Show and Tell

Assistive technology allows students with disabilities, the chance to be independent. Depending on the disability, students can type out their notes on a laptop, or use voice recognition programs to take the notes for them. Features such as this allows the teacher and students to continue to focus on the lesson at hand.

As an educator, I would introduce some assistive technology to mu class by assigning a project. The project I would choose is show and tell.  The students will be required to bring in a form of technology or a picture of how the object looks that they used in every day. All students would show and teach their fellow peers what technological devices they use and the basic functions of it. The activity would involve students with disabilities, and this would be an opportunity for the student to educate the students common items we all use but, how it helps them and their disability (George., 2005). This way the students become the teacher, and they get an understanding of how each other’s lives are outside of school.

The criteria I would use can be found in Reading Horizons: Show-and-Tell: Assessing Oral Language Abilities by Gary Bohning. The students will have to focus on the three categories, which are defining the object, clarifying the object or the experience when using the object, and qualifying the object or the experience when using the object (1981, pp 45-46). Grading will also be done by the grading based off the assessment scale of 1-5 (see picture below, p.47).

One of the many types of assistive technology that I am familiar with, is a hearing aid. My grandmother, grew the need to have one, due to hearing deficits that develop through old age. Without the hearing, my grandmother would not have been able to communicate effectively. She would look as if she is trying her hardest to make out what someone was saying, and she typically inform me by yelling, “HA?” With her hearing aid, she did not have to lean in to the speaker, or have to say HA, OR Huh as frequently. Also, with her hearing aid she was able to talk on the phone without yelling at the receiver of the call. Thanks to assistive technology I was able to have conversations with my grandmother easily. Assistive technology changes the lives of children, students and adults.

George Lucas Educational Foundation., Edutopia. (2005). How Assistive Technology Enables Dreams. Retrieved April 13, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/video/how-assistive-technology-enables-dream

Bohning, G. (1981). Show-and-tell: Assessing oral language abilities. Reading Horizons. 22(1), 43-48.