Enabling Dreams: The Use of Assistive Technology in the Classroom

Enabling Dreams

            Every student has a right to be included into a classroom, even students with disabilities. Inclusion in the classroom is needed for students with disabilities to have proper interaction with students without disabilities. Including disabled students into a lesson is very important in the part of the teacher and it will require a long planning process and proper thought into what the student needs to do and learn.

            By having a revised lesson plan for disabled students it will give the student an opportunity to be a part of the class and learn at the same pace as the other students. Important parts of a revised lesson plan that give disabled students an opportunity to participate in class are the recent technologies that are available for them, such as a laptop and the devices that help them understand concepts. The revised lesson plan will not only help with the disabled student, it will also help you as the teacher and the other students because it will help with classroom management and make the environment easier for everyone to learn efficiently.

            Activities for inclusion of AAT are a challenge for many teachers if the right technology is not available for the teacher and student. If the right technology is available some activities that should be added into a revised lesson plan are cooperative games that include the disabled student to work with the other students. Teachers can create a cooperative game using a special program on the computer for the disabled student but will still create challenges for the other students is an idea. The cooperative game will be a supplement for the lesson the teacher will teach in the next class. I would go and find special programs on the computer and technologies that would help supplement my disabled students learning. Computers are really important because like in the “Enabling Dreams” video there are special programs out there to help assist disabled students and that are very effective. Looking at the difficulty level of inclusion I would plan and organize my lesson very thoroughly and test its efficiency and improve on it as the school year goes on.

            A revised lesson plan is very important when having a disabled student in your class. This is true because not every disabled student can automatically work inclusively with the other students in class. It will take time and a lot of further planning, organizing, and the right assistive technology to have a concrete revised lesson plan for the disabled student. Just by going into the class with no revised lesson plan for a disabled student may hurt you as a teacher because you won’t really know how to include your disabled student with the other students and teach your lesson effectively.

            For criteria I would use special quizzes and questions that were specific to the disabled students learning. I think by quizzing I’ll be able to test the disabled students effectiveness with learning through the revised activity. Also by talking to the student and getting their reaction to the revised lesson will you really understand the effectiveness of your activity. Assessing the technology that you have selected and determining the effectiveness of that AAT will help to make a more better and efficient revised lesson plan because it will show which technology worked and which did not. The effectiveness of the assistive technology is key for the disabled student to effectively learn the lesson. 

Looking Back: Digital Story Reflection

Looking Back

                Digital Story, what is it? According to the University of Houston (2011) website on “The Educational Uses of Digital Storytellng”, it is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. It mentions using images, text, narration, and music in the video and varies from two to ten minutes. When making a digital story you can tell any story that has a purpose and can be useful for others.

            The process of making a digital story is very difficult, time consuming, and a lot of work when you’re not used to the tools needed to make your story. I came to experience this difficulty because it was my first time making a digital story. Just finding a topic to tell a story about was difficult because health and physical education is very broad and many topics could’ve been made into a story. Planning and organizing is a major key when making a digital story, the storyboard really helped to produce the story and knowing how to use your program ahead of time makes it easier.

            Putting the story together such as deciding on the characters and who will play them, setting of where it is taking place, and sequencing everything to make the story flow was difficult. In my story I only needed one character but I couldn’t find anyone that was fully committed to helping me with my project and deciding where to go to take pictures was difficult too because places like classrooms are hard to get access too. One thing I found very difficult was getting the right picture for the clip because capturing the exact emotion without it looking fake and looking nature was nerve raking. I spent almost 15 minutes on only one picture that I needed because my character could not capture the image that I wanted.

            These difficulties were easy to adjust after a while of working with your character. When it came to editing my story I used PhotoStory 3, which I never used before and had slight trouble using the program. I could figure out some aspects of the program such as adjusting the lighting and fitting it so correctly so that the backdrop of the picture wasn’t black. Adjusting the text to be viewable such as size, color, and length were not that easy because it didn’t give you many options to choose. I think this program was much easier than Prezi, which was the original program I chose to do the project. Prezi’s interface was very confusing and difficult to use because it was one huge canvas and you would have to watch the video to fully understand how to use the site.

            The music to match our video was a challenge to select because we weren’t allowed to use real songs only sound clips from the site Partners in Rhyme. All the free clips that were available did not match my video so I was thankful to discover that Photo Story had a sound clip part in the program.  This lessened the challenge but it was still difficult to pick the right sound to match the video. Such challenges that bothered me was should it be a sad sound, should it be happy, or have a mellow tempo to match the story. Though it was a challenge I found it fun to try and come up with a sound that matched the story exactly.

            I mostly mentioned that this project was very difficult but I think the experience of using this tool for teaching is very interesting. It takes a lot of planning and organization but I think just by making these stories it gets the point across to the viewers more easily than reading a book. For my major, physical education, this type of technological tool will help students learn new skills easier than reading about it. Such things proper ways to bat the ball, shoot a basket, and even kick a soccer ball. Like mentioned in class most stories dealing with sports are success and learning to do something and working at is to be at the top. By making a video giving tips and helping a student improve skills will make them want to work harder in turn making them better and maybe good enough to play with the big boys.

            Digital stories take a lot of getting used to because it’s almost like making a mini movie. I think the number one problem people overlook is the planning and organizing because it happened to me and it became difficult to make my story. Learning to use the program you choose to make your digital story is a must. Once you get the hang of doing everything to make the digital story it’ll be a fast and easy way to show off your skills to viewers.

Reference:

The University of Houston (2011). The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/.