Assistive Technology

I learned that Assistive Technology is a way for peoples with disabilities to use technology to aid them in performing tasks. There are numerous different technological tools that were created to help individuals with special needs.
Assistive Technology and Autism:

I had worked with children who have Autism before and wanted to explore the different assistive technologies that are available for these individuals. Autism is a disorder that effect an individuals social and communication skills. Most children who have autism have delayed speech or have trouble communicating. They are also unaware of the social rules, making it hard for them to socialize with other children. The technologies that I found to support children with Autism are few. There is a system called PECS, which is a CD that has millions of pictures representing words. children with Autism usually use these pictures to make a sentence indicating their needs. It works very well for them as I have seen many children go from non-verbal to verbal through using this system. The newest tool that supports children with Autism is an app that can be downloaded onto in iphone or ipad. This app is called the Grace App. Basically what it does is speak for a child who is unable to speak. A child has a wide range of pictures to choose from and when they click on that picture icon, it is then put into a sentence and voiced through the iphone or ipad. I heard from parents that this app is very useful and most say that is changed their lives and the way their communicate with their children.
After learning this, I know that I can easily incorporate this into my teaching. More and more children are being diagnosed with Autism and as a teacher, I need to be aware of these resources so that I can better teach my students and better my communication with them. Below is a prezi that I did on this topic( I"m still trying to figure out how to embed the prezi below so that you do not need to click on the link.)http://prezi.com/kk1c-mrqr3z2/assistive-technology/

Sites used to get this inofrmation:
http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?109
http://www.specialed.us/autism/assist/asst10.htm
http://socialtimes.com/iphoneipad-app-helps-autistic-children-communicate_b10778

Prezi

 I experimented with Prezi. I loovveee it! I had heard about it before but never got the chance to do so. It's very similar to a powerpoint. Its much simplier because you can add pictures, videos, and other files easily. It was pretty easy to nagivate.I learned much about it within the first 10 minutes, but I spent the next hour creating a prezi. I did a sample prezi of my life. I will show it during class. I had a lot of fun doing prezi and I will for sure use it for future classes.  What I like about it is that it's all online. You dont have to download it or buy the program( you can if you want a better version, I did the free trail). I think that it is also a fun site for students-maybe the higher grade students because its fun and they get to be creative.
This is the link  to my prezi: http://prezi.com/5pmghnwvnasr/maykou/
http://prezi.com/5pmghnwvnasr/maykou/

21st Century Fluency Project Blog

 I followed the 21 century fluency project. I looked at the sardine blogs which had lists of latest news. The one I looked at was titled "Thought-Controlled Video Games Train Brain." This article talked about a company who is trying to create a video game that only requires brain waves to play it. Its goal is for people to relax their mind and become more focus. How it works is that the player will wear a headband with sensors on it to measure brain waves. Even though it is in the works right now, the blog suggested that it can be a potential treatment for people with ADD.
This article was very entertaining because it was hard for me to wrap my head around(a video game with no hand controllers but mind controllers?). It just seem so far out there. I hope that it does do its job if they are able to create this brain wave video game.

Sharing Common Craft Videos

I shared the common craft videos with my mother in law who is a director of a preschool. She really liked it because she did not know much about twitter or blogspot. The only one she is familiar with is FaceBook(loves to play farmville). She really liked the videos and found them very educational because she said she is not use to technology. The other person I shared it with was my finance who is also an educator(Manager at Rural Cap Head Start). He did not find them as cool because he is already very educated about these things. What he did find interesting was the video about twitter and Augmented Reality. The third person I shared the video with was my friend Stacey who is not an education major and does not work in the same field. She found them very entertaining and thought it was cool that there was such videos to even show you how to do these things. She liked the Augmented Reality because she has an iphone and is interested in what it can do for her.

Connecting Blog into One story

I looked at Brianna, Sheng, Teresa and Jeanell’s blogs on the Copyright Articles.  Brianna, Sheng, Teresa and I all looked at the same blog. I am unsure which blog Jeanell looked at because I did not find it on her blog which one she looked at. All of us wrote similar responses from the blogs. We each explained what copyright is and went from there. Here is a story that I wrote in response to the blogs:

In a class full of many students, five girls decided to look at a few blogs to learn more about copyright. They were all education majors and wanted to know how to protect people’s works including theirs and their future students’ works. To learn about copyrighted materials, the girls decided to each find an article, view it and blog about it. All girls posted a blog up and looked at eachothers blogs, they all realized they looked at the same blogs, and wrote similar responses.

The End.:D

Copyright

            I choose to read the article “Copyright 101 for Educators: Winter 2003,”by Wesley A. Fryer. Basically the article was written to educate educators about the copy write laws. Copyright means any work that is published or unpublished that is original is protected by the United States for a period of time. It was enlightening for me to read that unpublished work was also protected under the Copyright laws. I always thought it all works need to be published in order to receive copyright protection. I felt more at rest knowing that my own work would be protected even if I did not get it published.

            Some of the issues surrounding copyright laws for teachers are that they need to model proper copyright laws and educate their students about copyright laws. Teachers should refer to the Fair Use guidelines to help them distinguish if they are using someone’s work fairly. The Fair Use Statement says that:

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work

What I found interesting was the Teach Act. I thought this was especially useful and beneficial for educators as the Teach Act provides copyright exemptions for some educational purposely. This act saves a lot of time on the educator’s behalf to be able to use other people’s works without having to go through the whole process of getting permission. The only issue I have against this act is that it sort of goes against modeling proper and fair use of other people’s work. I think all teachers, regardless of the Teach Act should follow the copyright laws.

            It was a lot of information. I sort of knew that to use someone else’s work, I need permission from that person, but growing up I did not consistently followed the copyright laws. I always cited my sources but I never consulted the authors that I was using their works. I will definitely be more aware of the copyright laws after this article. I would also like to model the fair use of copyrighted works in my career.