Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Changing Disabilities

For our tech task assignment #7, it was required we watch a video from the K12 Online Conference 2008. The video I chose was called "Changing Disabilities". They focus on the McGiver approach of changing disabilities into possibilites. (I thought this aspect of the presentation was the funniest!)
They mainly focused on a site called voice thread. It's kind of like elluminate. You can present things online and you can comment varying from typing it into the chat, recording it on a microphone or video, or telephoning.
These teachers presented it in their kindergarten class, and most specifically, children with disabilities. They talked about 3 students with different problems, and how the site had help them advance and improve in school. My favorite was about Lindsay. Lindsay was overly sensitive to loud noises, which made school pretty uncomfortable for her. When she attended school, she didn't talk (selective mutism). So when it came to knowing where Lindsay was in reading, her teachers didn't know because they have never heard her talk, let alone read. The solution? Her teacher scanned the pages of a book and uploaded them onto voice thread. She showed Lindsay how she could record herself, and left the room. A few minutes later, Lindsay presented her work and her teacher got to know that Lindsay could read, and she was a remarkable reader.
This is just one example of how voice thread could really help out, and the rest of the video is just as interesting. I never thought of the advantage technology could offer with people with disabilities. It's actually quite incredible! I really loved the idea of voice thread and almost find it easier, and more visually engaging, than elluminate (no offence Dean).
Anyways, if you're interested in more about voice thread, just click my hyper link and they have a audio/visual recording on what it is. It's great.

4 comments:

  1. Love the picture of McGiver! Sounds very interesting. I have never heard of selective mutism.

    Amber

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  2. I guess selective mutism is when a child chooses when they will or wont talk. In this case, she wouldn't talk infront of people. Or atleast people at school.

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  3. Hi Alejandra,
    I wanted to contribute something about what Selective Mutism is. A child with Selective Mutism doesn't actually choose when they will or will not talk; it's more that they are unable to talk in some social situations (especially school) because of anxiety. They want to, but feel totally paralyzed and can't get the words out. Thanks for caring about it and the girl you studied! I'm going to research more about voice thread. Thanks for the information!

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  4. Hey Its Cortni umm well. We where called down to the office to go do jokes. I don't really reamber what the jokes were! We did get the picuter off the macs! We got the laughing cat off google images!

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