CEP 842 Assitive Technology Plan
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This document provides an outline for a professional development workshop on assistive technology for educators. The workshop will be 2.5-3 hours and attended by approximately 50 social studies and English teachers. It will introduce them to assistive technologies that can help students with learning disabilities and limited English proficiency succeed. The presentation will cover what assistive technology is, why it's important, examples of tools for reading and writing, and give teachers time to explore options and discuss applications.
CEP 842 Assitive Technology Plan
- 1. Professional Development How Assistive Technology Can Help Educators Chelsea Slocum CEP 840 March 15 th , 2010
- 2. Timeframe First half of day: speed day schedule Afternoon: Professional development roughly 2.5-3 hour timeframe. I would lead an assistive technology workshop for all Social Studies and English teachers in the 10-12 building (roughly 50 personnel) This would take place in the media center.
- 3. Materials Needed Access to computers. Teachers can be paired if needed. Projector screen Slides share and Teachertube/Youtube internet access Speaker system capability
- 4. Make Up of Audience and School Little to no background surrounding assistive technology. School consists of 40-50% at risk students. Considered a “low income school” by the Department of Education. Both subject areas share one computer lab.
- 5. What do we have? Access to variety of different copies, which and differ in size, color, and texture. One computer, printer, and projector with screen for every classroom. White board DVD/VCR player
- 6. Outline for the rest of the presentation Goals of the workshop. What is Assistive Technology? Why is it important for educators? What do we already possess? Assistive Technology for reading. Assistive technology for writing. Time to play Wrap Up and Assessment
- 7. Goals Make information more readily available to students with learning disabilities and our increasing ELL population. Increase our education tool kit to give all students the opportunity to succeed inside and outside of the classroom. Help educators realize the potential of already existing technology in their classrooms Give educators an arsenal of FREE assistive technology software for use in their subject areas.
- 8. Jefferson Parish Assistive Technology “ Assistive technology is technology used by individuals in order to perform functions that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. Assistive technology can include mobility devices such as walkers and wheelchairs, as well as hardware, software, and peripherals that assist people with disabilities in accessing computers or other information technologies.” (See notes) In My Language What is Assistive Technology?
- 9. Other examples of assistive technology Telephones, Calculators Wheelchairs, Ramps, Walkers Glasses, Contacts Pulleys, wrenches, carts Even Lighting! Can you think of any others?
- 10. What types of assistive technology are pictured here?
- 11. How about this one?
- 12. Why is assistive technology important for education? “ Technology is a leveler.” (Notes) “ When a school or a teacher denies technology to students, they are limiting success to the few, the gifted, and the entitled.” (Notes) “ Students with LD often experience greater success when they are allowed to use their abilities (strengths) to work around their disabilities (challenges). AT tools combine the best of both of these practices.” (Notes)
- 13. How does assistive technology help students? Support Reading tools Organizing Support for background information Studying Scaffolding Compensate Bypass reading & writing Motivate
- 14. What do we already possess? Can you think of any assistive technologies we already use in the classroom? Let’s make a list. How do you use them? Example: The zoom button on the projector remote allows me to make the text bigger on the screen for those who need that accommodation. The Internet! Teachertube, Youtube, etc.
- 15. Assistive Technology for Reading Predominately uses voice technology along with written words. Changing the size or shape of the words. Using colored paper or highlighted words. Following slides show some different formats for AT Reading.
- 16. Optical Character Recognition Written words are scanned and processed by the computer The computer recognizes the words and reads them aloud to the student The student reads along using the written words on the screen.
- 17. Screen Readers and Audio Books Screen Readers This program reads information that is on the screen. Students are able to type in words, use scanned words or words that are pulled up on the computer screen. The screen reader will read each of these formats. This can be beneficial to those who have difficulties reading and writing. Audio books, not just for fun! Can be used with cassette, CD, mp3, or other electronic device. Imagine a student listening to a book on tape using his/her I touch following along with the rest of the class.
- 18. Examples of AT Resources for Reading Literacy Access Online: http:// www.literacyaccessonline.com / . This site provides stories and reading activities designed to help children with reading difficulties, their parents, and their teachers. Adobe Acrobat Reader with Speech (v. 9.x or 8.x): http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html Virtual Screen Magnifier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Magnifying_Glass
- 19. More…. http://www.awesomehighlighter.com/ Natural Reader, Free Version http://www.naturalreaders.com/ http://www.ghotit.com/home.shtml (For ELL students) http:// www.wordtalk.org.uk / Free text-to-speech plugin that works with all versions of Microsoft Word (from Word 97 and up). It speaks and highlights the text of the document when it is used.
