Week Two

In Clip 2—Learning the Rules for Computer Use, the teachers were trying to teach students the rules for computer use. But when teachers were preparing to teach the use of computers, they mainly met with two problems. The first problem is that they did not have enough computers for students. In their classroom, they only had 14 computers while there were 20 students together. To overcome this problem, the teachers divided students into several groups with 2 members in each group. They also found a good way to divide them—using cards. Students were all given colored cards and students getting the same color card would bring chairs together to one computer.

Another problem they encountered was that a lot of teachers did not know much about how to use computers at first and many of them were not used to keyboarding, so they had to learn how to teach it to students and since most of them had computers at home, they could learn it at home and get more advanced when they get to school.

No pain, no gain is a good idiom that applies to every field. If you don’t spend efforts to make proper plans, you can hardly accomplish anything. People should always plan carefully before acting, even in small and trivial things. I had an embarrassing experience due to the careless planning. Once I visited a scenic spot with my girl friend, we did not think there was too much need for making a detailed plan since it was just for fun. So we brought the water, food, and enough cash and drove happily to the place. But when we got there, we found out that we forgot the camera, which is also one important ingredient in our trip and you can imagine that it is a tour without any good pictures left.

Another ill planned incident happened in my first year as a teacher. We would practice listening that day and I had planned well with a lot of listening materials and some short movie clips I made. But when I started the computer in the classroom five minutes before the class, I realized that I did not bring my hard drive in which I put all my teaching materials. Instead I had to play a film for them, which students enjoyed a lot but I had to make another appointment with students to catch up with the schedule.


Clip 11—adaptive technology opens up a new world of information for people who find it difficult to use common computer. Adaptive keyboards can be used by people who have control over one hand or just one finger. Actually the adaptive keyboard not only provides a way for students with disabilities to get access to the computer or internet, it also offers teachers to design lessons according to their specific needs and it will enable teachers to design a curriculum that especially fits students’ requirements and demands. Students can just easily type several words or letters and some certain prediction programs would offer them word choices and then the words will pop up for students to choose.

Before viewing the video clip, I did not think that the technology could offer students with special needs so many conveniences. The technology could almost meet whatever needs of them and enable them to use the computers and get the same access to the internet as the normal students. There is not much difference between them the normal students and with the help of technology, and students with special needs can actually learn and study at almost the same pace as the others and this would greatly improve their learning efficiency.

Of course, the students with special needs might be the major group of using the adaptive technologies, but they are not the only ones who can benefit from the adaptive technologies. All the other students or teachers can also use the adaptive or assistive technologies to enhance their learning and make learning and study easier in another way. Old individuals would also be the perfect users of the adaptive technologies, due to their inconvenient movement, poor eye sight or disability to do other things, and the adaptive technologies would give them more opportunities to get access to various information.