#G

Assistive Technology helps those with disabilities to participate during instruction. These disabilities can include hearing impairment, sight, and mobility challenges. I really enjoyed learning about the different helpful tools. Speech recognition software displays spoken words as text and text reading software reads text loudly and clearly. These programs open up a world of possibilities for those who are struggling. 

This video is about Mason, and he is like many children I come across daily! He uses iPads, brail devices, and smart boards to help him live a normal life in a school setting. By using these assistive technologies, he is able to participate and stay aligned with the class agenda.


Electronic spellers and dictionaries assist new learners with correct spelling, check the accuracy of their spelling, and listen to the words out loud. By listening to sentences, students can recognize words in a new way. Some companies have developed hand held devices that are often on Christmas lists! I think that making education fun this way can benefit so many students. Often times, students feel limited to what they can accomplish based on their abilities to do something. These electronic spellers and dictionaries are easy to understand and focus on.

Word clouds take key words from text to summarize it in a fun way. For example, if the topic were zebras, the word cloud would include zebra, stripes, black, white, Africa. It would not include words like are, can, eat, age... These are helpful to quickly see what text is about.

Chapter 7

Higher order and lower order thinking are terms that I have been familiar with since my psychology and sociology classes in high school. Bloom's taxonomy has been revised from knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation to remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. This was something I was not aware of! I use lower order thinking when someone gives me directions to a new destination, and higher order thinking when I draw a map of that same location. 

                           https://magic.piktochart.com/output/8329362-untitled-infographic

I was interested in virtual worlds to see what the hype was about. The book mentions a website called Second Life, an avatar chat world, and it looked really weird to me. I actually tried to make an account but as soon as I was prompted in install it, I decided it wasn't worth it... especially because I wasn't all that interested in it anyway! Next, I looked into Poptropica, a virtual world for kids. So far, I created a little person for myself (relatively easy) and I worked through the tutorial. I wanted to get hands on with the programs that the book talks about because it's a world I haven't been influenced by. I really enjoyed Poptropica, and I think my first graders would enjoy it to. It seems like virtual worlds come in many shapes and sizes!

The final topic discussed was about playing together. All too often teachers are busy grading, making lesson plans, organizing, emailing, and so on. While there is free time in the classroom, kids will have time to play games and puzzles. I feel that it is important to engage in games with students. I make sure that I participate in "four square" outside since I have to be out there regardless. It creates a fun relationship to pair with the structured one. Also, my students get so excited when an adult joins in on the fun, who wouldn't want to be a part of that fan club?!