Blog Post #15

Assistive Technologies for vision and hearing impaired students

By. Chastity Westry

This video provided several ideas for a teacher to think about when using assistive technologies for vision and hearing impaired students. As a teacher or parent, we should enhance learning, remove barriers, push boundaries, give hope, and challenge the way we think. It also showed different tools and programs to use with a vision and hearing impaired student. One tool that I thought was interesting was the Go Talk device. The Go Talk device are battery powered augmentative communication devices. They are used by people who can not communicate well by speaking. For example, a classmate, teacher, friend, sibling, etc. can record any message the user will normally need in any accent or language. Next, an overlay of pictures will be constructed. The pictures are to help the users remember where each message is located. The user can use this device to communicate with people by just pressing whatever message/picture they want to deliver. According to Spectronics, typical messages on a Go Talk device would be as simple as: “Hello, it’s nice to see you?”, “I need help.”, “I am all done.”, and “I need to use the bathroom.”. Go Talks are used by people all around the world. Children with down syndrome, autism, or any condition that limits speech uses the Go Talk device as an assistive technology for hearing. These devices are not only used by children. Adolescents and adults who have head injuries or stroke. It was said in this video that one in 2500 Australian children have a vision impairment and on average, one Australian child is identified with impaired hearing everyday. As teachers/educators we need to learn more about assistive technologies for children with disabilities in the classroom. I feel as if the Go Talk device would be a tool that could be very helpful to students and to the class as a whole. Lets give all students with sensory impairments the ability to identify, explore, investigate, question, discover, engage, observe, and interact.







Ipad Usage for the Blind

By: Victoria Williams

In this assignment I was assigned to watch a video where Wasley Majerus is demonstrating the use of the ipad for the visually impaired. The voice over is a wonderful asset to the ipad. This is a screen access package and  allows the ipad to talk to the person that is using it. It will call out everything that is on the screen. A useful application for the ipad is the ibook. The ibook is a mainstream ereader. In this application the visually impaired may access the library and then choose the book they are wanting to be read to them. After choosing the book, the chapter may be read to them aloud. Another unique thing about this application is that  the illustration will be described. In the application itunesU, it is also made very easy to navigate through the music. All of these applications are made possible through the ipads voice over.

As an education major, this video has brought to my attention the importance of technology and special programs for the visually impaired. I did some research for some online resources for the visually impaired and I was able to find useful information on:https://nfb.org/learning. This website took me to a website that gave special quest games to reinforce learning through math, science, and technology. This website is known as http://www.blindscience.org/online-resources#Accesstech. These websites could be bookmarked onto an ipad for easy access or bookmarked onto a classroom computed for easy access. This way even if resources such as ipads are not supplied at your school these links could also be useful for helping teach children of the blind.

Teaching Mom what her deaf/blind child is learning on the iPad

by: Shanda Thornton

In this video, a mother of a blind child is learning how to use the iPad like her visually impaired child. These iPads are using voice over so that a blind child can hear what he or she is looking at. I think this is an amazing invention for these children, it gives them the opportunity to do normal things that other students are doing. The mother was listening to the directions of the teacher and went step by step to learn to navigate around the iPad apps. The teacher would direct the mother to go to the top left hand side of the iPad and then move her finger along the top until she found what she was looking for. They even demonstrated writing a note. There are two modes to type using the notes part. You could use either standard typing where you touch any letter and double tap it to choose that letter  or  touch typing mode which means that you could hold it down and tap it and choose that letter. These inventions are very helpful for visually impaired people. They showed how to move your hands and fingers to access the apps that you were looking for. It is very important to know how many fingers and which way to slide to be able to properly use this voice over app.  The picture shows one way that you have to move your fingers to choose a menu option.