Adaptive and Assistive Technology Reflections Blog
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for designing curricula that enable all individuals to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning. Universal Design for Learning provides rich supports for learning and reduces barriers to the curriculum while maintaining high achievement standards for all.
For this assignment, technology-enhanced strategies are identified for students with special needs. Below are different categories of special needs students. Each category provides two assistive technologies that may assist special needs students in the area of understanding and being successful within a particular content area and/or grade level. |
The picture below is from ATL3, Inc. website. Click here to read how this company is helping students and adults with disabilities use assistive technology.
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Students with Cognitive Disabilities
Storybook Weaver is an inspirational software for children. It can be used to help students develop basic as well as creative writing skills. Students with cognitive disabilities can create their own multimedia story with an easy-to-use word processor and variety of graphic tools. This software will be useful in the Social Studies content area for civics/government assignments. Instead of challenging students with cognitive disabilities to memorize historical dates, events, and persons, I will have students create their own multimedia story on certain Presidents such as Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama etc. They will be able to use this tool to share their understanding of each President. Click here to read what a teacher thinks about and how he used Storybook Weaver in the classroom.
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NaturalReader is a Text to Speech software with natural sounding voices. This easy to use software can convert any written text such as MS Word, Webpage, PDF files, and Emails into spoken words. Natural Reader can also convert any written text into audio files such as MP3 or WAV for your CD player or iPod. As a teacher, I would utilize this software to create lesson activities. This software will translate text to speech and allow students with cognitive disabilities to listen to class notes and text books. Click here to read testimonials about this software.
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Students with Physical Disabilities
In cases where a person does not have reliable muscle control in the hands for precision movements, an adaptive keyboard can be useful. Some adaptive keyboards have raised areas in between the keys, rather than lowered areas, to allow the person to first place the hand down on the keyboard, then slide the finger into the correct key. This will be a helpful technology in the Social Studies content area because it will give students with physical disabilities more control of the keyboard when working on civic/government classroom assignments.
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A trackball mouse is not necessarily an assistive technology—some people without disabilities simply prefer it to the standard mouse—but it is often easier for a person with a motor disability to operate than a standard mouse. Someone with tremors in the hands may find this kind of mouse more useful because once the person moves the mouse cursor to the right location, there is less danger of accidentally moving the cursor while trying to click on the mouse button. In regards to using this tool in the Social Studies content area, it will be similar to the keyboard. The trackball mouse will provide students with a motor disability more control to select and click items on the computer. This will allow them to participate in the same civic/government lesson activities as students without a physical disability.
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Students with Sensory Disabilities
JAWS software allows blind and visually impaired users to read the screen either with a text-to-speech output or by a Refreshable Braille display. In the Social Studies content area, this will allow students with sensory disabilities to use the computer to read lessons and access the internet for various civic/government class projects.
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Stop typing - and start talking. Dragon is a perfect speech recognition software for anyone who wants an easier, faster, and more fun way to interact with the PC. So as a teacher, I would use this software to record civic/government lesson activities. Then students who has sensory disabilities will be able to use text to speech software and listen to the teacher discuss and explain various lessons.
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At-Risk Students
BrainPop creates animated, curricular content that engages students, supports educators, and bolsters achievement. In traditional, blended, and "flipped" learning settings, BrainPOP supports individual, team, and whole-class learning. So for at-risk students, this software will be used to allow them to learn at their own pace using interactive games, online quizzes and other instructional material. These engaging lesson activities will teach state standards in social studies (government, history, geography etc.).
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Timeliner XE is the powerful and intuitive software program students use to organize data—anything from historical events, to scientific processes, to story arcs—to see the connections, and transform a world of information into real knowledge. This will be a great tool for at-risk students. In a Social Studies class, they can create a timeline on various historical events while gathering information from anywhere, including the Web. This will give at-risk students a pictorial view of lesson activities.
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Gifted and Talented Students
Weebly is a web-hosting service that allows the user to "drag-and-drop" while using their website builder tool. So for gifted students in my Social Studies class, this tool will be used to allow them to create an online website to document their learning experience. This will give the gifted students freedom to exercise creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.
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A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. In a Social Studies content area, I will create a very challenging webquest for gifted and talented students. They will perform activities such as internet research, creating online presentations, providing oral presentations etc. The exercises in my webquest will challenge students to exercise pertinent 21st Century skills.
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