Assisting others through technology

My internship is well underway. I am really enjoying learning about the different products that are available and how much assistive technology is being used within my district.
Since my last post, I have been researching different products and journal articles on assistive technology. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a lot of research, but I am still looking. My supervisor is our lead assistive technology teacher in our district. She just completed the course work for her masters. One of the papers she wrote was on assistive technology and some of the research she found will be helpful to me.
I have also been making contacts within my district. I sent out an email asking for special education teachers to email reply with what products (software, programs and hardware) that they current use in their classrooms. As of now, I have gotten over 75 replies, not only from special education teachers but other teachers who teach inclusion. I have set up an excel spreadsheet to keep up with all the names, locations and products that I am interested in.
On Friday, September 12, 2008, I made my first visit to Ballentine Elementary School. I interviewed one of the music teachers. BES houses the Occupational Disabled elementary class. The music teacher works with these students when they come with their general education peers. I’m unsure whether the instruments she uses would be considered assistive technology or just an adaptation, but I really enjoyed looking through all her information. Even though I teach what I do and have worked with students with various disabilities for over 10 years, I never thought about how they would be able to play any music or how a regular music class would be adapted to fit their individual needs. The neatest thing she showed me was a recorder (remember Three Blind Mice? How about Hot Cross Buns??). All fourth graders must take lessons on playing the recorder. The adaptive on she purchased using grant money (it costs about $15.00 versus the $2.00 version used by most students) that comes apart. This is so the holes can be rotated to fit students with finger dexterity issues, or students whose fingers are missing.
I have scheduled two more interviews with teachers at Dutch Fork High School for Tuesday, September 16. These will be with self contained special education teachers, so the products will be more assistive technology. I have more the schedule in the coming weeks, but look forward to seeing everything that is being used. I plan on checking everyone first then scheduling times when I can video tape using the different products/programs and programming them for different students.