Assistive+Technology

__** Assistive Technology **__
When integrating technology in the classroom, it is always important to be aware of students who might have special needs and how the technology can be adapted for his/her use. For example, our group researched how to use Wikis in a classroom with a visually impaired student. In this scenario, the student is legally blind and can only see up to one foot away from her. She is unable to see the chalkboard or the whiteboard from her desk. It is suggested that she may need large print (16-18pt and up), audio, or Braille assistance. If the students are working on a Wiki in the classroom, which only has one computer, the teacher would involve the class by using the multimedia projector to display the Wiki. The visually impaired student, however, would not be able to see the projected image and would, therefore, be unable to participate. If the class was working with the individual computers in the lab, this student may still have trouble seeing the screen. There is assistive technology available that can offer assistance to a visually impaired child who would like to work on a Wiki or participate in a class Wiki. The assistive technology is Universal Access on Mac OS X, particularly the Voice Over program.

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**__Benefits of This Technology:__** The Universal Access function on Mac OS X is an incredibly beneficial form of assistive technology for the visually impaired student as it will allow her to both magnify the screen that she is working on as well as having the text read aloud to her. Universal Access has “seeing” and “hearing” tabs to assist the student. The “seeing” tab has a zoom option that magnifies the screen up to 40 times. There are also options for how the screen will move and where the cursor will go as you type as well as the option to magnify the cursor independently. The student can also enhance the contrast or change the display to black on white to help with visual clarity. The “seeing” tab includes VoiceOver, a screen-access technology that gives the visually impaired control of their computer. It is a text-to-speech technology that involves dragging a finger around the trackpad to have a description of that part of the screen read out loud. As you drag, you will hear the placement of the items on the screen. The program also has built in support for Braille displays. Simply connect the Braille display to the Mac and VoiceOver will pick it up and read out the name of the key that your finger is on. VoiceOver is highly beneficial to the student because it allows her to work independently when we take our class to work on computers in the lab. With this technology, the student will be able to find out what is on the Wiki and will be able to contribute to it. The magnification tool is also useful because in order to work on the Wiki in the classroom, there is only one computer to use and a multimedia projector. The teacher would be able to use the zoom feature to enlarge the screen and then project it so that both the class and the student would be able to view the Wiki from their seats.