There
are so many assistive technology tools that I have access to and use in
teaching. The three assistive technology tools that I
am going to review are ones that I have available to use in my school. They are ipads, Premier technology software and
a SMART Board. There are so many more
tools that are available in the 21st century and I enjoy learning
about the benefits of each one and then exploring them myself to see how the
tools can benefit my students. There are
always obstacles in the way of incorporating the tools in my classroom, as many
tools have a cost involved.
IPADS
Two years ago our school purchased 20 new ipads for
students to use. We currently have these
20 ipads and 4 ipads minis for the entire school. Our grade 8 class has 8 netbooks and 8 ipad
minis that the board purchased for them just this year. This teacher does allow other classes to use
those resources when she is not using them.
I have found them to be a great tool in the classroom. There are endless possibilities of
educational games and programs that any student would be lucky to have the
opportunity to interact with. IPads are easy enough for students in elementary
school to use, but have enough software developed that students in high school
would benefit from their use as well. Ipads can be used in the classroom to
deepen learning for students.
This
is why and how:
-there
are more than 20,000 educational apps for all kinds of learners
-an
ipad has video mirroring, so that educators can share their content with a
classroom of students (iPad can be connected to a computer and therefore seen
on a Smartboard or projector screen)
- iPads appeal to a variety of different
learning styles for individual students and there are so many apps that can be
used for differentiated instruction and
assessment, as well as these apps allow students to demonstrate their learning
in a way that suits them
-dropbox is a great way for teachers
to send documents and links to individual students’ folders, which contain
their individualized learning materials.
-iPads
can also be used to provide extension activities for students who need
higher-order thinking challenges which can be
These can take the form of webquests, quizzes, and geocaching
-they
also allow educators to create short instructional videos to provide support
for those students who need it and the students that may need to watch the
lesson several times have that opportunity (lessons are no longer a one shot
deal)
-
students who need support taking notes will find the app “AudioNote” useful.
This app will record the speaker while the student types notes, creating an
audio recording of the lesson to review learning.
-iPads can be used for students to
create presentations and create videos, as well as they are able to work
together with the iPads for projects, creating videos, to chat about their
reading, etc.
-iPads can be utilized in every
subject area and can be used for various activities where students are to think
critically and solve problems
Here is a
link outlining more ideas for the use of ipads in the classroom:
Here are 25
more ways to use ipads to enhance learning:
See how iPad is transforming teaching and learning at all
levels.
We use ipads
almost every day in my classroom (depending on availability). Students use them to collaborate, create
videos, create presentations, use google docs and many more. I use ipads for literature circle work. Students are able to video their discussions
(which allows them to watch it again, especially those students with memory
difficulties), take pictures of work that was completed, as well as share
answers to comprehension questions for each chapter and create a google docs
presentation that can be worked on collaboratively by all group members (one
page per chapter). This would give all
group members access to the same information and allow for better
understanding of the book. The ipad
could also be used, in many cases, for the group to create a final assignment
of their learning that could easily be shared with the rest of the class.
Premier
Technology Software
Premier
Technology Software provides several programs all in one. It is a powerful easy-to-use literacy tool which
acts as a Word Processor for all
students, provides text-to-speech capabilities on the web as well as with
scanned or electronic documents. It also
provides word prediction; talking dictionary; talking calculator; and help
students organize their note taking.
How
can this be used to support learning?
-each
user has the ability to adjust the software options based on their needs as
well as their individualized style of learning.
-any school using this program can also sign up for an “at
home” use
-this assists students who have
difficulty reading, as it reads text for
them, it assists students in editing their work, as it will read their written
work over for them where they can then identify errors and the word prediction
helps students with their spelling.
-this can be used in every subject
area. Especially subjects like Language (responses can be written using
Premier), as well as science and social studies when completing projects where
research is involved, Premier can read the information for students that may
have comprehension difficulties.
- it can help in all subject areas
to assist students in organizing their note taking.
