The Hillside School integrates a wide range of assistive technology programs into each student’s personal education, technological competence becomes second nature. Every day, every student works with hardware—iPads, laptops, a computer lab, and software as part of his or her daily routine.
In fact, once students become familiar with assistive technology applications through their weekly technology class, they create their own toolbox with the applications that help them learn best.
Specialized technology classes explore different facets of technology like photography, videography, writing, and coding.
Weekly technology classes for students include:
- computer equipment care
- internet safety
- rules for using computers at school
- basic keyboarding skills
- learning and becoming familiar with assistive technology programs and equipment
- iPad applications that address logic and thinking, spelling, letter recognition, and math
- formatting and usage of Google Drive
- coding for Dash and Dot Robots and Cue Robots
- research, copyright laws, and bibliographic citations
- photography and videography skills
- website credibility
Assistive Technology Library and Resources
Our assistive technology library is extensive. Through repetition and hands-on usage, we teach our students the concepts of the applications and programs available and how to apply them based on their own unique skill sets.
Some of our most commonly used assistive technology includes
- Learning Ally and Bookshare lets students listen to audio books, including some textbooks (Bookshare), and allows them to control the speed at which the books are read
- Snap & Read reads text on PDFs, GoogleDocs and websites aloud and allows the student to adjust the reading level as needed
- Co:Writer helps with writing through word prediction and language support
- Dictation software
- Pixie for drawing and visual learning
- Typesy for keyboarding skills
