July 9th Monday

My initial thought about this course is that I am going to learn alot about the technology available to assist students in special education. Although I am fluent with using Internet search engines and Microsoft Word, I do not know alot about other technology and I feel that course will give me a basis of knowledge on Assisted Technology that will be useful in my career as a special education teacher.

I currently work at the Delaware Autism Program and the majority of technology that we use for our students are in the low tech range. We use low tech items such as: pictures creating daily schedules, PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), and books on tape. The PECS are an augmentative communication device that most of our students use fairly effective. Only a few students are fortunate enough to have a voice out-put communication boards because of the lack of financial resources. This angers me in a way because I believe that many more students with autism could benefit from this device. I feel that the Delaware Autism Program is up to date in many areas except in high tech assisted technology such as: communication devices and curriculum computer software. I think that education could be more motivating for our students if we could teach lessons from a computer using software specifically designed for students with autism. However, like I said, we lack software for our students, especially those who are lower functioning. The only software I have come across, in the 4 years I have been there, is Edmark and that isn't even used frequently.

Although I do not work with students who have disabilities in hearing or vision, I do not know much about assistive technology in these areas. I am interested to learn about scanning, digital storage, alternative input devices, switches, screen readers, text-to-braille devices, etc. I feel that learning about these devices will add to my repertoire and make me a more well-rounded special education teacher.

And finally, I am excited that I actually have a web address on-line. I have never blogged before so this should be an interesting experience. I look forward to learning many more things in this class.

PS Here is a picture of my class (if I can add it in correctly)