of this is that the notes can be done in a variety of colours and be personalized with colours and fonts. Using colours for different purposes would help the user to know where to look for information. For example, the blue sticky note could be used consistently as the "Daily To-Do". This way "J" would know what he had to do each day. Also, another great feature of "Stick It" is that the notes can be placed around the screen to allow the reader to view several notes at once.

In the initial usage of this APP, "J" would benefit from having some (or all) of the lists to be created with his teacher. As he became more independent with practice and usage, he could utilize this APP on his own to help him keep organized. There are a variety of organizers APPs, but the simplicity of "Stick It" allows the user to quickly access the notes and to be creative in the process.