Kentucky Academy of Technology Education

Black History

Core Connections

The study of Black American History has often been limited to people such as Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and other Civil Rights Leaders. However, several Black Americans have contributed to other parts of United States History. This month help your students discover the lives and accomplishments of these other Black Americans along with the more familiar names.

Listening from California to Connecticut

Instructional Illuminations

Project based learning and technology for the classroom is ever changing and growing. Podcasting is a example of an emerging technology, a way to record video or audio and allow it to be accessible over the Internet. A podcast's content can be anything conveyed by an audio or video file: a recorded lecture, a foreign language lesson, a demonstration of biology principles. Instructors can easily create a podcast of daily assignments and lectures from class, and publish it for all of their students. Students can likewise create and publish content and deliver it to their teachers or to other students.

This new type of technology could connect classrooms from Texas to Taiwan. This form of project based learning will allow students to learn about the material and to design a Podcasts at the same time. The steps are as follows:

1. Research the project
2. Design the project
3. Post the project

These steps allow the students to learn hands on in the classroom and share their learning through a new form of technology.

For more information listen to the following podcast.

Check out the article for more information:

Technology for Special Needs Students

Instructional Illuminations

Assistive Technology can provide students with special needs the tools necessary to overcome challenges they face when using technology in the classroom. There are several different types of hardware and software available to help students achieve success when using technology. Some examples of accessibility aides include, but are not limited to, screen readers, talking web browsers, printed text readers, Braille translators, screen magnifiers, special computer keyboards and speech recognition software.

By using these assistive technologies, students with special needs will be able to fully participate in classroom activities involving technology. Speech recognition allows students who are unable to write their thoughts down on paper to communicate through dictation. Screen readers allow students who have sight disabilities to use their auditory skills to navigate through the various windows and menus. Special keyboards allow students to select keys using pointing methods such as a foot operated mouse, head mounted pointing devices, and eye tracking systems.

A computer can be a very interesting and adaptable assistive technology device. With the right software or hardware, students with special needs can effectively communicate with teachers and peers in the classroom.