- 20. Assistive Technology for Writing Student’s who struggle with writing may exhibit the following problems: generating ideas, organizing ideas, finding the right words to convey ideas, using correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and handwriting.
- 21. Assistive Technology Writing Tools General Resources used to help students with minor disabilities (language production problems, difficulties transferring thoughts to paper, poor spelling, illegible handwriting, etc) These tools would apply to the majority of students with disabilities in a general education classroom. Example of general technology writing tools.
- 22. Specific Tools for physical and sensory disabilities larger keyboard that allows a person with movement disabilities to type, to a computer-generated voice (called synthesized speech, or text-to-speech, TTS) to read back what was written for an individual who cannot see the screen, etc
- 23. Specific Writing Tools Continued.. Tools to create and review text Word prediction or speech recognition software to create text. Text to speech software to read back what was written and help in revising sentences etc.
- 24. Examples of AT Resources for Writing CMU Sphinx http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/ Yak it To ME http://www.yakitome.com/cgi-bin/input.py Spoken Text http://www.spokentext.net/ Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Click Speak http://clickspeak.clcworld.net/downloads.html
- 25. Slide Share Working with a partner, take the next 30 minutes to use Slide Share and access this PowerPoint online. Take some time to click through the links posted and see what you think. This is your time to explore.
- 26. Wrap Up and Assessment Combine partnerships into group of four. You will receive four different student profiles on a sheet of paper. Read each profile together and list what types (if any) assistive technology could be used to make that student more successful in class. Group discussion and closure. Video: A vision of students today
Editor's Notes
- #3: A speed day schedule means that teachers have all five of their classes in a row without breaks. Each class is about 30 minutes long. The students then go home and teachers have about an hour for lunch. Then return for professional development. This generally takes place about 2-3 times per year.
- #4: Teachers would for the first part of the workshop be watching my presentation from the projector screen. I plan to use a few different videos from both Teacher Tube and You Tube to help make my presentation more uplifting, motivating, and engaging. They would need access to Slideshare online. For a portion of the workshop I would like the teachers to access my presentation online and be allotted time to “play” with all the information. They would have time to click on various links, watch the videos and learn more about different assistive technology resources on their own. This would also be the time to ask me individual questions.
- #5: I would focus my workshop for Social Studies and Language Arts due to time constraints and my own background. I feel one afternoon isn’t enough time to talk about the assistive technology for music, math, science, etc. I would rather delve deeply into the possibilities for Social Studies and Language Arts teachers. I also feel I do not posses adequate background or knowledge of the other subjects to accurately access the needs and skills of their students. Because both subject areas share one computer lab, computer availability time is very difficult to secure and limited in it’s possibility and usage.
- #6: East Kentwood teachers just received a projector and screen in every room about two years ago. Many teachers still use their overhead projector due to their lack of knowledge regarding technology.
- #7: For the rest of this PowerPoint I plan to develop a barebones version of the presentation I would give to teachers in reality. In the notes sections I will give my reasoning, explanations, source citations, and activity descriptions for the class. I use Power Point on a daily basis in my classroom, but I have never tried to embed videos and hyperlinks into it before so bear with me. I have also never used Slide Share so this will be interesting.
- #8: Here I would highlight the fact that we as a district house more than 50 different languages! We have to start thinking about how to accommodate English Language Learners in our classroom. We just received projectors a couple of years ago, but many teachers have yet to realize their full potential within the classroom. We are currently under tight budget constraints so any software that would require financial support is beyond reach. My focus throughout today would be what is available and free to use for any educator. I feel that would be the most meaningful use of time.
- #9: Both underlined sections are hyperlinked to videos. The first is linked to a really good example of assistive technology I found on teacher tube. The second is the video “In My Language” posted on the angel website under week 8. I would introduce the topic by reading aloud the definition and showing both videos as examples. Quote Citation: The National Center on Accessible Information Technology in Education, University of Washington, http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?109
- #10: In this slide I would try to hammer home the point that assistive technology has been around forever. It’s not just computer related. When I mention lighting I would cite the article entitled “Illuminating the Classroom Environment” by John McCreery and Timothy Hill showing the link between lighting and student achievement as an unconventional form of assistive technology.
