Webinars

Over the course of the week of April 23, 2014 the class of Assistive Technology MED students were to present findings on a series of apps to aid students with different learning difficulties and disabilities giving them the ability to accomplish tasks that would otherwise be difficult to impossible for them to perform.
My group member and I looked at the apps iBooks 3, Paperport notes, Book Creator.These apps were appealing to me as a classroom teacher because of the experience I have had with a student with cerebral palsy. In my school we still use a chalkboard which requires that students take notes and do written work in their books and if we want  to get through more than one lesson per day the students are expected to write from the chalkboard in a timely manner, my student with cp had difficulty doing to this so upon researching these apps and from the webinar I was grabbed by the ease with which my student could do assigned tasks with these apps at his disposal. With each app there is the option of speech to text which means that i could record texts instead of writing them on a chalkboard and these can be saved in so many forms for the students to be able to go back to for reference as it can be saved on their ipad, this can also be used for their reading development as instead of having the voice over students can read from the device.


   Another group looked at top FREE apps in special education, and the key word here is free because it can prove quite costly to be purchasing all types of apps for your class's educational needs so for us FREE is good. This group introduced me to canva which is a great site to make info graphics which is a great way to create any kind of graphics for class activities, The other app I found interesting was Science 360, this one grabbed my attention because it has the option for students to use any body part to navigate within it this is a good app for students with physical disabilities. Pocket pond was also good because of the soothing effects that it can generate especially if you are a fish lover, it is good for kids with autism because of the sensory effects it generates, dragon dictation which is a voice recognition app which would be good for students with physical disabilities.

 The following group looked at apps that enhance performance for individuals with extreme autism. I am from a country that I have come to realize does not have the necessary trained educators to deal with problems such as these that are existing in the country, part of that problem is that when a parent has a physically challenged child they are less likely to send them to school due to the stigma attached to the disability, these children are at a disadvantage as they are not given the opportunity to get an education. I therefore see where this course will enable me to deal with preparing lessons to better help students I encounter with these disabilities.