Assistive Technology and Internet Modules

In prior blogs I looked at what Assistive Technology is and the importance of it’s use in the classroom. More recently in my last post I researched curriculum barriers and how teachers can implement this into their classroom setting to help his/her learners in the classroom. Remember the goal of an educator is to find the strengths/weaknesses of their students to help best create a curriculum that all can learn from. This week we will be looking at some modules; the actual name is Assistive Technology Internet Modules. Below are four modules that I looked at in detail:

• Assessment Process in the School Environment

• AT Consideration in the IEP Process

• AT Support and Services in the IEP

• Automatic Speech Recognition 

Together we will look at each and I will write how each will guide me as a teacher. 

To start you have to go to the website:

http://www.atinternetmodules.org/mod_list.php

You will create a username and password, don't worry this is all free. From here you are given a wealth of information for you as the reader to look at. For school we had to look at the three that are listed above. What's great is that for each section you are given a pre test and a post test. In between there are videos to watch, information to read, and lots of learning that takes place. 

Let's start to look at each module.

1. Assessment Process in the School Environment

This module focused on information that pertained to who, when, and how we select AT devices and services for children in the school environment (this was a question on the test!). It's important that educators are aware of this information  because it is going to determine what students will use AT and what students will not. In this module we also learned about who makes up the AT team and why each member is important. I decided to post the summary for each one. In case you don't have time to read the whole section, you can at least see the main details of each. 

2. AT Consideration in the IEP Process

To me this module was the most important and most influentially. As teachers/educators we are going to be apart of the IEP Process. It is essential and critical that we are aware of AT and how it can be incorporated into the IEP. It is also in this module that we learn the steps that the "team" takes in the process of an IEP and with AT. If you were going to only read and participate in one of these of these modules I would say to definitely  let it be this one. You will learn the most from here.

3. AT Support and Services in the IEP

This module is intended to provide the reader with information on AT and how it supports and provides services in the IEP. IEP’s are pretty new to me. I had to write an IEP for a class last semester. I now wish I had known more about AT, because it could have definitely been incorporated into the IEP. This module also provided the reader with material on how to set up an IEP, particular useful to those of us who aren’t familiar with it.  

4. Automatic Speech Recognition
I really liked this module. It’s focus is on how computer software can be used in a classroom for student learning, mainly student’s writing. My favorite tab in this section was that tab that showed examples of  Automatic Speech Recognition. There were quite a few, but I picked some that really stood out to me: 


SpeakQ
Dragon NaturallySpeaking
textHELP Read&Write Gold Version 9

It’s truly amazing to see how these can be introduced into a classroom for student learning. I can see these materials being used a lot for the benefit of the student.