Blog #7

Adaptive technologies are any form of technology that assist those with disabilities in their daily life. This can be anything from a simple screen magnifier to more complicated pens that record as you write. Any one of these technologies is tailored for specific disabilities, for example a person with  visual impairment could use a Braille Embosser but not a screen magnifier. I am, unfortunately, an eternal klutz. I have accidentally injured myself in a variety of ways that has led to all sorts of adaptive technology use, from mobility assisting devices after a leg injury to laptops in class following a wrist injury to screen magnifiers after losing my glasses. In all, after my experiences, I've found that most challenges using adaptive technology in the classroom come from a teacher's reluctance to adapt themselves.  An example of this is a teacher that won't make the aisles between desks wide enough for a wheel chair or person using crutches to pass, and instead forces them to sit in the back, because that "is how [their] classroom has been arranged for the past 10 years and nobody else has ever complained". As long as a teacher is willing to adapt and help their students, these sorts of challenges shouldn't arise or, at the very least, can be quickly resolved.

I had to learn HTML coding in middle school for a similar website creating project, and you would not believe the relief I felt when I realized Weebly didn't ask you to code a thing. That was the greatest part of this project. I honestly enjoyed completing it, beyond the fact that I didn't have to use HTML, for a variety of reasons - like being forced (note the sarcasm) to look through hours of comics to find the perfect ones... then spending a couple more hours on there to make sure they really were perfect. I also enjoyed doing it because I always imagined myself as the type of teacher that told their class information and if they weren't paying attention and missed it, tough luck. However, I could genuinely see myself having a class page as a teacher. There are some things I would change before then though, such as adding a password to certain pages private - like the homework blog where students are posting comments - to make sure people of dubious backgrounds aren't looking through it.

http://syeme2040.weebly.com/

I can see the uses in Diigo - the easy connectivity between students and teachers, the simplicity of group work, and the ease of its use for most. A teacher can create a class group and post articles that students need to read before the next class. In a group research project, group members can post what they've found, already annotated, for the other members to read over. As a teacher, I could have my own collection of relevant information that can be quickly referenced to double check information or share with the class. However, I don't believe it will be something I use often. As a math teacher, there aren't a lot of articles and the like that I could send a student that would be understandable to them in its raw form, and Diigo does not have a math annotation feature.