As Web 2.0 tools become more prevalent in the classroom, educators are integrating blogs and wikis into classroom activities to create engaging writing activities for students. The challenge for special educators is how to create meaningful Web 2.0 activities for students who may have reading and writing deficits, or for students in classrooms emphasizing functional academics. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how assistive technologies can by used to help students with a range of deficits create and access a wiki created using PB Works.
This presentation builds on our 2008 NECC presentation to focus on more of the assistive technology tools.
We chose to create a Community Travel Wiki to model how students in functional life skills programs can benefit from Web 2.0 tools. Teachers can replicate the same process to create similar wikis or wikis that are more academic for core subjects. For example, a teacher for students with Learning Disabilities could create a wiki for vocabulary terms for grade level content using PB Works and the various components of the SOLO program. The possibilities are endless.
This link contains a Quicktime video of the various videos from our presentation.
necc2009_ledesma_long
The following assistive technology tools are featured:
1) Boardmaker
2) Solo
3) Read Naturally
4) Read Please
The “Safeway” or grocery store featured on the wiki for community travel is at http://safeway.pbworks.com/. I chose PBWorks because of the free educator account and its ability to create student accounts.
My co-presenter, Lara Long, an Assistive Technology Specialist, can be contacted via email at lelong1@fcps.edu.
