11~7~06

Today we did our assistive technology presentations! We began with cognitive disabilities, which are disabilities that impact an individual’s ability to access process or remember information. The little Johnny example seemed to prove that his watch minder was the most relevant device for him to use. The device should meet needs of child so that it is individually specific. Cognitive disability devices seemed to be the most financially accessible software for its use we looked at today. Speech recognition software was our presentation. I thought it was really neat that we talked about this system in my perception class today, although he didn’t make it sound to be a very easy or manageable system :( Our presentation went well though :) Interactive whiteboards have a computer that knows what is projected on screen. The screen senses light hitting it and what is touched on screen. It allows for student interaction. The cost of $5,099 for 3 yrs more to take into account though! Interactive and fun technology for students! Hangman was fun :) AAC devices-cute digital story! It was very informative and a creative way to present y’all’s information. The expense of these was $3000-10000 and my only response was wow. I like the fact that they are lightweight and the barcode device was really cool and a neat invention, whether it is being using currently or will be in the future. Text to speech simply converts text to speech. The TTS engine, the most important part, parses the text, analyzes its sentence structure, and activates voice stimulation. More advanced it is the more natural the voice. These were not too terribly expensive and like everything we learned about today the price depended on how complicated the device was. Hopefully I won't have any questions about Inspiration when doing my assignment, but we'll see! See y'all next Tuesday!!!