This week's class featured a number of excellent presentations focusing on various apps and programs designed to assist people with special needs. What really stood out for me were some of the apps that use the device's camera to identify objects. There were apps designed to improve mobility of visually impaired individuals (ie: what is in front of me?), as well as helping them identify objects around their home/workplace (ie: what is in the fridge?).
One group spoke about an app designed to translate sign language. As they said, there are a number of apps that are designed to help people learn how to sign, but the technology is getting close to being able to motion capture someone signing and translate to text. A quick Google search found the following information about such an app being created by British researchers:
UK Researchers Plan Mobile Real-Time Sign Language Translation App
Sunday 29 April 2012
Thursday 19 April 2012
Jenna's 60 Minutes clip
I really found the 60 Minutes clip from Jenna’s blog this week interesting (April 18th). There is a student at my school who is visually impaired and he is a very talented, self taught drummer. It has been nice to see him be successful and really nice to see others students interact with him and acknowledge his skills.
I had never really thought of this type of situation as providing an opportunity for the person to interact with others. Very inspirational for sure!
Jenna's Blog
IRISPen
An exchange student we had a few years ago used a translator somewhat similar to this. It looked more or less like a highlighter and it scanned written documents and provided translation. It seemed to work reasonably well and the technology had likely gotten better in the 2-3 years since he was here.
Spoiler Alert :)
Here is a link to one of the better articles I found for our presentation:
Assistive Technology and Emergent Literacy for Preschoolers: A Literature Review
Assistive Technology and Emergent Literacy for Preschoolers: A Literature Review
April 18
This week's class was spent preparing for next week's presentation. I was tasked with searching for articles dealing with the use of assistive technology by emergent learners. It was a bit of a challenge as all of my experience has come at the high school level and it can be difficult to imagine working with students who are just starting school and who also require the use of assistive technology.
Any students I have worked with who make use of assistive technology have been at an age where they are already comfortable with the devices/software. Even when making use of something new they typically have the ability to catch on quickly and to figure things out with only minor assistance. I admire the early elementary teachers and education assistants who manage to help young children learn how to use the technology prior to making use of it to learn the course material.
Any students I have worked with who make use of assistive technology have been at an age where they are already comfortable with the devices/software. Even when making use of something new they typically have the ability to catch on quickly and to figure things out with only minor assistance. I admire the early elementary teachers and education assistants who manage to help young children learn how to use the technology prior to making use of it to learn the course material.
Wednesday 11 April 2012
April 11
This week in class I was given an introduction to blogger and blogs in general. This will be my first crack at blogging and I'm interested to see how it goes. Hopefully the first post, picture, youtube video and calendar gadget look allright.
Now off to watch my webinar :)
Now off to watch my webinar :)
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