A Cyber Hand for the Destitute

       Assistive technology is a resource that all schools should implement into their classroom settings. With the vast improvements made in technology today, students of all types of learning demands can surely benefit from it. This video, Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams, demonstrates the possibilities for learning in today's modern age of technological advancement. Students like Susanna Sweeney and Lukas Bratcher, who suffer from severe physical impairments, are two of the many students that have greatly benefitted from assistive technologies. Teachers should consider the positive experiences shared from this video to look into innovative ways to help students learn with assistive technology.

     Considering the video's touching example of helping students with severe impairments to experience learning the best way possible is something I definitely want to use for my future students. Unfortunately, Director Sheryl Burgstanier of Washington's DO-IT University remarks, "Even though there's a lot of technology available for people with  disabilities, it isn't implemented that much in our school systems today and there al lot of reason for that " (Burgstanier, 2005). The irony of her statement reveals a need to expose students with the educational aspects of assistive technologies, especially those found on the Internet. The reason why assistive technologies are not available for all students would fall on the idea that schools do not have an appropriate budget to support such aids. Teachers can offset this by introducing the assistive technologies found online.
     Assistive technologies, which are offered freely online, can help teachers promote an effective learning environment for their students with learning disabilities. Some Internet sites that offer additional assistance for disability users include TVOkids.com, Moodle.com, and Wiggio.com. These sites offer students with disabilities to learn on their own pace or in their preferred environment. The Internet also contains a surplus of free downloadable programs that utilize speech recognition-base software, which students like Susanna can benefit from.

     Thorough exploration of the Internet can help teachers easily implement assistive technologies in the most affordable way. As an aspiring English teacher, I will definitely modify my lesson plan to include assistive technology. By way of using assistive technology in my classroom, I will be providing all my students with the most efficient learning environment. Assistive technology is without a doubt a modern convenience that equalizes the opportunities for all students to have the best education.  On a positive note, Diane Curtis (2005), author of the coordinating article of Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams video, writes, "All over the country, what is known as assistive technology is opening the way for disabled students to do what their counterparts of years gone by could not even have imagined." Here, Curtis justifies the revolutionary importance assistive technologies are for students with disabilities, which provides such students with the opportunity to achieve at their highest learning potential.

References

Curtis, D. (2005). Disabled bodies, able minds: giving voice, movement, and independence to the physically challenged. Edutopia. Retrieved from 

            http://www.edutopia.org/assistivetechnology

Ellis, K (Producer). (2005). Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams. Available from

            http://www.edutopia.org/assistive-technology-enabling-dreams-video

Wigging and Googling Out in The Big Escape: Hunted House

              

            
              TVOKids.com’s The Big Escape: Hunted House is an interactive and investigative educational game, which I will definitely add into my pedagogical toolbox. Implementing The Big Escape: Hunted House into my lesson plan will help me practice differentiated instruction as well as provide my students with an opportunity to learn via Internet and computer. Students need to be exposed to the educational benefits of the Internet and realize that learning can also be fun and entertaining. In order to successfully employ The Big Escape: Hunted House into my classroom, I would need to insure that my students have access to both a computer and the Internet. If my students do not to have both a computer and the Internet at home or in the classroom setting, I could schedule a day with which my class can visit the school’s computer lab.

            As an aspiring English teacher The Big Escape: Hunted House is a perfect game to teach students the basic uses of the parts of speech and its syntactical roles. The Big Escape: Hunted House requests students to investigate the interactive environment for slips of words that need to be inputted into the students' journals. I personally find this way of teaching students to be very beneficial, because it teaches both technological literacy as well as content knowledge. Secondly, students who play the game will also find it much easier to learn or review their knowledge of the parts of speech by going through each level as it progressively gets harder. The game can be utilized to engage students’ prior knowledge of the parts of speech, develop students’ efficacy with the parts of speech, or assess students’ understanding of the parts of speech. Overall, The Big Escape: Hunted House provides teachers like myself with many viable options to teach students in the most interesting and creative ways possible.

            With the aid of Wiggio.com and Google Documents, Team Delta and I were able to communicate and decide why we should select The Big Escape: Hunted House as our educational game. Wiggio is an effective tool, because it creates a space where group members can freely communicate with one another regardless of conflicting schedules. My group and I benefitted greatly from this tool, since we only met in classroom twice in a week and had no additional time beyond class hours to meet with one another. Our shared Wiggio account helped us communicate on live forums and chats, which each of us would review and respond in our own times. Alongside Wiggio, our team also benefitted from using Google Documents' sharing feature. The sharing feature made it possible for my group to successfully create our rubric entirely online, and the best part about this feature was that it allowed us to access the document anytime for further change or adjustment.

            Working in groups with tools like Wiggio and Google Documents has made learning both convenient and effective. Applying the new skills acquired from ED 271 has made group communication and participation a much more plausible and bearable activity. Team Delta and most importantly myself will definitely takeaway many important skills from this project, because it introduces the many benefits afforded by the Internet. The Internet, if searched thoroughly, can provide many useful tools for teachers such as: educational games (e.g. The Big Escape: Hunted House by TVOKids.com), website makers (Wix.com), or communication tools (Wiggio.com).  As a teacher, I will introduce these websites into my classroom so that my students can take advantage of the many useful tools the Internet can offer.

Team Delta Presentation: http://russellcrtz978.wix.com/deltaed271edugame#!about-us/mainPage