Assistive Technology

I tried out the Google Translation and it is just the coolest thing EVER! I love that you can translate any website into one of LOTS of different languages! I never really thought to use this technology as of recently, because when I was in middle school and in Spanish class, there were only a few translation sites out there that were free! I love that it is so easy with google to translate just about anything!

I can see how things get "lost in translation".  Even back in middle school, if I typed a whole English phrase, then translated it to Spanish and then back to English, it wasn't the correct way to say it sometimes.  I realized quickly that it is easier just to translate the words that I didnt know. 

This will be so useful in the future in my classroom.  Lots of communication is needed in education, and I will need to be in touch with ALL of my students parents.  As a preschool teacher now, I know how hard that can be with parents who do not speak English.  I have actually looked up common phrases in different languages such as Chinese, Russian etc., for the kids in my class, but this will make it much easier to keep the language barriers open!

The Microsoft Assistive Technologies are very useful as well.  You can do so many different things such learning how to zoom in on a webpage, or navigate and do everything using only a keyboard and not using a mouse.  It also has a Mini-translator that will read text aloud to you.  These are really useful tools for people of all ages, disability or not!

The website for Diverse Learners is amazing.  There are such good and useful tools on there.  I really enjoyed the digital text portion.  My brother is a very smart Sophomore in high school, but he has a reading disability and does poorly on many school assignments and tests because of that.  This would be a great way to help him.  I also like the Visual tab here.  Many kids are visual learners and any sort of enhancement will help! Overall this whole website will be bookmarked because there is such wonderful information on there. 

Finally, Information on photosensitive epilepsy was astounding! Photosensitivity is genetic and can affect many people in a family.  Girls are more often affected, but boys have more seizures (due to their video game playing!) EEGs can determine the severity and anti-epileptic drugs can help to treat this condition.  Several different things can trigger to this condition including the frequency of how many times the light changes , the intensity which is how bright the light is and how much of a contrast it has, and area--how much space the slight source is taking up in the field of vision.  Patterns such as checkerboards can also be parts of this condition.  This information is very interesting for us future teachers! I think that at some point I may deal with this in a classroom, and just the knowledge of it makes me more comforable to the condition!