Anyone out there like Free Stuff? Especially Free Books? Especially Free Books that can make your job and your students' lives easier? Then this is a resource / book / website for you!
While I confess to knowing little more about Wisconsin than they're nickname of "cheeseheads" and of the Packer's stunning loss in the last four minutes of the 2015 Conference final, costing them a trip to the Super Bowl - the free book highlighted first on this site, Assessing Students' Needs for Assistive Technology: A Resource Manual for School District Teams - fifth edition, complete version - earns author Jill Gierach, Wisconsin and its state education department huge kudos in my eyes!
Find the book / website here:
This resource, housed as its own website, is a goldmine of information about various assistive technology options for Educational Professionals, Learning Support Teachers and Assistants, Classroom Teachers, Parents and Self-Advocating Students / Users alike. If you haven't already clicked on the link to get a visual of what I'm referring to, you must. You will soon "see" what I am talking about.
Right?!
Favoured because of it's straightforward outline of categories of assistive technology (a current area of exploration for this writer), and comprehensive information and user friendly tools within each chapter, a further complement is that way each chapter is laid out in both Word and Power Point formats. In salute to Universal Design for Learning and providing alternate means of representation, this book "walks the walk".
Gierach’s manual lays out beautifully
the assistive technologies available to people from a comprehensive range of
disability categories: Seating, Positioning and Mobility,
Communication, Computer Access, Writing (including motor aspects), Composition
of Written Material, Reading, Mathematics, Organization, Recreation and
Leisure, Activities for Daily Living, Blind / Low Vision, Deaf / Hard of
Hearing and those with Multiple Challenges. Each of the areas has
its own chapter devoted to it.
Following the initial layout of each chapter, the second section of the website, when one scrolls down, are tools and resources for educators to use when evaluating either a user or a technology. I appreciate how these have been isolated from the contents of the book itself, for easy access / quick reference. There are even some links to Spanish resources, although this isn't necessarily a relevant bonus to very many Canadian schools - burgeoning spanish immersion programs aside.
A
drawback, perhaps, is there are so many links (and whole books) contained within the site busy teachers rarely have
time to read books cover to cover. However, because it is so well laid out (and
free, online) I believe any professional could quite quickly browse for what they
were looking for, with the needs of a particular student in mind. That it was created in 2009 is another factor, in consideration of other sites or books which might have updated technologies listed. Still, a great starting point or basis for comparison. Finally, American references to initiatives or legislation is a final small burden the Canadian user must wade through, however certainly not a reason to disregard the site's / book's overall value.
Gierach,
J. (Ed.). (2009). Assessing students' needs for assistive technology: A
resource manual for school district
teams (5th ed.). Oshkosh, WI: Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative.
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