QUAKER VALLEY HAMSTER WORLD /SPRING 2019
Summary
The Quaker Valley School District partnered with the Center for Creativity and Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center to leverage technology to better support learners with exceptionalities. QVSD has created a team of special education teachers, representing all four QVSD school buildings and both, life skills and general special education student populations. We split our team into secondary and elementary groups and created a prototype problem-statements for each group. The purpose of this grant is to identify the challenges of special education teachers, related to better supporting special needs youth. We will collaborate with experts in emerging technologies and prototype solutions for the benefit of student learning. Finally, we hope that the technology and solutions created through this unique partnership, are scalable and will be shared with the Remake Learning Community.
The Quaker Valley School District partnered with the Center for Creativity and Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center to leverage technology to better support learners with exceptionalities. QVSD has created a team of special education teachers, representing all four QVSD school buildings and both, life skills and general special education student populations. We split our team into secondary and elementary groups and created a prototype problem-statements for each group. The purpose of this grant is to identify the challenges of special education teachers, related to better supporting special needs youth. We will collaborate with experts in emerging technologies and prototype solutions for the benefit of student learning. Finally, we hope that the technology and solutions created through this unique partnership, are scalable and will be shared with the Remake Learning Community.
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Rationale
Independence exists as our overarching goal. Often times learning new prevocational skills requires each activity to be broken into smaller tasks. Each task requires explicit instruction and repeated practice in order to acquire mastery. Since this process is not always fluid, students become dependent on his or her teacher as to what to do and when to do it. This series of prompting can be verbal or physical and is eventually faded, handing ownership of the task to the student. The dependency on prompts is often the last obstacle before the student acquires independence with an activity. Students with special needs are not able to self-regulate in the school environment as well as within the community. Students can become upset and frustrated very easily; their range of escalation depends on their cognitive function, ability level, and individual needs. With teacher prompting, scaffolding and/or visuals, teachers are typically able to help students deescalate within an appropriate approximation of time. However, it is important for students to learn how to self-regulate to have more behavioral and hopefully academic progress. Furthermore, students that are able to self-regulate would enhance their overall independence (in and out of school). Links
Hamster Watch Controller Software APK for Android OS: https://github.com/johnchoi313/QVxETCxAIU-HamsterWatchProject/blob/master/HamsterController.apk Hamster World Server Software EXE for Windows OS: https://github.com/johnchoi313/QVxETCxAIU-HamsterWatchProject/blob/master/Hamster%20World.zip Unity 2017.1 C# Project Open Source Code: (CC-BY-SA 4.0 Open License, where applicable) https://github.com/johnchoi313/QVxETCxAIU-HamsterWatchProject/tree/master/Hamster%20Project%20Unity 
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Say hello to a little virtual hamster!
Using the sensors on an Android Smartwatch.
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Partner Organizations
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Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center
(https://www.etc.cmu.edu/) The ETC is the premiere professional graduate program for interactive entertainment as it’s applied across a variety of fields, exploring transformational games, innovation by design and interactive storytelling. The ETC excels at creating an educational environment in which interdisciplinary students acquire collaboration, creativity and communication expertise while applying their artistic and technical skills through design-based research projects. Allegheny Intermediate Unit 3 Center for Creativity (https://centerforcreativity.net/) The Center for Creativity, an initiative of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, provides educators with instructional resources, grant opportunities, and professional development as they integrate STEAM, creativity, and innovation into teaching and learning practices. Quaker Valley School District (https://www.qvsd.org/) The Quaker Valley School District is a school district covering the Boroughs of Sewickley, Leetsdale, Edgeworth, Glen Osborne, Sewickley Hills, Sewickley Heights, Bell Acres, Haysville, Glenfield, as well as the townships of Leet and Aleppo Townships in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. |
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Credits
Dr. Sally Hoover Director of Pupil Services at Quaker Valley School District and Project Leader. Jason Harrison Life Skills Support and Special Education Teacher at Quaker Valley Middle School. John Balash Director of Educational Engagement at CMU Entertainment Technology Center. John Choi CEO of Choitek and Lead Software Developer of Hamster World project. |
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