Online network lets kids be themselves: Blog squad builds friendship, support
2007-03-07

March 03, 2007 by Helen Henderson

Jowel Beckford admits he was "kind of" nervous. But when it came right down to it, the 12-year-old put in a star performance.

He faced a room full of grown-ups, all dressed in their best, at a dinner to celebrate Ability Online, a free friendship and skills development network for young people. By all accounts, he had his audience in the palm of his hand.

Jowel wasn't even born when Ability Online started 15 years ago, the brainchild of Dr. Arlette Lefebvre, a psychiatrist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

Dr. Froggie, as she is known by her many fans, wanted to create a lively, safe place where kids coping with lengthy hospital stays and physical challenges could meet others and be themselves.

Today, the website she created has 3,300 active members from Canada, the U.S. and beyond, exchanging ideas on everything from boring classes to bullying.

As its home page states: "Welcome to a world of primo possibilities ruled by the belief that there are no disabilities online."

Jowel, one of the first members of the site's "blog squad," is a big part of Ability Online's latest success, a homework support program especially helpful to kids with learning disabilities.

As he explained to last week's gala dinner:

"It's a great idea to help people with disabilities and people like me who learn differently.

"I think we are really making a difference....I know I have learned so much....I have also gained lots of self-confidence, enough to talk in front of you tonight."

Jowel's class at Sir Ernest MacMillan Senior Public School was the first to test-drive the Ask Anything homework program, which includes peer input from the blog squad as well as help from volunteer tutors from Mentor College in Mississauga.

"Jowel was the first to register as a member of the blog squad and he got everyone else to register, too," says Christian Borges, who teaches kids coping with learning disabilities, mild intellectual disabilities, pervasive developmental disorder and other types of autism.

The kids are integrated for everything except math and English classes, taught by Borges, with the help of education assistant Robert Lopez and special needs assistant Alice Lee. Ability Online's Ask Anything homework program is part of English class.

"Self-confidence is often the most difficult stumbling block we face as teachers working with students with special needs," Borges told the gala dinner. Working with Ability Online and its staff has helped change that, he added.

"I have witnessed our students become leaders, not only with this project or in our classroom but spilling out into their other classes....

"I remind my students constantly, as they help develop this website, they will eventually be helping kids like them for years to come, giving them a place where they can come and not feel alone or lost in their academic lives."

Borges gives a lot of credit for the success of the homework program to Michelle McClure, director of program development at Ability Online. McClure visits the class monthly to sit and talk with the kids. Most important, Borges says, she listens and incorporates ideas from the class into the program.

It was the kids who suggested the title Ask Anything for the homework program.

"Learning about learning disabilities has been a real eye-opener for me," says McClure. "We want to make sure the site meets the kids' needs, not what we think their needs are."

For example, she says, it was the kids who taught her that giving numbers to individual thoughts and sentences can help some people make sense of paragraphs that might otherwise elude them.

In her years with Ability Online, watching kids grow up and work toward their dreams, has been incredible, McClure says. "The most significant thing for me is seeing them focusing on possibilities and then building on those possibilities."

The site also incorporates a job readiness program, offering sample resumés and coaching from human resources professionals.

"It's a different avenue of teaching," says Borges of his class's involvement with the blog squad and homework project – an avenue that he sees leading to progress. "These kids are now leaders; they make decisions; they have a presence."

Borges is also impressed by the security that has been part of Ability Online from the beginning.

Among other things, participants can register only by using real names and contact information. Identification is verified prior to site access. Public online messages are consistently monitored for appropriateness. There is zero tolerance for any type of bullying behaviour. There are age-restricted areas, so kids can feel comfortable hanging out with people their own age, if that's what they want. And all staff and volunteers are police-screened.

For more information, see abilityonline.org.


Email life@thestar.ca. Read Helen Henderson's column online at thestar.com/access..

Source: The Toronto Star