Issues+in+Educational+Technology

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= = =Using Technology to Support Higher Order Thinking =

Technology can be used to support higher-order technology in lots of cool ways. There are games that can be created or you can find online. There are informational sites that are fun to kids but not games, and these can help the kids expand there thinking, opening up there minds to something they might not know a lot about. I would say that the Oregon Trails that we all played in elementary school would be a great example of something that would support higher level thinking. There was many things you had to think about at the same time, making you deal with money and problems that came along by yourself, giving you many skills that are hard to recreate to teach a child. The game was a lot of fun to play and the farther you got the more things got complicated.

__Using Technology to Affirm Diversity:__
For this assignment I want you to address the following: Technology allows easy access to the many options for diverse cultures and materials. There are ways for students to access these for materials for teachers to use in their class. Some of these books, or videos, or even pictures would be hard to find if it wasn't for technology providing a new way to get all this information. There are a lot of educational games provided in schools and on the internet that show a diverse group of kids. This helps the kids to grow up with knowing that there it makes no difference what you look like, everyone is the same. I remember some of these games when I was in elementary school, I'm sure they have advanced since then. The games took you to different countries and cultures and submerged you into these worlds learning in a fun way about how some other people around the world live.
 * How can technology be used to affirm diversity?
 * Give an example of a technology that affirms diversity and be specific in describing HOW it affirms diversity.



__Using Technology to Support All Learners__
Talk about the importance of Assistive Technologies in the classroom to support learners with special needs.   I've seen many technologies that are being created to help people with special needs. I've seen first hand all the technologies created for someone who is losing the ability to control their hands and arms. My grandmother is slowing becoming a quadriplegic and using her hands are getting so hard. She is still able to use her computer though. She has a giant mouse with a huge ball on it that she just puts her hand on and moves it to where she wants to click and pushes down to click. This is so easy for her because she doesn't have to move her arms or hands too much. She also has a voice recognizer for the days when she is too tired to use the mouse. She just talks and the computer has a program on it to pick up the words she says and allows her to write emails, or documents.  I would love to be able to use some of these great technologies in my future classroom. They are so neat and wonderful for kids with these special needs and I feel it would make them feel like they don't have any special needs because they can do everything just as easy as everyone else can.
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 * How can technology be used to address the needs of learners with special needs?
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 * Give an example and explain how it would support students with special/diverse needs in your future classroom?