Jane

Jane's Page

In this article I learned about a wide range of technologies that are being used to assist people with disabilities and which are often used by people without disabilities. As Kate said at the beginning of today the line between assistive technology (AT) and just plain technology has lost its significance. This is a good thing as the use of technology does not cause the reluctant or challenged student to stand out in a stigmatizing way. Some of the technologies that were mentioned have positive potential but also scare me. I don't want to wear clothes that allow people to track my every movement. But then... we are moving so rapidly into the future it is hard to say what technologies will take hold and what creative uses will be found for them. The internet, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds (my personal favorite) have been repurposed for many surprising uses.

I noticed while I was reading this article that wearing headphones really cut down on distractions for me. I have a hard time reading in a group of people. I am a very distractiable reader and having the digital reader keeping my pace also contributed to keeping me focussed. I am a good reader - in that my reading comprehension and retention is very good, but my speed is on the very low end of normal. I was able to speed up the reader and had an experience I have NEVER had in my life - being the first person in the class to finish the article (and, though I should not admit it to you, I had not read it before.) If I had been able to "read" tests in this way I would have done much better in school.

There is no perfect technology, but there are many technological tools that, if you embrace them and use them well, can make our work fun, satisfying, and effective.