Today we are going to be talking about assistive learning technologies! Assistive learning technologies can be anything as simple as a pencil gripper, to something as complicated as speech recognition software. One form of an assistive learning technology I was impressed by was the SMART board (you can out find out more about them here!  http://education.smarttech.com/) that we saw in the EATRC. One feature of the SMART BOARD I really liked was the spot light effect, the spot light lets you highlight certain areas of the board. This would be great for learners who need help focusing and finding key information. Using a smart board to accompany your lesson is also a great way to help students who cant keep up with taking notes from a teachers voice alone.  The SMART board also has a feature called a curtain, where you can hide information from students, this would be great to keep certain parts of the lesson a surprise, I could also see this being used during a spelling test.  

Other cool uses for smart boards! 

Take a look at this downloadable app that helps you manage your classroom by visually showing your children when their volume level is too loud. What a neat class room management strategy!!
http://www.allstudentscanshine.com/2014/04/apps-for-classroom-management.html

Here is another app that lets your students know how much time they have left to work on an assignment!
http://mattbgomez.com/great-online-visual-timers-for-kids/