Day 2- July 6th

Today's class seemed to fly by very quickly and I was very interested in the many things that Barb had to share with us. At times I did feel a little overwhelmed but also confident that it will all fall into place as we have the opportunity to use some of the different AT that is available. I feel that I am very much a visual learner so until I am holding the device I have a hard time seeing its benefits. I benefit from having it right in front of me as we discuss it's benefits.

Class started with going over our blogs and how to set up the design and add some fancy gadgets. I know with playing around with it for a few days I will have a good handle of how it works. I am having difficulty with embedding videos but I will give it one more try tonight and see if it works.

We got to see another inspiring video of a young boy names Tyler. It was remarkable how many different types of assisstive technology that he has in order for him to participate fully in his class. He is at the top of his class academically and is going into french immersion. It would take a tremendous amount of work to implement a full program for him. I think it does make a difference that he was very fortunate to have early intervention so that programs were put into place early on. I look at some of the students at my own school and even though they have implemented some AT I think there is so much more that could be done for these students. I know one of our students with autism would benefit greatly form the I Pod touch. He has autism and is essentially non verbal but is doing a lot of work that is at grade level (grade 3). Our student in grade 6 who has cerebral palsy has just received an assisstive technology device to help her communicate. It is a computer that is attached to the side of her wheel chair. She only received it this year and because I was in the other end of the building I didn't get a chance to see exactly how it worked. I think I will inquire how it works and how they felt it worked for her. I am not sure if she uses it enough throughout the day to get the full benefit of it or enough practice with it. It stays at the school adn it is used during her day.

An important topic from todays class that was discussed was the 3 important things that we must have to be able to communicate is 1) a communication partner
2) joint language
3) common language
Without these three things it is very difficult to communicate effectively. I think communication is a way for us to relay what we want or need to say, our desires and for companionship. Everyone needs to be able to communicate in some way whether it be through voice, body language, hand signs or a device but without this I could not imagine how lonely it would be for someone who is not given the opportunity to communicate. We have to sometimes look past the voice at other ways to communicate.