Adaptive technologies are critical
to allowing students with impairments to function as close to normally as
possible in their classroom. This is
important because if these sorts of software and hardware were not available a
very intelligent yet deaf student would not be capable of reaching their full
potential in the standard classroom. I had a friend in high school that had
severe arthritis and was able to use her laptop for note taking and exams even
when the rest of us had to use a standard paper and pencil because it was
easier on her joints. While this is not a complex form or assistive technology,
it shows that small changes using technology can make huge differences in a
student’s education.
The
difficulty with assistive technology is that they are not always simple for the
teachers or the students to use. As a teacher you are meant to know how to use
this technology, but sometimes it is very unfamiliar and difficult to
understand. Issues or malfunctions in the technology could also take away class
time from teaching, which impacts all of the students in the class negatively.
A great website that I like to use
to keep up to date on technology trends is Forbes Tech. They post numerous
articles a day about new technology research and leading technological
advances. Much of these technological articles do not seem like they relate
directly to teaching, but it is important to stay current with all sorts of
technological news. However, others are directly related to educational
technology programs or ones that could be used as assistive technologies.
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