Coming back from reading break, we were very lucky as a class to have guest speaker Chantelle Morvay-Adams come to talk to us. She spoke to us about equity in the classroom, regarding students with disabilities and how we can utilize various technologies to help these students.
This topic was very interesting, and I felt that it was one that we have not necessarily talked a lot about in our courses this semester. Helping students with disabilities is a prominent topic every day in a teachers career, so it’s important we start thinking about it now, and curate various resources we can use to better help those students.
Chantelle posed some really big questions for us to discuss, such as “What are some ways you can build a relationship with the student?” or, “How can you assess a student’s needs?” and one that I discussed heavily in my breakout room, “What technology can you use if the child is averse to touching paper?”. We talked about these devices called AAC (Augmentative and alternative communication). This is a sort of speech device, that allow students to communicate through the technology, by pressing buttons. This can help with students who are unfavourable to speaking, such as a student with autism. I had never heard of this technology before, so it was really fascinating to hear about it, and thinking about how useful that could be for a student who has these diverse needs.
Overall, Chantelle was super interesting to listen to. She told some great stories, and challenged us to think about how we can be inclusive to everyone in our classroom, and make the technology we use accessible to all the students. This conversation was important to us as future educators, because technology is constantly changing. There are always plenty of ways to make sure that all students with ranging disabilities, whether it be autism, or a deaf student, can actively participate, learn and grow in your class.
Some curated resources from this week:
To Read:
To Watch:
Media:
BCED Access Website
BCED Access Twitter
BCED Access Facebook