Angoco, Cherese
Assistive Technology
In today’s society, the educational environment has been transformed by the
computer age. Although the impact of computer technology has become so
tremendous, no area has experienced a more important or more liberating affect
than students with disabilities. Assistive technology has become so advanced
that in order to accommodate students with disabilities; they offer the
opportunity to complete certain tasks that were once not possible for them.
Most importantly, with integrated assistive technology, students with disabilities
are given the opportunity to be apart of a regular classroom.
As an educator, it would be such a privilege to be appropriately trained for
certain assistive technological devices that would be of assistance to any of my
students with special disabilities. Incorporating assistive technology into my
classroom would serve as a wonderful benefit for my disabled students to be
able to gain access to the standard curriculum. As with all diversities within the
classroom, I would need to make special accommodations to my students who
are using assistive technology. I would need to consider the type of disability
that my student has, what type of assistive technology he is receiving, and how I
can be physically and mentally prepared to make any accommodations within
my lesson plan, whether it be working along side with my student, or
programming the assistive technological device to integrate and customize the
current lesson and objectives.
Assistive technology has certainly made a great impact upon education.
Computers have given disabled students the most wonderful benefit of allindependence. Through independence, computers free a person with disabilities
from relying on others for assistance. The disabled person can now learn at his
or her own speed. Assistive technology has opened the computer world to the
disabled, enabling them to achieve goals, in which they once thought they could
never do.