AT for LD—Class 3

During class 3 we had the opportunity to watch a webinar and work on a group presentation.  My group chose AT for LD.  This was very useful for me because I teach LD students in Science 9 and adapting for their reading and writing challenges can be tricky when trying to adhere to the “only as different as is necessary” philosophy.  I find that I am often placing these students with an EA for reading or scribing support or leaving them at a desktop computer at the back of the classroom to have a document read to them, both practices that make them feel excluded.  I create lower level readings, graphic organizers, and vocabulary lists for these students, but it takes a great deal of time, which can sometimes be draining.  What I realized this class is that iPads have apps for all these dilemmas.  Yippee!  I will overview three of my favourite apps in this blog.

 

Enhanced textbooks from iBooks are of interest to me as a science teacher.  Mostly published by McGraw-Hill and inexpensive, these allow UDL principles to be easily incorporated into textbook reading in the classroom.  All students can access up-to-date scientific information by highlighting and reading or using the speak selection feature, finding definitions or pictures from the internet to clarify text, or watching embedded videos to support concepts.  Notes can be added, even via dictation with Siri, note cards can be created for study, and sections of text can be copied and pasted for emails or into another app.  Even the font size can be changed.  It’s everything you could do with a textbook without paper, quickly, and in one place!

 

 

Book creator is almost the opposite of enhanced textbooks…all the features are available to use while making your own book from scratch.  Again, student work is supported by speak selection and Siri, and books can contain audio, video, text, and pictures.  I think this is a great tool for summative assignments for all students, but the LD students would especially benefit from having the additional reading and writing supports.

 

 

 

 

Finally, because I am qualified to teach math and may do so in the future, I would choose Panther math paper as the third most valuable app presented in the webinar.  It is good for typing out formulas, numbers, equations, etc. so that LD students are not overwhelmed by the writing task or the amount of writing that might be on a single page.  Very cool!

 

 

 

I also found an interesting literature review about use of AT for writing support with LD students (if you have a St. F. X. account, click on the citation to read the article):

Batorowicz, B., Missiuna, C. A.,& Pollock, N. A. (2012). Technology supporting written productivity in childrenwith disabilities: A critical review. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy,79(4), 211–224. doi:10.2182/cjot.2012.79.4.3