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).
1. A student with a hearing impairment would benefit from a course Wiki as well as other visual technologies like Diigo. The use of a course Wiki would allow the student to communicate visually with classmates as well as access class resources including notes, readings and other material. The use of Diigo or other social bookmarking site would allow the student to find and use information other students or the teacher may have found without having to struggle to hear or read lips.
2. A student with low or diminished vision could benefit from an E-reader to allow for text to be read to the student. This application is found on most E-readers, as well as the ability to increase the size of the text displayed on the screen (Wikibooks, 2011c). This technology eliminates the issues vision-impaired students have with getting assigned texts in audio-book versions. This technology is also valuable for students with learning disabilities that impair their ability to read, including dyslexia etc. While these E-readers allow students to “read” assigned texts, they have an unfortunate issue with accessibility, in that the current E-readers do not have the ability to articulate the menus of the readers (Wikibooks, 2011c), requiring vision impaired students to rely on someone else to navigate the reader before they can listen to the book. These readers accommodate headphones so their use would not be disruptive to class. (Wikibooks, 2011c)
These same individuals could also benefit from the DAISY technology that allows an individual to turn any text, including word documents, into an audio file (Wikibooks, 2009). This would be extremely important for vision-impaired students to access notes and presentation that other students would have easy access to. This technology would allow a teacher to convert class notes, tests, or other materials into a resource a visually impaired student could use with ease.
3. For any student with a disability, temporary or permanent that would affect their ability to write, speech recognition software would be the most effective tool. This technology allows a computer to take spoken words and transcribe them as text on a computer (Wikibooks, 2011a). This can be relatively inexpensive software to allow a student to continue their studies with minimal need for assistance. There are different software’s available to work with different operating systems, allowing the teacher to provide assistance to students.
4. Technology that would help a non-commutative autistic student could include speech recognition software as well as a variety of Alternative and Augmentative Communication systems, ranging from a laminated sheet with Velcro to hold pictures in place to an electronic device with an Alternative and Augmentative Communication program installed (Wikibooks 2011b). This technology allows the student to communicate through images instead of spoken or written words. This is often successful with autistic people and has become readily available in many handheld electronic devices.
Wikibooks. (2009). Assistive Technology in Education/DAISY. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/DAISY.
Wikibooks. (2011a). Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Speech_Recognition_Software.
Wikibooks. (2011b). Assistive Technology in Education/Autistic. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Autistic.
Wikibooks. (2011c), Assistive Technology in Education/eBook. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/eBook
Good work!
ReplyDelete