Monday, 17 October 2011

Closing the Gap: Part 5


Blog for Friday, October 14, 2011

Today was no different than the others.  The quality of the sessions once again surpassed my expectations.  If you have the opportunity to attend this conference, please do so, it will change the way that you teach and use technology in the classroom.  

Not only are the sessions great, remember I mentioned the SWAG?  Well, today one of our teachers won the second most expensive door prize because he completed a scavenger hunt at the trade show.  He won a $750 computer program, Interact-AS.  This program is does closed-captioning for deaf students, as well as language translation (I can speak English and it will print out what I say in one of 36 languages).   

What is so awesome is that we have a deaf student, who does not have a translator (long story, don’t get me started on it), and we have been struggling with including him in classes.  Well, this program will help solve most of those issues.  A teacher wears a microphone (we’ll be purchasing a wireless one), which is hooked up to the student’s laptop, and closed-captioning is created of everything that the teacher says.  This program makes Dragon Dictate/Naturally Speaking look like a K-car parked next to an Audi.  

We now have the capability to create an inclusive learning environment and experience for this deaf student!  I’m pumped (can’t you tell?)!

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