Tech Ideas from the Field

Thanks to Mandy Dwyer, Literacy Specialist at Joliet Junior College, and newly credentialed Special Learning Needs Specialist, for sharing the following:

I absolutely recommend working with the Disability Services/Center, in order to find creative ways to fund technology to assist students. So many student benefit from read-aloud technology, and have it as an accommodations for their testing, but don't use the technology on a daily basis. Using our D.S. Office, we have enabled Kurzweil/Firefly for our students, which not only reads their texts aloud, but also websites (using the Chrome plugin). It has revolutionized the reading habits of one of our low-vision students.

Smart phones are the optimal resource for technology assistance. Not only are they common among the students, and the apps constantly evolve to meet people's need. Students seem to regard them only as a device to call and text, and the simple act of looking up definitions and using text-to-speech is a brand new world for them. I will definitely spread word of the apps, especially Bigger and Brighter.

I am constantly on the lookout for new ESL/Low GLE reading resources that are interesting. I had heard about California Distance Learning. It seems similar to the News for You online resources, but News for You is a paid resource. California Distance Learning seems more appealing for my community partners.