Answered by Lise Galuga and Marie-Josée Joly Technology has made great strides over the last few decades. Today, we rely on small devices that remind us of our appointments, allow us to collaborate on writing documents, make audio recordings or videos, or entertain us. Today’s students cannot fathom a world without technology. They regularly engage [...]
LD@school is having two FREE upcoming webinars in May and June! The dates and information can be found below. Please note that all LD@school webinars are hosted from 3:30 - 4:45 PM EST. Don't miss out on these great, FREE professional learning opportunities!
Metacognition is a process that relates to the knowledge that we have of our own strategies and the control that we are able to exert over these strategies in order to solve problems more efficiently. Metacognition is a high-level executive function that draws on our ability to reflect on what we know in order to understand how we function and assess our approach to learning. It is one of the best predictors of school success (Dévolvé, 2005).
Without appropriate accommodations, students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may find themselves at a disadvantage. If these students are then asked to “try harder”, despite making an effort that may already be above and beyond what is expected or necessary for their peers, they may develop anxiety and low self-esteem related to their difficulty in learning.
When an assessment from a qualified professional recommends the use of assistive technology for a student with a learning disability, the assistive technology must be included in the student’s IEP and educators have a legal obligation to make these tools available to the student.
This video discusses the role that assistive technology can play in helping students with LDs remediate their reading skills as well as compensate for areas of weakness. Reading is a difficult task that does not come naturally to humans; it draws on many different cognitive processes at the same time including: decoding words, understanding meaning, creating mental pictures, making inferences and many more.
What are Google Docs, Apps and Add-ons and why should my students with LDs use them? Let’s start with a review of both differentiated instruction (DI) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to answer that question.
I often get asked the question, “what is the best spelling tool?”. My answer to this is, “when supporting a learning disability, you need to support beyond the spelling, and support the writing”. So what we really are looking for are great writing tools. Writing is broken into a few stages, Planning, Composing, Editing, and Adding. Let’s consider spelling within the editing stage.
Assistive technology (AT) can be of tremendous benefit to students with learning disabilities (LDs); AT can compensate for a student's skills deficits, needs and/or area(s) of disability. The key to effective AT is finding the right match between the AT tool, the learning disabilities, and the task. Students with LDs will most often require AT that assists with reading, language, organizational skills and processing information.
In this interactive webinar, DJ Cunningham will help educators understand how to utilize assistive technology in the classroom to enhance student engagement and learning. Leading with pedagogy and following with technology is an approach to help students strategically understand how to use assistive educational technology, such as Read&Write for Google ChromeTM and Google Apps for Education.
