Augmentative Communication

While listening to the augmentative communication lecture, I couldn't help but think of congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords who was injured by a gunshot last year.  I had recently seen her first news interview since the incident.  Diane Sawyer asked her if she planned to run for reelection.  Struggling to find the words to answer, Ms. Giffords simply said the word "better."  When Sawyer indicated that she did not understand, Giffords again repeated the word.  Seeing that she still was not being understood, Giffords turned to her husband who was sitting by her side.  Her husband explain what she meant: "She wants to run for reelection only after she gets better."

The fact Gabrielle Giffords has someone to turn to for help speaking is of huge benefit to her ability to communicate.  Augmentative communication devices, both low-tech and high-tech, are wonderful.  But without assistance from a caring and understanding aide, I wonder how much they're able to help.  I've never worked with children who were unable to speak, but I wonder how much they prefer relying on a device to speak compared to how much they prefer getting help from another person.  Through which means of communication are they better able to express themselves?  And through which means do they feel more independent?

Planning with Technology

I thought the Planning with Technology lecture brought up some good points.  Very interesting was the question, "How do we incorporate technology effectively to overcome barriers, without creating more?"  Although I've seem plenty of ways that technology has enhanced and eased learning, I've also seen how technology can sometimes complicate things.  For instance, at Friends Seminary they having to deal with plenty of technology issues, including students' game playing on iPads, shattered iPad screens, network problems, SMART board problems, software compatibility problems, eBook book registration problems, and file saving problems (files are sometimes saved locally, sometimes saved on the network, and sometimes saved in the cloud).  On top of it all, the technology leaders are often strained for time.  Indeed, sometimes there simply seems to be too much technology to learn.  As a future technology leader myself, I'm starting to believe that the simplest solution is almost always the best one.  For instance, I'm already wondering if school networks are necessary.  Can't students simply always upload their files to a cloud such as Google Docs?

As for students with special needs, the importance of keeping things simple is even more important.  A student such as Jack who has limited working memory and ADHD could easily have his education hurt through poor, disorganized, depersonalized, or redundant integration of technology.

The Power of Assistive Technology

I think it's great that there are so many technologies out there to help people with various disabilities.  I'm also surprised at how many of the solutions for helping the disabled seem to be designed--or at least thought up--by regular people.  For instance, the "Disabled Bodies, Able Minds" article tells the story of how a disabled boy came to play a musical instrument:

A school employee sought out a music-store owner named Robin Amend, who is also a musical-instrument inventor and repairman. Amend, whose grandfather had played a musical instrument despite having only one arm, designed a euphonium with a joystick that electronically instructs the valves of the euphonium to move. Later, an engineer worked with Amend to refine the joystick technology.

It's remarkable that this technology would never have been created had it not been for the minds of a school employee and a music store owner.  Likewise, in the video "Adapting Classrooms for AT Users," many of the assistive technologies are very "low-tech." (for instance, simple solutions involving things such as buttons, spinners, switches, a door opener, and a specialized chair).

Kurzweil

I think Kurzweil is an excellent text-to-speech program to use when an actual recording of a text is not available.  In other words, I think that an actual human recording of a reading—if available—should always be selected before choosing to have Kurzweil convert text to speech.   This is because the intonation, fluency, and expression of a computerized voice are of much lower quality than a human recording.  Perhaps the technology of the future will improve the ability of computers to read aloud, but as of now the technology has its faults.

The ability of Kurweil to help students decode specific words is less problematic.  I can see how the Picture, Definition, Synonym, Pronounce, and Syllables buttons can all prove very helpful to students with disabilities.  Also, the ability to make highlights, make annotations, and extract both to an outline can also help students organize their understanding of a text.