Competency 13.2: “Use media and technology to support learning for children with special needs.”
Context
I learned how to change the double click speed on my computer. This could help people with tactile difficulties. I went to the control panel and clicked on Accessibility Options and clicked on “mouse.” There I slowed down the click speed so that people who cannot click the mouse fast can still use the computer. I also changed my computer to high contrast, also in accessibility options in the control panel, and this changed my screen to black with white letters and bigger icons and boxes. This could be used for people with visual impairments. I also looked at Read Please, a text reader. This gives people with visual impairments the option of having things read to them so they would not have to read it themselves. I went to www.check-it-out.org/assist.cfm and printed out the front page. This is a website giving information on assistive technologies like the ones I have already discussed. We also read a first person article about a person with a learning disability at www.ldonline.org. From this site I printed out an article about teaching children with ADHD.
Impact
As a teacher I will have special needs students in my classroom who may have visual problems, and now I will be able to use read please. I may also have children with tactile problems and I now know how to help these students get more use out of computers.
Alignment
I have used a variety of adaptive
technologies and therefore, I have met 13.2.