3.4 Adaptive and Assistive Technology
Candidates facilitate the use of adaptive and assistive technologies to support individual student learning needs.
Artifact:
Reflection:
Our culminating project for ITEC 7445, was to develop a webquest for our students which would engage them with technology both inside the webquest, as well as with the webquest itself. This webquest was also to have a special emphasis on Universal Design, in which attention is given to designing lessons that are, from the beginning, flexible enough to accommodate the unique learning styles of a wide range of individuals, including children with disabilities. In the creation of our webquest, we were charged with using some examples of UDL like crafting accessible web pages, captioning pictures, and utilizing embedded audio and video applications.
This artifact supports Standard 3.4 because of the efforts put forth to apply Universal Design to as much of our webquest as we could, in an attempt to facilitate the use of adaptive and assistive technologies to support individual student learning needs.
I learned a great deal by focusing on Universal Design in the creation of my webquest. I learned that I frequently take the ability to use my five senses for granted when I am designing lessons for my students. This activity helped me to build awareness in designing lessons that are accessible to everyone, especially lessons which have so much technology already built into them. As I reflect on my work in creating this webquest, I would have liked to have built more assistive technology into it than I did. Although I embedded a great deal of Universal Design into my webquest, I feel I could have done more. I also feel that an entire course could be devoted to Adaptive and Assistive Technologies. There is so much in the technology pipeline related to this field, that a focus on this type of technology would be worthy of a whole class.
Creating this webquest impacts student learning in a positive way. Student needs of all sorts are met with activities that embrace the concept of Universal Design. Students are engaged and they are doing something that is meaningful to them and to others. These types of activities make learning fun and accessible for everyone, and the more time students spend with the content, the better they are going to perform academically. As students improve, so do schools, and everyone benefits from increased student achievement, making this a win-win for schools, for teachers, and for students.
This artifact supports Standard 3.4 because of the efforts put forth to apply Universal Design to as much of our webquest as we could, in an attempt to facilitate the use of adaptive and assistive technologies to support individual student learning needs.
I learned a great deal by focusing on Universal Design in the creation of my webquest. I learned that I frequently take the ability to use my five senses for granted when I am designing lessons for my students. This activity helped me to build awareness in designing lessons that are accessible to everyone, especially lessons which have so much technology already built into them. As I reflect on my work in creating this webquest, I would have liked to have built more assistive technology into it than I did. Although I embedded a great deal of Universal Design into my webquest, I feel I could have done more. I also feel that an entire course could be devoted to Adaptive and Assistive Technologies. There is so much in the technology pipeline related to this field, that a focus on this type of technology would be worthy of a whole class.
Creating this webquest impacts student learning in a positive way. Student needs of all sorts are met with activities that embrace the concept of Universal Design. Students are engaged and they are doing something that is meaningful to them and to others. These types of activities make learning fun and accessible for everyone, and the more time students spend with the content, the better they are going to perform academically. As students improve, so do schools, and everyone benefits from increased student achievement, making this a win-win for schools, for teachers, and for students.