Assistive Tech, Module Three

I have been focusing my work on voice recognition software and hardware, and a thought just occurred to me. These tools would be doubly useful (and justifiable in purchasing) since they can aide students who are both permanently and temporarily disabled. What I mean is this: there are students who will constantly need the help that voice recognition software presents, and then there are students who may only need it once in their education, after breaking an arm. With athletics and just general kid-ness, many of my students come to school temporarily unable to write due to a fracture. As a Language Arts teacher, this can be frustrating, but if my school made the purchase of assistive tech such as voice recognition software, my students could utilize this when temporarily incapacitated.

EBooks are another great example of assistive tech that is not only useful to learners with some form of disability. Access to classic ebooks allows students to read via school computer, even if they do not have computer access at home. This is useful because an ebook can not be "Lost", so students will not have to remember to return library books, sometimes depriving their classmates of the same text. My students are about to read "A Christmas Carol", and I have found a full text eversion of the novel that I am going to ask that they read at home, to further enhance our in-class reading and discussions.

There are so many ways to apply assistive technology in ways that help all learners! It's really amazing what is available: such a far cry from my own childhood when the internet was still a novelty.