Post #7 - Should I Stay Or Should Diigo

This week we listened to an Adaptive Tech podcast. It defined adaptive or assistive technologies as technologies that help people with disabilities use computing equipment more effectively. Some of the examples it gave of these technologies are those with physical and learning disabilities can use voice recognition software in lieu of typing, or text-to-speech software that has the ability to read text to students. The book also provides examples of these technologies. Students can use alternative keyboards such as expanded keyboards, one-handed keyboards, and on-screen keyboards. These can make communicating to others easier for students. I have never used these technologies, nor have I met someone who uses these technologies. A problem one might face when trying to incorporate these into the classroom, is trying to maintain a sense of normalcy in the classroom and lesson plan. As accepting and flexible as a teacher might be, that doesn't mean that their classroom will be as open-minded.


I learned a lot about myself, and about Weebly through this assignment. I thought that although it made it easy to put words on a screen and create a basic website, the parameters that my lack of knowledge regarding website creation left me with resulted in a very boring and uncreative website that is probably terrifyingly similar to hundreds of other people who have used Weebly.  Next time, I can look up way to customize my website, other than just changing the color of my font. Here is a screenshot and link to my website:

I had no idea that you could annotate websites and share thoughts and information so gracefully over the internet until I started using Diigo. It allows you to highlight websites and bits of information that may be beneficial to you and those who are looking at the website with you. That's incredible. I can use this technology professionally by looking up articles, websites, anything online that I think may be valuable to students or colleagues and I can easily point out and share and communicate why I think that source is so powerful.