Blog Post Assignment #12

Assistive technologies available for our students who are disabled or impaired have developed rapidly in the 21st century. Teacher are now far better equipped to effectively teach students with disabilities because of this. Here are a few examples of assistive technologies.

After watching the video, iPad Usage For the Blind, I learned about the voice over feature on the iPad that allows a visually impaired person to use the iPad effectively. Whenever the person puts their finger on the iPad, it responds with speech and lets the person know where they are on the iPad. Being able to use an iPad to listen to books, newspapers, or magazines can help visually impaired people operate independently rather than having to have someone else read to them. Audible is a good audiobook app that I found and think would be good for a visually impaired person to use. It allows access to over 150,000 audiobooks and is operated by Amazon.

In The Mountbatten video showed an example of a student using a device for typing braille. The device reads aloud the letters being typed on it. It can help students and teachers who cannot read braille understand the student who is typing it. This allows for the impaired student to be more involved in classroom activities and group projects.

I found a very interesting blog post authored by Lisa Nielsen on her education blog called The Innovative Educator. In this post she covers 25 different assistive technologies such as talking calculators, audiobooks, text to voice software, etc. Every one of the 25 items she briefly discusses also has a link to a much more in depth analysis of the particular item. This blog post seems to cover most all types of assistive technologies and would serve as a good starting point for anyone interested in learning about such devices.