Before we got into that, the first thing we did was watch a video on YouTube on a lady who was paralyzed, who communicated with the outside world via a program called Switch Access. To work the AT, there was a switch taped to the outside of her jaw, which she was able to activate using her jaw muscles. This switch was linked to her computer, which then gave her the ability to communicate with her husband, friends and family. She completed daily activities, such as ordering food & clothing, all via this switch. It was an incredible thing to watch. This woman would've been completely isolated without this technology. It was amazing!
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| My left-handed Summer - summary |
Afterwards, we put ourselves in the shoes of someone who had difficulty putting pen to paper. Barb had us use our non-dominant hand to write a sentence about what we were going to do this summer. It was extremely difficult to form the letters, which lead to me getting frustrated very quickly. I had more that I wanted to write, but didn't bother because it was so much work to put my thoughts down. I think that this was a great activity to show how useful AT would be for these students who have difficulty writing. There are so many great options available for them to use. And also, we have to remember...what is it we are assessing with a task? Are we assessing their ability to form letters properly, or do we want them to show us what they know? I think in 99% of the cases, whether or not they can form their words properly is not what we are assessing.
The last activity we completed today was forming our own word art (using Wordle) to show some cool apps that could help with the writing process. Tim & I were given the task of finding apps & extensions in the Google Chrome Store, which had a ton of great apps. It was cool to see the other programs that everyone else came up with. There are so many options that educators can take advantage of, no matter which platform they have access to!
I thought the video about the woman and Switch Access was incredibly powerful! What an amazing tool to give her the opportunity to express herself, communicate and participate in her world. Videos like this are truly inspiring and really demonstrate the power of AT. It's a great way to start off the class.
ReplyDeleteI had almost an identical reaction when I completed the non-dominant hand writing activity. The time, energy and effort that I put into forming my one sentence was not reflected at all in the quality of sentence that I produced. Yes, I do know that I have students who rush through their work and try to write as little as possible but it made me realize that not all my students are like this. It really highlighted the importance of needing alternate ways for students to show what they know so that we can be certain that we are truly evaluating a student's complete level of comprehension without any hindrances such as writing difficulties.
ReplyDeleteI liked the sticky notes app of the iPad as well. It seems like a simple way for students to organize ideas and show their learning. I knew going into the activity that the writing process was going to more complicated than what I would be able to come up with, and I was right. It is really amazing to think about the complex processes that our brains need to do just to record a few words on a page. If even one of those pieces is not working properly, it can throw off the entire process.
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