Consider how technology has helped you to be productive and complete tasks. Examine the physical requirements for using your favorite technologies. How might physical disabilities hamper one’s use of those preferred technologies and impact his or her personal productivity? As a teacher, what can you do to mitigate these challenges for students with special needs?

REPLY TO MY CLASSMATE’S DISCUSSION TO THE ABOVE QUESTION AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU AGREE. (MINIMUM OF 150 WORDS)

                                                 CLASSMATE’S POST

Educational online games have really helped me assess my students’ true understanding of skills.  Two of my favorites are Quizizz.com and GimKit. While they are very similar to Kahoot! and Blooket, etc., these two games are self-paced.  Being able to remove the time limit allows students to truly do their best work and still be able to compete in the game.  Last year, I had a student that only had one arm.  She was able to perform every task I ever asked her to do (except cutting), but it tended to take her a little longer because she would have to put her pencil down after solving a problem then type her answer and then pick the pencil back up to work another problem, for example.  She had a super spirit and loved being competitive. The feedback from these games in instant and invaluable.  Having it graded instantly gives me the feedback I need to guide my next instruction. 

Another source we used for her was Epic.  At times, we would let her read her book on the computer so that the book itself (holding it and turning pages) didn’t get in her way of understanding what she read.  She really liked the highlighting tool and screen reader to help her stay focused as well.