Access to different types of technology to help students learn is an integral part of the education system. It affords students with varying disabilities the same opportunities as those students who do not have disabilities. In our reading for this week from Rethinking Technology in Schools, Chapter 3, Pedagogical Stages. I found something that really stuck out to me in terms of the information that I read in this chapter. On page 61 the author talks about technology, to be more specific, portable devices and their efficiency in terms of school. One very powerful statement impacted me the most and it was; "e-books (electronic books) can assist struggling readers and students with disabilities by supplying them with access to texts that were previously inaccessible"(p. 61). I have three children all with varying types of learning disabilities, and my eldest daughter has severe dyslexia. The very notion that portable technology, as well as technology in general aiding in the education of students such as my daughter is absolutely correct. I believe that had it not been for technology like e-books, computer assisted devices like the program WINN my daughter perhaps would have never graduated from university.
The WINN program is a computer assisted reading program that can scan whole textbooks and read them back to the student. It can highlight the words as it reads the text to the student making the learning not only auditory, but visual as well. This program is offered to students that have learning disabilites at McGill University. My daughter was fortunate to have had the opportunity to use it during her three years of study here. She graduated from McGill with her B.A. in Social Work in May of 2008.
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