This post is my Class 1 Blog. I'm late posting it because I had difficulty figuring out how to get back into my blog after I signed out! Class 1 was an excellent introduction to the course and I'm very much looking forward to learning all about using Assistive Technology in my Learning Centre and/or future classrooms. We did an online search for a clear and concise definition of Assistive Technology. I was amazed at how many different definitions came up and found it difficult to settle on one. We all entered our definitions in the chat box and then copy/pasted into a Wordle (found at www.wordle.net) so that we could see common themes. Here is my Wordle:

I notice that two words that seem to stand out are Independence and People. This makes sense as I think of assistive technology as being a tool/tools to give people independence. Next, we watched a Video Presentation about different students and their assistive technologies. This was very eye-opening for me! I was amazed at how assistive technology is being used in classrooms and it made me think about my school and the assistive technology we have available for students. I was intrigued by the discussion of AT Assessments and did more research to find out exactly how students' needs are assessed. To explore this further, you can see the links listed under AT Assessment but essentially, parents and service providers are involved and the process takes lots of time and patience. It is highly individualized as the person using the technology must be comfortable with it and everyone is different.