Computer Quest

The assignment was for a week at the adult transition center. I was just there after I finished off the long-term geography/economics assignment, but before that it had been a couple years. (They're on the same campus as the alternative education center, so it hadn't been that long since I'd been at the facility.) 

I'm pretty sure I had met all the students before. I know for sure I'd run into Natalie. 

Natalie has one goal in life: play on the computer. And everything she does is in aims of getting onto that computer. 

The class is set up so that the students get computer time after lunch. Before that they have other tasks. 

Natalie does task boxes. She reads Green Eggs and Ham (her favorite book). She has it memorized, but the instructional assistants (IAs) tell me that she can actually read. But she won't pick up any of the other books. 

While doing these things, she will get out of her seat and drift over to the computers. She'll look longingly at them. And she'll open her computer...

We have to instruct her sharply to go back to her seat. 

A similar thing happens at lunch. She's supposed to be outside, eating. She'll throw away her food and then drift into the classroom. 

I have taken to standing in the doorway to prevent her from entering. She'll attempt to go around. I'll block. And that works, for a time.

But, Natalie will then attempt to enter the other classrooms and use a computer in there. 

She even "borrows" the iPad of a fellow student (who isn't verbal so she uses her iPad to communicate). 

On Friday, another student brought that iPad to us, telling us Natalie had been taking pictures. The IA began deleting those pictures and videos. After about a dozen deletions, she walked away to finish deleting them away from the group. Natalie had taken a lot of pictures. 

It's an ongoing thing. At least, until after lunch. Then Natalie gets to use the computer for the rest of the day (about an hour).