Technology is too cool sometimes! The technological advancements made today are helping the world connect to each other; helping to connect everyone, including those with special needs who may feel behind. Communication is the cornerstone of teaching, and today we can be clearer than ever before with the help of a few cool devices.
I have worked with students with hearing impairments before, and most recently a common solution for these students has been a microphone for the teacher/speaker to wear that sends wireless signals to an amplifier-type hearing aid the student wears. The microphone usually hangs around the speaker's neck on a lanyard, and is transfered if necessary very easily. They do not interfere with classroom instruction, and allow the hearing impaired student to be anywhere in the room to hear comfortably.
For a student with low-vision, an e-reader may be helpful. E-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader offer large print adaptions of many texts, readily available. The Apple iPad also includes screen magnification and VoiceOver, a screen-access technology, for the blind and visually impaired. DAISY talking books are another option for the visually impaired.
For those students that may only need temporary aid, as would be the case of a student with a broken arm, wouldn't it be nice to not have to bother the student sitting next to them to have to type up all of their papers and homework for them? Oh right, there's a technology for that! Speech-to-text software is available that will convert the student's spoken words to text on the computer screen - they can compose their own paper without writing at all! This software may also be useful with an autistic student who may have trouble with grammar or spelling (really, any student having trouble in those areas may benefit) as the software lessens the burden on the speaker to control both the concepts and composition as well as grammatical tasks.
Apple Inc., (2011). Apple accessibility. Retrieved 6/22/11 from http://www.apple.com/accessibility/.
Wikibooks, (2009). Assistive technology in education/DAISY. Retrieved 6/22/11 from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/DAISY.
Wikibooks, (2011). Assistive technology in education/speech recognition software. Retrieved 6/22/11 from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Speech_Recognition_Software.
Great job this week. I like the personal connection. I see you have references at the end of your post, but you also need to include citations directly in the post as well where appropriate. If you have a reference at the bottom then you need a citation in your post.
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