The Evolution of "All About Assistive Technology"

All About 

Assistive Technology

Since my first blog post in August until today's post, there have been gradual changes which prompted me to title this post, "The Evolution of All About Assistive Technology."  Having never created or contributed to a blog post in the past, I have benefited personally and professionally from learning a new form of information sharing.  I do believe that I will refer to my posts in my position at the Disability Resource Center and that they will serve as a valuable resource for me.

In my first post called "All About Me" I begin by stating, "As Testing Coordinator for Cabrini University's Disability Resource Center, I see the direct and dramatic positive impact that thoughtfully selected assistive technology has on our students. Universal Design and appropriate assistive technology level the playing field for students of all ages in all settings. I hope to increase my understanding of this critical educational imperative in our EDG 519 course." In discussing my educational journey in the previous post, I referenced my belief that EDU 519 has greatly increased my understanding of learning differences, AT, and UDL. I believe that I have achieved my desired goals for the course and notice, by looking back to my first post, that my writing style and presentation has been consistent.  I do recall Dr. Ahmad's suggestion to add images which I did add on to my first few blogs and continued doing throughout the remainder of the blog. Clearly, images, links, and graphs make my blog more visually interesting and UDL friendly.

My posts throughout the blog tend to be long! In looking back to my October post about Carly called "Autistic Girl Expresses Profound Intelligence," and my post in November called, "Online Educational Resources to Teach College Level Math" I realize that I am as interested in the real, human, personal side of people with disabilities as well as the very practical issues of available resources and devices.  My interest in the whole spectrum of UDL and assistive technology is evidenced by detail and scope of my blog posts.

Generally speaking, I like the look of my newer posts more than my older posts. I think that the newer posts are more in keeping with UDL principals in terms of clear presentation and visual aids and they include more audio links which benefit auditory learners. For example, my September post called "Three Additional Teacher Friendly UDL Resources" contains helpful information but the layout is fairly spread out and I realize now that the links I used actually don't link. A more recent post that I wrote called "Strategies to Overcome Learned Helplessness" contains an image I especially like of the Superman symbol with a question mark which aligns appropriately with my topic and contains a helpful link that does link up properly to a related article.

While my writing style has been consistent throughout my blog, I believe that my presentation has evolved to a more striking and UDL friendly style.  By building on information gained from earlier blogs, I also think that my later blogs include an even greater richness of knowledge than my earlier blogs demonstrating a productive and worthwhile learning journey.