- #11: In this activity I would give pairs of teachers this picture, and the picture on the following slide. I would then give them a few minutes to discuss what assistive technologies they think are present in the picture. We would then reconvene as a group and share answers. Picture found at: http://picture-book.com/files/userimages/1156u/citystreet-shortcuts1cover.jpg
- #12: Picture found at: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/ot/images/Assistiveheader2.jpg
- #13: I would try to explain all quotes by talking about how assistive technology is meant to help. To fill the gaps in a students education experience that levels the playing ground in some way. I find the last quote particularly relevant to this group of people because the majority of students they work with on a daily basis with disabilities are learning disabled. The first two quotes come from Ira Socol’s blog SpeEd Change. The blog posting is entitled, “Teachers and Technology 2: The SEN component” It was posted on April 28 th , 2006 http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2006/04/teachers-and-technology-2-sen.html The third quote comes from an article entitled, “Assistive Technology for kids with LD: An Overview”, by Marshall Raskind and Kristin Stanberry. http://www.greatschools.org/LD/assistive-technology/assistive-technology-for-kids-with-learning-disabilities-an-overview.gs?content=702
- #14: This information was drawn from Cindy Okolo’s assistive technology wiki through MSU. http://assistive-technology-lab.wiki.educ.msu.edu/ My big focus with this slide would be the idea that assistive technology can motivate students to perform above expectations and engage them in the materials in way not previously thought possible.
- #15: Here I would have teacher volunteer what type of technologies they already use in the classroom and make a list on a white board of some sort. I would then try to conduct a discussion about how they use those existing technologies in the hopes of helping other teachers see what they can do with what they already have. I would also take a moment to talk about teacher tube and show them the website briefly in class. This is an untapped resource in many of the classrooms here.
- #16: Reading is an essential component of any Social Studies or English classroom. This section is meant to help teachers learn about the new ways to teach and practice reading within the classroom. I would add that the list of AT for reading is exhaustive and I am only touching the tip of the iceberg. Information drawn from, “Assistive Technology for Reading Disability Issues that Really Work!” Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/education/special/articles/53221.aspx#ixzz0hsjDgPYx
- #17: Info gathered from: http://www.brighthub.com/education/special/articles/53221.aspx
- #18: Info gathered from: http://www.brighthub.com/education/special/articles/53221.aspx
- #19: I only chose to post resources that were free and easy to install/use. I would choose a couple to click on and show certain attributes throughout this presentation. These resources were gathered from the CEP class assistive technology lesson resources section. The Virtual Screen Magnifier was under assistive technology resources on Wikipedia.
- #21: “ Using Assistive Technology to Support Writing” CITEd Research Center, http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=108
- #22: Research drawn from: http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=108 The words “general technology” are hyperlinked to a teacher tube video that shows a teacher demonstrating different types of general accommodations that are very easy to incorporate into a classroom. This video can be located at: http:// www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id =75646&title= Assistive_Technology_for_Writing____Low_High_Tech_Options
- #23: http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=108
- #24: As I talk about all the different types of AT tools for writing I would pause at each one and further explain their meaning and usage in the classroom. I would also field questions related to each tool. http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=108
- #25: From Cindy Okolo’s presentation located in the MSU assistive technology lab website: http://assistive-technology-lab.wiki.educ.msu.edu/ The CMU Sphinx tool was found on the Wikipedia website under assistive technology.
- #26: As teacher clicked certain links and learned more about the software I would circle around to help with any technical issues and answer any questions teachers may have. After about 30 minutes has elapsed, I would bring the group back together and open up a discussion. What did they like? What was confusing? What was helpful? How might they use this new information in class?
- #27: The assessment of this workshop would take place at the end. I would break up the teachers into groups of four and give them each a sheet with four different student profiles. I would then as the teachers to study the profiles and review the PowerPoint using Slide Share, what types of assistive technology mentioned today could be used to make each student more successful in the classroom? Once finished we would go back to the full group setting and discuss their recommendations. I would close the workshop by showing them a video entitled, “A Vision of Students Today” located on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o . I was first introduced to this video in our CEP class. It’s located under the assistive technology lesson page online.