This technology is very useful for
some, but good for all. It can help any student read or write more effectively.
Here
you can access many training videos.
I
have used this in the classroom with students with learning disabilities and
without. Many of my students have
benefited from this technology. I scan
texts (readings, science, math, etc) for students to have it read to them. Students use it to copy text from the web and
then have it read to them (especially useful during research projects). Another way that I have used this technology
is by creating study notes. By scanning
notes and text readings, students are able to highlight and extract information
to create a study note. I found this to
be a useful feature for many students in my class. In
addition, many of my students complete their writing using premier
technology. They are able to use word
prediction, the talking dictionary and the text to speech capabilities. Many of my students
students
benefit from hearing their writing read back to them. This allows them to make the necessary
editing and revising to their own writing.
By hearing their own writing, students can determine where their ideas
make sense and where they may not make sense.
In
all, I feel that Premier Technology Software can provide students with some of
the necessary skills they may need to be successful in reading and
writing. This technology can definitely
be helpful for many learners in your classroom.
SMART Boards
This
is an excellent interactive tool that found in many classrooms across
Canada. Every classroom in our school is
fortunate enough to have a SMART Board in it.
I use mine every day and I believe it helps to enhance student learning. It is simply described as a whiteboard
displaying the image from your computer monitor onto a large touch screen. The
SMART Board helps you to make your lessons more interactive and fun by using
the SMART Notebook software. It can be
used to show demonstrations, videos and to display student work. The SMART Board can accommodate many
different learning styles (visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners). The SMART Notebook Software allows you to
develop interactive activities for the whole class as it has many virtual
manipulatives available, such as protractors, rulers. This is particularly helpful in Geometry and
rather than sitting one-on-one with 29 students, or trying to use the chalkboard
where it is very difficult for students to see the protractor, you can
demonstrate on the SMART Board how to measure and construct an angle, as well to
construct polygons. In addition,
students can come up and demonstrate their learning for everyone in the class
to see. The more students are involved
in the lesson, either by just verbally participating, quietly listening or
writing something or interacting in some way with the SMART Board (even better
because they love this) the more they learn.
How is this used to support
learning?
-use it as a tool for taking up work. Students can come and
write answers on the SMART Board.
-while you are having a discussion,
you can have a student to type out notes on the computer while you talk, so
that the other students can view and take them down.
-use it as a brainstorming
tool. You can put together ideas
together as a class and you can also add images, diagrams or videos.
-classroom games can be played
easily on the board, especially some board games
-all forms of media– videos,
photographs, graphs, maps, illustrations, games, etc. – can be used on the
board
-display student work on the SMART
Board and discuss it as a class
- you have the ability to organize
your lessons to account for all types of learners in your classroom (visual,
auditory, kinesthetic learners)
- students are able to access
virtual manipulatives to practice concepts
-an ipad can be connected to the
SMART Board and whatever is on your ipad screen is displayed on the SMART Board
(this is valuable when students are doing work on the ipads and you can quickly
display (using a connecting cord) their work for ALL students to see, this
allows for great discussions and feedback from the entire class)
I use my SMART Board for every
subject area. I find that it is a very
valuable tool in the classroom. All
students benefit from the use the SMART Board.
I find that by using videos in a lesson enhances learning. During our Space unit in Science, I showed
students a video about the International Space Station http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doN4t5NKW-k . This video
provides students with a tour of the station and research facilities that is
narrated by Commander Sunita Williams of NASA.
This clip allowed students to see and hear about this station. It peeked their curiosity about space,
wanting them to learn more. They had
many questions that we compiled as a group.
This allowed for more inquiry from the students about Space. This is just one of the many ways that I use
the SMART Board in the classroom in order to deepen the learning of my
students.
In all, the SMART Board is a
valuable tool in the classroom for ALL students. Nowadays students are growing up surrounded
by technology. We need to embrace this
and integrate, as much as we can, the use of technology in the classroom. I am very lucky to have access to this
technology each day.
