Take the pencil out of the process
This article immediately spoke to me. Leslie Broun opens by talking about how many children are not allowed to use typing as an alternative to handwriting, despite showing over time that they will not improve their printing. My second year teaching, I remember having a student who (in retrospect) likely has dysgraphia. My comments on his papers included; neaten it up, take your time etc. I remember watching that student shut down. Previously eager to participate and to contribute; he wrote less, said less and shut down. No wonder- he was likely made fun of by classmates, and now his teacher was adding to the pain, about something he couldn’t prevent. At that time, the most assistive tech we were using was a little handheld keyboard that could later be hooked up to a computer to print. It was bulky, awkward, not fun, and screamed: single me out! If I could go back, I’d allow whatever the student needed to keep their passion for education.
Broun also
mentioned Carly Fleischmann in the article. I’m familiar with her through
presentations last year in the inclusive education class. Technology meant a
great deal to Carly as it let her actually communicate. She would type since
she often couldn’t verbalize her thoughts. She has since written her own book:
and even developed a video that allows one to further understand what autism is
like for the person experiencing it.
It seems well suited that a book (typed/written) and a video (visual) helped me better understand the concept than having someone else try to describe it. Imagine if Carly was continually disallowed access to technology to help her express herself, we would have never gotten to hear from her in this way.
Assistive Technology and Writing
This article was very useful as it's essentially a list of low tech to high tech devices that can help students.
The two aspects that I found most helpful were the idea of a slantboard for writing:
The two aspects that I found most helpful were the idea of a slantboard for writing:
I also liked seeing some useful writing technologies listed in one spot:
Diagnosis and Intervention Strategies for Disorders of Written Language
This article seemed mostly to focus on dysgraphia interventions, I decided to seek out a visual that summed the information up and found these:
The iTunes U course creating starting seems very overwhelming. It seems like a roller coaster with technology in general; it's overwhelming when you start learning about it, then you dive into it and find out all you can do with it (and even start applying knew knowledge like how to create and add videos etc), then I'm so pleased with the end result.
I remembered Carly when I read it too from when we spoke about her in the other class but mostly from a 20/20 special in all honesty. For those who are not familiar: http://youtu.be/xMBzJleeOno Proof that technology works. I shared a story last year in class about a boy (now man) I went through school with who has CP. In his early 20's he wanted to get a tattoo. Many tattoo artist did not want to do the tattoo because they were blinded by the CP. Even with his assistive tech support that he used to verbally communicate, it took a long time to find someone who would do it. I think that it also takes an open mind to listen to those who use technology for spoken voice. You have to know that this is genuine voice and should be listened to.
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