Reflection 5

From watching the video as well as reading the article “Building an Assistive Technology Toolkit”, I was able to get insight on how to better help students and work with their different types of learning strategies. Like the video said, all students learn differently and each learning strategy is unique to that student. It is important to recognize those strategies by getting them motivated and excited to learn. As a teacher, we can try and aid as many learning strategies as possible through technology. The article gives a list of free programs and ideas that will channel students’ learning strategies and have them work where they have their strengths. Something as simple as online books can be something to help out a student. With ebooks, you are able to annotate them, look up words easily, and even for students who have trouble seeing, you can create larger fonts for them to read better.

I also liked the idea of mind mapping. Mind maps are good in the sense that it can organize a student. When writing a paper or starting a project, students often become overwhelmed with information and do not know what to put down or where to start. Mind maps give students the ability to work with their own thoughts and organize them in the best way they see fit. What is nice about doing it on the computer is that they are so easy to change. The student can move things around, add or take away things without having to start over. This is perfect for visual learners because they can see how their work is to be organized.

This article also gives tips on how to work with your IT department to get these tools as well as make the programs more efficient when installing or updating. I found this article to be very helpful and I plan on using these ideas when I become a teacher.