This week we explored 'Read and Write', an extension offered on both android and apple devices which allows students to engage with online materials in greater depth. There is a free trial available and pricing information is posted on their website. Downloading the extension took no time at all and I was able to begin exploring instantly. The feature that I personally found the most useful were the highlighters that allow you to highlight text on webpages. The extension comes with 4 different colours that you can use and is very intuitive with its application. As a visual learner, I often 'highlight' text with my cursor in order to break up large bodies of text online, especially when reading journals and academic works. I often lose my place and a feature like this is something that would be wonderful just for myself! Another feature I liked was the talk-to-text and text-to-speech features. the text-to-speech reminded me of google translate. There is a feature within google translate that allows you to scan documents in real-time that are written in any language and get an instant translation into any other language. This feature was a true life saver when I travelled through Japan a few years ago. While signs and information was often available in both Japanese and English in larger cities like Tokyo or Kyoto, once I found myself in smaller towns and villages I would have been completely lost without it. I was able to use the feature to understand what buildings I could enter, what times ferries and trains arrived and departed, menus, hotel info and much more. While I have travelled a little bit, I had not previously been to a country that was so unfamiliar and foreign to me and my own experiences. I felt a great disconnect, anxiety and confusion often times when trying to navigate through cities and can only imagine what a student with diverse learning needs goes through in a classroom everyday. To be in a state of constant anxiety would be such a terrible experience and if technology and extensions such as 'Read and Write' reduce stress levels for kids I am more than happy to implement the programs into my classroom. Other features available through the extension include predictive text as well as picture and word dictionaries.
Technology offered to students in classrooms can often be clunky and visibly different from what other students are working on at the moment. I had a student this past year who was assigned an iPad in order to keep them up to speed in class but was too self-conscious to use it as they felt that the other students would 'know' that they needed additional helps. What ended up working in that case was printouts that contained the information that the student would need for the week as the other students in class worked almost exclusively with pen and paper. What I hope for with the future of assistive technology is that it is offered very broadly to all students in order to de-stigmatize using such devices and extensions. I also want to begin using such features in class myself when, for example, screen sharing with my students so that they can see an adult using such features as well. When all students are given access to the same equipment, it can feel that the emphasis is being placed on equality instead of equity but in the case of technology, the equipment is so flexible that while each student is being handed the same iPad, what they do with it and how they use it to further enhance their own learning is endless. When COVID hit, the school that I worked at this previous year handed out all devices that it hand to meet the needs of students doing distance learning that did not have adequate technology. There was a 100% return rate of all devices that were lent out. I believe this speaks to the respect that students have towards technology and understanding that these devices are there to help them and their learning.
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