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Education is increasingly becoming more child centred then curriculum centred and rightly so. The School Development Plan, Digital Learning Framework for Primary Schools, Inclusive Education and UDL all involve cyclical processes to determining where we are at, areas that need to be developed, putting into place action to change, reviewing, and reflecting on the progress made. This then brings you back to the beginning of the process again. All with the students’ wellbeing and needs in mind.
More then ever we have so many tools to help students in the classroom to learn in meaningful and exciting ways. In a special educational setting using these tools is especially important as it may be the first or only way a student is able to communicate basic needs or work with some degree of independence or access some curriculum areas more successfully. Apps and functions shown in the course has helped me think more critically and apply the SETT procedure to look at technology with the students’ needs at the focus. The accessibility tools in Microsoft and apple are hugely beneficial for literacy. Kloog and articulation station are new apps to me which will be great for my students to help them learn. Online games such as topmarks, starfall and Primary games are fantastic tools to engage my learners in the classroom.
The SETT model is a great tool to Identify tools which would suit the students needs by thinking of the Student, the Environment, the Task and the assistive technology Tools available. Linking this model with the Students’ Support Plan would be beneficial as it would be a great way to break down the SMART targets set in the SSP to identify the most effective way to achieve the target. Following this model would have the teacher and those involve to critically look at the best tools to use with the student at the focus of the decision-making process.
Part 1
The child I have in mind has a great interest in animals and has a laptop provided through assistive technology. Using the worksheet linked, the child can read the text in the web browser using the immersive reader function to learn about hedgehogs. Once the child has read the information, they can use the dictate function in word to record 3 facts about hedgehogs. This activity could be used in the classroom. The student could use the functions provided by Microsoft to aid them to complete the task, easily allowing the child to participate alongside their classmates.
The picture shown in Module 3 shows the diverseness of students and how only giving one way to respond to a task will affect the ability of how students can respond. Some students will even be greatly disadvantaged and not be able to show how capable they are if another option was open to them. Teachers have so much at their disposal today to show students’ learning in different medians. The devises and apps accessible to students can allow them to respond to a task in creative ways which showcase their knowledge and skills in various subjects.
Part 2
The world is changing especially in technologies and as teachers we need to continue to learn, to help our students as these technologies will affect their futures. Improving our knowledge improves our practice. Teaching is such a multidiscipline area particularly in special needs. Day to day we deal in so many areas of a child’s development. Embarking on courses to continue our professional development is vital to our practise to learn new skills and learn about our students’ needs. The Cosan Framework recognises the importance of continued learning and gives teachers the freedom to developing in areas of interest and importance to their individual requirements.
As previously mentioned, I discovered the immersive reader function in Lens a few months ago and it has been so beneficial for my daughter. It is fantastic to have such a function in so many of the Microsoft tools. I was particularly impressed with the quality of the voice. It is easy to listen to (especially the female voice) and does not take the meaning away from the text by sounding too computerized. Through this course, I have learned of more functions it is capable of. I like that you can change the speed of the voice and text size. Being able to change the colour theme and the amount of text shown at a time is hugely helpful for those with learning needs. I love that these tools are free and are accessible not only in schools but in the students’ life as well. I think this is very important as learning how to access this tool will be a resource useful throughout a students’ life, giving them confidence to explore and interact with the text they may come across.
It is incredible the potential assistive technologies could have in our classroom. The Microsoft Web Site alone has so much information and support for students. I discovered the immersive reader function in Microsoft Lens by chance a few months ago while learning how to use the app to upload incident reports for school. I introduced it to my daughter who is dyslexic and had never read a novel independently. She has now read 6 novels her friend has read which were inaccessible to her before. It has opened a new world to her. Her reading has improved as she is exposed to so much more text than she was before. Her self-motivation to read has increase dramatically too. She is applying digital competences to support her lifelong learning as the Digital learning Framework encourages.
In school we have become much more tech savvy, particularly after Covid. However, they is still so much to learn and implement in schools. The Digital Leaning Framework is a fantastic document to focus on the strengths and needs of the school. We use seesaw and have had great success using it to communicate more with parents and to use it to document students’ achievements. Still more could be done to engage learners and focus on their educational needs.
As a teacher in a special school, I would like to reflect on and enhance (my) pupils’ active use of a range of digital technologies based on their individual learning needs. The majority of the students I teach are preverbal, but I have found most are very reluctant to use the communication boards in school. However, most of my students love the iPad and are very efficient at using it. I think it would be helpful to use Power Point to display the communication board but to also incorporate a spoken word to each visual of the communication board when it is touched, to encourage the students to communicate. This could also be displayed and interacted with on the class Interactive Whiteboard. Using the SETT model is very helpful to focus on the important elements to include Assistive Technologies successfully.
