Rosa Aparicio
‘Primary School Teacher and creator of Ipads and Autism’
Twitter: @ipadsyautismo
Blog: http://ipadsautismo.blogspot.com.es

We have known Rosa from the beginning of Chromville, she is a good colleague and we always have her on mind. She loves the emerging technologies and is an enthusiastic of using Chromville to work with her students. Rosa works as a teacher of Primary School in Barcelona and has a blog called Ipads and Autism.

Are schools ready to work with autism spectrum disorder students?

Nowadays, schools must face several important challenges. One of them is to handle diversity at schools, I mean, offering the best education to all its students regardless their skills or needs and being respectful with all their individual characteristics.

Teachers are struggling, in spite of their good intention there is a lack of training and information about autism spectrum disorder (ASD).This means that sometimes these children can´t take advantage from their educational period and schools neither take advantage of the positive impact that an ASD student can have on their ecosystem.

During the past few years the presence of ASD has increased so the teachers need special training such as looking for resources, talking with associations specialized in Autism, working with families or students and experts in the field.

How can emerging technologies help these kids?

Technology has given us a huge amount of possibilities to work with students regardless their needs. There are lots of gadgets that we can use such as computers, interactive whiteboards or tablets.

These technological resources provide us with a real visual educational content, encouraging the students autonomy and self-confidence, transforming the student in the protagonist of his/her learning development, and encouraging him/her to socialize with the classmates.

How can parents take advantage from Chromville in their homes?

A great amount of the tools for autistic children have been developed by their families. Technology at home is good to work educational content (mathematics, language, science…) and improves other abilities as communication, social skills and the relationship with their environment.

Why did you created the blog Ipads and Autism?

In 2011 I got involved on the use of tablets with ASD students because I was looking for different experiences in the classroom. At that time I realized that there was barely information about this field. Everything was related with the experience of families at home but nobody was talking about the use of these gadgets at school. That´s why I started my project in 2012, sharing all the tech work that I made with my students, explaining what and how we used all the apps.

At the same time I share other teacher experiences´ in my blog. This turns my website into a brainstorming place where every educator can find what they are looking for.

Why do you like Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality (AR) is a great visual and encouraging resource. This is a tool very useful when you want to work with some educational content. There is much easier to learn the parts of the plant seeing it with a 3D model. AR allows to customize stories or characters, and to adapt all of this to the needs of each student.

How Chromville helps you to work with ASD students?

Chromville gives families, students and educators a great amount of possibilities. It is a very accessible and easy app to use. It allows you to work with educational content, reinforce children skills and create inclusive educational materials. We can make individual activities or work in groups with all my students together.

For example, when an ASD kid sees the 3D human body, he or she can learn easily and with autonomy the parts that compound it.

But there are also other option with the others prints from the app such as creating a story with some of the related prints, decorating them or taking pictures in 3D and adding stickers or text. It´s an app that reinforces the attention and mental concentration of the students.

It offers resources that, depending on the management of the teachers can become adjusted activities to the students needs.

How do you think Education for ASD students would be in 10 years?

Every student is different, not only ASD students so I hope we have individualized education for each and every single student.

Describe your job with 140 characters.

Teaching is arousing childrens curiosity, motivating them to learn and teach them resources so all the students can try their best.