This week’s class was fascinating — and tied to my inquiry blog! I loved hearing from our guest speaker about how VISII makes their school inclusive. In fact, one thing Simone said that stood out to me was that inquiry is, in and of itself, inclusive education. What a fascinating thought. It totally makes sense — inquiry can be scaffolded so easily to account for all academic levels, and can be completed and represented in so many different ways. I will definitely keep this in mind as I head into the field. My only question/concern from the presentation was that it seems like this model of education would not translate so well if it were open to all students and had bigger class sizes. Part of what seems to make it so successful, from my perspective, is that it is a bit self-selecting — parents who think their kids will succeed in a less-structured environment sign them up for it. But how well would it translate if put forth as an equally funded alternative to traditional public education? I am curious to hear from my readers about any thoughts they might have on this possible dilemma.
I also really appreciated our discussion on adaptive technology, whether that be voice-to-text, text-to-voice, or speech devices. It is so important that we are not viewing tech as a nice little treat, or a “nice to have”, but a foundational element of making technology accessible for everyone. One tool that was talked about a bit was Continuum — Simone seemed to speak very highly of it as an assessment tool, so I will do some more research into the website.
Finally, the websites shared with us at the end seem amazing! I loved exploring BCEDACCESS and SETBC seem like tremendous resources. It was hard to not just spend the rest of the class time looking at them! I will definitely refer back to them in my practicum.
I wanted to close this post with a quote from my classmate, Rick: “Conversation a human’s most powerful technology”. I have been thinking about this quote ever since the class, and overall, it reminds me that a healthy mix of all learning styles — technology or not — are key to an effective education system.
Thanks for reading!
Markus
Thanks for sharing Markus!
I really agree with you that a healthy mix of learning styles is so important when it comes to setting a classroom environment. And thanks for sharing Rick’s quote, I also resonate with that.