In week 10 of our class, we had guest speakers Tracey Humphries and Kaori Lau come from BCEdAccess to talk to us about inclusion. As future educators, we all want to be inclusive in our classrooms, however, it can be difficult to understand how to include all students and sometimes teachers can become blind to exclusion in certain activities. As an English and PHE teacher, inclusivity is very important to me; in all classrooms students may have different skill levels or disabilities which can leave them feeling left out or left behind, but PHE is a subject where being excluded is especially obvious to spot. While we can try as educators to plan for inclusivity, this may not always work so we need to have backup plans and multiple ways to make lessons inclusive for all. I believe technology is a great way to have a “backpack” full of tricks to ensure all students are able to learn and participate at similar levels.
One great use of technology to ensure inclusivity is the use of closed captions and recordings of each class. Michael did a great job of doing that this semester, and it made many students able to attend class while they were sick. This also allowed students to listen more effectively, be able to review notes more easily, and there was rarely instances where students weren’t able to understand what was being said. There is also tools like microphones which can help with not only voice projection in class, but also can connect with note-taking apps and websites for students who may not be able to keep up with what teachers are saying.
While attendance is very important and something that I will need to keep in mind when including all of these remote ways to view the class and notes, this kind of technology is something that I believe is very valuable to have in classes. I think taking daily attendance could be a way to monitor this, so we can tell our students they will only have access to these recordings and notes if they are in class or have an excuse to miss the class. I will brainstorm more ways to make this fair and allow students to access this technology (ie… must do a very small written assignment, show me their notes of their recording etc…).