Uses of Assistive Technology

Please provide specific examples of technology/tools that you would recommend for a student with... (1) a hearing impairment, (2) low-vision, (3) a broken right arm, and (4) autism (non-communicative).

If a student of mine had a hearing impairment, I could compile major points from a lesson onto a blog and have students in the class comment on the blog with a few discussion points from class. The blog could be viewed via an e-Book for the child who is hearing impaired, and the other students would be participating in that child's learning process. This is another way for the class to collaborate and for me to demonstrate to them how technology can be utilized.

If a student of mine had vision problems, there are a few routes I could take. Textbooks could be viewed on e-Books with larger print so the student could see better, or I could have them use a DAISY, which is a multimedia-rich tool that incorporates video, pictures, and speech to make text more accessible for visually impaired people.

There is also technology available to convert a student's speech to text (and also to command the computer in navigation). This is useful for a student with a physical impairment such as a broken arm who may not be able to type or use a mouse to direct the computer to certain functions. They could perform research and type assignments with the Dragon Speech Recognition Premium (Wikibooks, March 2011) and keep up with other classmates by not missing out.

To support a non-communicative student with autism, one possibility is to arm them with a smartphone (PDA or iPhone), which have many apps available for the aid of communication (Wikibooks, February 2011). There are applications that convert text to speech and ones where you can pick out which voice you'd like to use (male or female) and you can add pictures on some. There is one, iCommunicate, that creates a story book from text designed by the user. These files could be uploaded on the class blog or wiki for other students to react and respond to, as I continue thinking about collaboration in the classroom.

Sometimes schools do not allow enough money in a budget for technology, but Open Source Initiative is a great internet site that allows for the sharing of software and well-received curriculum tools (Schrum & Levin 2009). This allows for free access to educational materials and benefits the students despite economic issues.

Sources:

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. (2011). Open Source Education: Open Source Initiative. Retrieved June 19, 2011. http://www.opensource.org/osi-open-source-education

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. (February 2011). Assistive Technology in Education/Autistic. Retrieved June 17, 2011. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Autistic

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. (March 2011). Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software. Retrieved June 17, 2011. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Speech_Recognition_Software

Schrum, L. & Levin, B.B. (2009). Leading 21st Century Schools: Harnessing Technology for Engagement and Achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.