Assistive Technology

       Recently I listened to a webinar about Reading and Assistive Technology. It fits in perfect with everything I have blogging about because it discusses ways to use AT in the classroom to help students read. The webinar began with a discussion between what a Text-Reader is and a Screen-Reader. I did not know the difference until I listened and read about it so I figured I would share. A text-reader reads documents and applications for you. It is typically used with students with reading disabilities. A screen -reader reads everything on the screen including tool bars and anything else you may see. This is typically used for students with low vision. 

     To help students read there is a website called bookshare.org . This is a resource for electronic books. It is an accessible online library. There is a membership fee you must pay but if the student is qualified orthapedically, visually, or a reading disability the fee is waived. 

      A great resource that comes when you are a member of bookshare.org is a free download of Read:Outloud. This is from the same company that made Write:Outloud that I talked about in previous blogs. Read:OutLoud by Don Johnston Incorporated as the text reader that would best achieve the goal of providing access to reading materials and enabling students to read texts with comprehension. 

    In reading the text book Assistive Technology in the Classroom by Amy G. Del, Deborah A. Newton, and Jerry G. Petroff, I learned more about AT in the writing process. If you are a teacher you know that the writing process is made up of different steps; Prewriting, drafting, reviewing, editing, and sharing or publishing. Students with disabilities have a hard time with the process and sometimes try to avoid writing togetherGraphic organizers a great way for students to organize their writing. This can be done with a low tech AT such as a handout or a high tech would be the software program called Inspiration that I blogged about in earlier posts. Graphic organizers help all students not just students with a disability. I would like to incorporate that into my own teaching because I know how difficult it is to being to write and a graphic organizer would be so helpful. 

    There are a variety of tools to help students with disabilities in the writing process. 

       Prewriting: graphic organizers

       Drafting: word processing, word prediction with custom dictionaries and speech recognition

       Reviewing: text-to speech

       Editing: text-to speech, phonetic spell checks, talking dictionaries, thesaurus, grammar checker, text correction

       Sharing or Publishing: word processing, multimedia presentation application, digital storytelling, blogs, wikis