The learners are middle grade students.  There is a pretty close ratio of boys to girls, with varying economic backgrounds, due to our district being heavy on free and reduced lunches.  95% of students are Caucasian, with a few being Hispanic or African American.  There are a only a couple of students with special needs requirements.  Students attend this “specials class” as part of a rotation between art, gym, & health.  In my tech class, students have access to Macbooks, desktop PCs, a green screen, an Elmo projector, and each student takes to every class, a district issued iPad.  Needless to say each and every student will have a different level of proficiency when it comes to operating these devices.  I incorporate a fair balance between individual and group work which helps students of low ability level, and much of the workload is done online.  I anticipate students to be highly engaged and challenged with this project.

Assistive Technology for 504 & IEP students

• Guided Access on the iPad (This restricts access to certain aspects of the iPad.  The benefit for special education students can be that it allows access to the areas they need to focus on, so they wouldn’t be clicking on something and getting lost or distracted.

• Dragon Dictation (This app allows students to talk to the iPad and it dictates their speech; from there, they can copy and paste into various programs).