Discuss the following question. Post your responses and then review your colleagues’ posts and respond to at least two of your peers. Try to respond to someone who has not been responded to yet.
Following are some scenarios showing accessibility challenges for learners with disabilities.
- A learner who is hearing-impaired is asked to view an online video which does not have captions.
- A learner with paralysis in his hands is given an online assessment requiring drag-and-drop responses with the use of a mouse.
Using the above as examples, think of a technology that you have incorporated or would like to incorporate in your lessons and discuss some accessibility challenges that might be presented by your selected technology.
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Usually, in each institute, there is one disability center to support students with disability. We can ask them to support our disabled students. They usually have some technology to support different disabilities. If I want to support my disabled students on my own, first I try to adjust my activities and assessments for them. In some cases, we can use technologies to help them. For example, in case 1 (hearing-impaired student), I will upload the video on Youtube and the student can use the subtitle provided by Youtube.
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This Session is really important because the current generation are so sensitive to technology and it really helps us teachers getting to know more about technology teaching.
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Assistive listening devices help amplify the sounds you want to hear, especially where there’s a lot of background noise. ALDs can be used with a hearing aid or cochlear implant to help a wearer hear certain sounds better. There are also some other technologies in the university that can help students with this disabilities.
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#LS4ODFL
Some High school have included Special Assistants to assist with persons with disabilities. Regarding this, incorporating technologies in teaching and learning must be taken into considerations first students who may have learning disabilities. For instance, a learner who is hearing-impaired is asked to view an online video which does not have captions. Concerning this accessibility challenge, thereby, Special Assistants will need to present in the teaching and learning process to help interpret the ongoing dialogues. It is fundamental to have qualified personnel specially specialists of learning disabilities for providing accessibility to students/learners with disabilities. Whilst, a learner with paralysis in his hands is given an online assessment requiring drag-and-drop responses with the use of a mouse. Voice recognition/text-speech app to be run in the computer so a learner with a disability concerning this will help him/her completing the task.
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I agree. Technology is really important and it has cons and pros. If we are not aware of them, they could be useless or even harmful to education.
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We can use different technology to facilitate learning for our disabled students. However, I believe that the institute’s policies must also support disabled students.
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In order to ensure my students do not face any issues in comprehending due to any disabilities. Firstly, i would include texts n subtitles in videos to ensure students dont have to turn on captions or fsce difficulty in understanding. Secondly,i will ensure there are other options available such as text-speech or voice command.
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Definitely. If technology is inappropriately used it will lose its purpose and be a waste of time hence its very important to not just incorporate it anyhow but ensure it meets the learning outcome.
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I do not completely agree on leaving students with disabilities to support centres. I believe we should make our own efforts to make the teaching and learning more accessible to them.
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Digital Hearing Aid - as an educator, firstly I need to know how to use this tech. In knowing how to use, I must also be analytical to ensure that learning takes place. As highlighted above, tech will be of no use if we ourselves aren’t aware on how to use and not knowing whether or not it will work with our students. So it is important to be FULLY AWARE of the tech that I would like to use.
Another way is for me to reach out to the students facing difficulty in learning online due to some limitation in their movements. Reaching out would mean to have a face to face tutorial where responds through speech could be recorded.
A major challenge would be having access to these technologies. It comes with a cost.
Therefore, we must really assess thoroughly before implementing activities and engaging students especially those with limitations either in movement, hearing, sight etc.
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A learner with hearing impairment would better be given an audio only technology so that they do not get distracted and strained to listen to what is spoken.
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Thank you for the insightful and practical solution.
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Yes there are indeed technologies out there to help. But it comes with a cost and like any other, it has its advantages and disadvantages. We must really take into account all this. At the end of the day, all we want is what’s best for our students.
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I totally agree with you Sir. There are experts and there’s no harm in asking for their help and support.
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There is no need to leave students with disabilities to support centers, but, we could always ask for their help. To help us in preparing activities, to help us in getting the right technologies, to help us in our approach and strategies to teach and whatever way they could help us because all we want is what’s best for the child.
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I have never used assistive technology since I never taught any special child. Although a few years ago, we enrolled a special child who came from a Special School and he completed Year 9 to 12 with assistance from the peers and an Assistant teacher. I used to communicate with him through action. Also currently at my school, we have two ancillary staff who are special cases and I am able to communicate via action. Through my readings the following are examples of assistive technology that can be used in the two situations given.
- magnifiers,
- talking devices such as a talking thermostat,
- Braille displays,
- screen reading software,
- text-to-speech systems using Optical Character Recognition (OCR),
- large print materials, and.
- phones with large tactile buttons.
The learners will feel that they are not part of the learning environment. In such situations those individual will be left behind resulting in downgrading their moral of learning. Teachers should not look over such situations.
Indeed. In such situations should not overlook.
Well Said. Technology is a good Tool for learning but should be used in a way that all learners feel comfortable with.
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