Blog Post #12

What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher? Select a few and 

discuss how they may be useful to you.

To answer this question, I decided to write about some of the assistive technologies that we use in our local schools. The first of these technologies that I would like to address is called Redcat. 

Redcat is an audio system that enables a child that is hearing impaired to be able to hear the teacher clearly no matter where they are located in the classroom. Redcat is a "all in one" completely contained system that is easily relocated to different classrooms depending on where the need for it is. How it works is, the teacher wears a device around her, (or his) neck and that device serves like a microphone that in turn projects the teacher's voice through speakers located throughout the classroom. This keeps the teacher from having the yell and the student from having to strain to hear what is being said.

MAGic® Screen Magnification Software with Speech is the brand name of a software program that is currently being used at our schools. Like the name says, this is a screen magnification software for the visually impaired. This software loads on any typical computer and allows the visually impaired student to adjust the strength of magnification to the level they need it to be in order to read what is being displayed on the computer's screen. In addition to this, another option that is available on this software is one that will also read the text that is on the computer screen audibly  if the student so chooses. These are all features that would be useful in the classroom to help aid a child that is visually impaired be able to participate in the same learning activities as the rest of the class.

A third and final device that I will cover is called the SARA CE - Scanning and Reading Appliance. This is a device that a visually impaired student uses to magnify worksheets in the classroom, onto their computer monitor. Once the student gets the worksheet from the teacher, they can just lay the paper on the reading appliance and it magnifies and projects the worksheet onto the computer monitor for the student to be able to read. This device is also able to scan and read the text in sixteen different languages. 

These are all devices that are available to teachers to help aid in the classroom and are currently being used in our classrooms here in my hometown. With devices like these, a student who would normally be unable to function in a traditional classroom, is now able to participate in the same type of learning environment as their peers. These type of assistive technologies work like a key to unlock the doors that would otherwise shut out children with visual or hearing impairments.