3.4 Adaptive and Assistive Technology
Candidates facilitate the use of adaptive and assistive technologies to support individual student learning needs. (PSC 3.4/ISTE 3d)
Artifact: Assistive Technology plans from ITEC 7445, Multimedia and Web Design.
Reflection:
In standard 3.4, candidates are asked to consider the individual needs of students and find or develop and implement uses of assistive technology to help meet the unique needs of those students. To that end, I chose the assistive technology plans that I created for two students and the assistive technology reflection that I created for ITEC 7445, Multimedia and Web Development. In the creation of this artifact, I sought out students who I knew outside of the school environment, interviewed the students and their parents to determine their needs, considered their needs in determining possible solutions, chose solutions, trained the students and their parents in those solutions, and checked in later to determine the impact of the AT solutions suggested.
I created this artifact during a summer course. During this timeframe, I did not have consistent contact with my own students, so I sought out students in my neighborhood and the children of friends and acquaintances who agreed to participate in my field experience. I found two such students and set out to learn about their individual needs. Specifically, the students had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and a learning disability. From interviewing the students and their parents, I found that one student needed help with basic math skills while the other needed assistance in maintaining organization.
For the student who needed help with math skills, I found that he enjoyed playing games on his mother’s iPad, and I researched math skills games that he might enjoy. I downloaded some possible choices to my own iPad and tested them before suggesting them to his mother. In order to ensure that he would play the games, I worked with him to ensure that he knew how they worked, and I did the same with his mother so that she could help him with troubleshooting.
I found that the second student’s biggest weakness was in organization, so I began researching ways to help her with organization. I found that she did not enjoy using an agenda or planner to help with organization and she often lost any planners that were purchased for her. However, she had a smartphone, and she never lost that. To that end, I looked for organizational helper apps that could be downloaded to her phone, and I showed her how to use those and the built-in organization features of her phone to remain organized. I also showed her parents how to use those same apps and features to check in on her organization.
The main lesson that I learned from creating this artifact was that to be effective in designing and suggesting assistive technology solutions, a thorough knowledge of the student is required. In this case, a large amount of the work that I completed in creating this artifact was devoted to learning about the students with whom I worked. I had to find out about their strengths and weaknesses and work to find solutions that would take advantage of their strengths while closing weakness gaps. The fact that this field experience took place during the summer months added to the difficulty in learning about the students. With that in mind, in the future I would create assistive technology plans for students that I teach in the classroom and do so during the school year when it is easier to determine their needs and to assess the success of the AT plan.
The impact of this artifact was mostly on student achievement of the two individual students with whom I worked. The assistive technology solutions that I designed and helped implement were designed for the individual students, and to that end, their impact could only be on the achievement of the individual students. The impact has been assessed so far based on anecdotal evidence from their parents. Both students are said to be doing better after the assistive technology solutions were put in place.
In standard 3.4, candidates are asked to consider the individual needs of students and find or develop and implement uses of assistive technology to help meet the unique needs of those students. To that end, I chose the assistive technology plans that I created for two students and the assistive technology reflection that I created for ITEC 7445, Multimedia and Web Development. In the creation of this artifact, I sought out students who I knew outside of the school environment, interviewed the students and their parents to determine their needs, considered their needs in determining possible solutions, chose solutions, trained the students and their parents in those solutions, and checked in later to determine the impact of the AT solutions suggested.
I created this artifact during a summer course. During this timeframe, I did not have consistent contact with my own students, so I sought out students in my neighborhood and the children of friends and acquaintances who agreed to participate in my field experience. I found two such students and set out to learn about their individual needs. Specifically, the students had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and a learning disability. From interviewing the students and their parents, I found that one student needed help with basic math skills while the other needed assistance in maintaining organization.
For the student who needed help with math skills, I found that he enjoyed playing games on his mother’s iPad, and I researched math skills games that he might enjoy. I downloaded some possible choices to my own iPad and tested them before suggesting them to his mother. In order to ensure that he would play the games, I worked with him to ensure that he knew how they worked, and I did the same with his mother so that she could help him with troubleshooting.
I found that the second student’s biggest weakness was in organization, so I began researching ways to help her with organization. I found that she did not enjoy using an agenda or planner to help with organization and she often lost any planners that were purchased for her. However, she had a smartphone, and she never lost that. To that end, I looked for organizational helper apps that could be downloaded to her phone, and I showed her how to use those and the built-in organization features of her phone to remain organized. I also showed her parents how to use those same apps and features to check in on her organization.
The main lesson that I learned from creating this artifact was that to be effective in designing and suggesting assistive technology solutions, a thorough knowledge of the student is required. In this case, a large amount of the work that I completed in creating this artifact was devoted to learning about the students with whom I worked. I had to find out about their strengths and weaknesses and work to find solutions that would take advantage of their strengths while closing weakness gaps. The fact that this field experience took place during the summer months added to the difficulty in learning about the students. With that in mind, in the future I would create assistive technology plans for students that I teach in the classroom and do so during the school year when it is easier to determine their needs and to assess the success of the AT plan.
The impact of this artifact was mostly on student achievement of the two individual students with whom I worked. The assistive technology solutions that I designed and helped implement were designed for the individual students, and to that end, their impact could only be on the achievement of the individual students. The impact has been assessed so far based on anecdotal evidence from their parents. Both students are said to be doing better after the assistive technology solutions were put in place.