We also watched some videos dsiscussing 2 students and their learning difficulties. For the first one, Nathan was a very bright boy whose parents thought he was above average, very socail and loved to read. When he began school problems were detected almost right away. He was not able to identify many sounds of the alphabet. Teachers first decided to have him repeat the first grade thinking that he would "catch up". Nathan had an incredible memory and that is how he masked his learning problems. Once he began learning new work the learning problems surfaced again. Nathan was placed in a resource room where he was drilled with lessons to help him with his reading and writing. All along his mother never gave up trying to find what the problems were. Once Nathan was in the upper elementary grades adaptations were made for him and he was able to use technology to help him with his reading an writing. When it came to writing the state exams Nathan's mom was very worried that he would not do well. It turns out that Nathan scored a 4 which is the highest mark possible and that was with simply making adaptations for his learning. Teachers need to realize that students with learning disabilities have the same abilites as other students.
The second video was about a girl named Laura. Laura was having diffiernt problems at school. She was finding it difficult to stay organized, complete assignments and focus on lessons. Her parents did not want her on medication so they tried different avenues first but all led to the same conclusion that Laura continues to have the same academic and social issues. In the end the parents decided to give the medication a try and there was a complete turn around in Laura's behavior and work skills. She not only completed work and stayed organized but she also had some friends.
In this class we also looked at some compensatory programs and software that can be used within the classroom for students. We looked at both high tech and low tech devices that can easily be implemented in the classroom. Some of these programs that we looked at are: WordQ and SpeakQ, Dragon Naturally Speaking, LIPS, KLICK, CoWriter, Tiki Notes, Inspiration, Draft Builder Solo, Writing with Symbols, Write OUt Loud, Classroom Suite and Clicker5. I know I probably left out a few but there are soo many programs the difficult task would be finding out which one to use. When deciding tihs you must lookat all areas of the students learning to decide the best fit.
