Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Green Blog-Shanika

I usually tend to speak about technology that would help the type of students that I work with. Which are students that have visual impairments. There is a lot of technology for those that have vision as oppose to those without. I like to feel like I have a voice for them. Like I said in my techobiography I would like to create something for them that would improve independency in their lives. For example, Jaws is a program that blind student use that speaks to them. Some students understand the voice command and some don’t. I would like to create a clearer more recognizable voice so that students can cruise the internet without getting lost by the sound of Jaw’s voice. My attitude towards creating adaptive ways of learning for them increases when I see them achieve it on their own. There are so many great usages of technology and there are some inappropriate ways of using the technology in the classroom. I think that not engaging yourself as a teacher with your students are inappropriate uses of technology. Anything that you are trying to teach the class you should be doing as well. Some teachers will lecture the class and tell them what do as opposed to modeling the technology with the student.The similarities I have with my technobiography and classroom technology is finding ways to create independent living skills for the visual impaired. The classroom and the homework given to them should be in their medium of learning. They should never be given homework in print if they can’t read the print, and vice versa for Braille. A lot of times visual impaired teachers do not have the equipment in the classrooms to give that student what he/ she needs to be successful. I always say that a student who isn’t blind should not be given homework in Braille so why does a student who is visual impaired some home with homework in print?

2 comments:

Matt M said...

I think that improving upon the voice program Jaws is a great idea! That way they could more easily use the internet and understand the commands the voice has. You could integrate that into the subject matter and have an assignment based upon using Jaws!

Prof. Lohnes said...

Shanika, you bring up a really important point when you say that "anything you are trying to teach the class you should be doing as well." If you intend to use technology to connect with your students and engage with them, how successfully will you connect if you don't use the technology yourself?