One of the greatest parts about living in our time is the great advancement in all of technology bringing not only different cultures closer together, but helping level the field a little more for those children with special needs. The NETS-S standards expect all children to demonstrate creativity and innovation and conduct research and use information among a few other expectations; it is through the use of new assisted technology that students can now achieve these goals even if they are hearing impaired, low vision, have a broken arm, autistic (non communicative), etc.
There have been a big break through in speech recognition software that have many uses for the classroom. The most obvious of these uses would be for a student that has limited mobility or motor skills. This allows them to complete that tasks given just like students that have the normal motor function. In class the student would verbally control the computer through use of a microphone system, but can also 'type' a paper via the microphone software as well that turns speech into text. Another application of speech recognition is for the hearing impaired. I would like to experiment with this in my own classroom. If I were to have hearing impaired student I would like to talk into the microphone during the class and allow my speech to pop up on the students computer, almost like sub-titling, so that they can be as much a part of the class and will not miss anything even if I were to walk around the room.
Another aspect of technology that helps make everyday life easier for low vision people is the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY). This is a talking book technology that will help students with these types of issues stay up to speed with everyday life. Even Microsoft has joined with DAISY, together they have collaborated and made a program in which allows anyone to save a document in a standard format. I remember having a low vision student in my class in middle school, and I always felt bad that things were harder for her to read and keep up with the class because she always had to leave to use a magnifying computer to read her textbooks. I would love to have DAISY in my classroom, instead of leaving the class to go struggle with the small print the student can stay and listen to the book. By being able to stay in the classroom allows more time for socialization as well which is amazing for education.
What has been nice is the advent of this technology to also help students who are autistic or non communicative. In doing a little research I found the ever popular IPad has become an excellent tool in helping these students become more socially aware. As structure is important for understanding the world around us the IPad has seemingly limitless applications with more being created everyday. There are applications for the weather, so the child can predict what will happen during the day outside. There are applications to help people understand the terminologies used in ordering food (e.g. small, tall, etc.). "In addition to basic classroom applications, IPad and ITouch users report success with everything from scheduling and behavior-management applications to basic and augmentive communication" (Youngwith, (2011). I would hope that as a teacher if I had a student who was autistic in my classroom that they would have access to an IPad so that I may show them good applications to download and therefore assist the child. However if they do not have an IPad I would do my research to present and argument to the school or who ever I might have to, to get the funding for an IPad in the classroom to help students progress.
It is through this assisted technology that I can help all of my students perform at their best. I can allow them the creative freedom by leveling the playing field for them that will allow them to hopefully become inspired to try the things they were once hesitant to because of their disability.
References:
ISTE NETS-S Advanced Digital Age Learning (2011) Digital-Age Learning. Retrieved fromhttp://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students.aspx
Wikibooks (2011) Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Speech_Recognition_Software
Youngwith, J. (2011) Technology helps children deal with autism in school. Retrieved fromhttp://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110301/news/703019898/
Great job this week! Just a few minor issues with citations/references. If you are going to include a reference at the bottom of the page there must be a citation in the post. When you refer to the NETS standards you need to include a citation. Also - I should see a Wikibooks citation... and for the Youngwith citation, you do not need to have an extra parenthesis around the year of pub.. it should simply look like this: (Youngwith, 2011).
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