Students Featured in Video Using TAP-its

Barber National Institute students have been featured in a video on the SmartEd Services web site, demonstrating how they are using Tap-its, a learning station that enables students of varying abilities to interact with a screen.

The video was recorded this summer and focuses on youngsters in special education teacher Ashleigh Dzurik’s class in the Elizabeth Lee Black School.

The technology of the Tap-it is designed to recognize the difference between an arm resting on the screen and a finger or assistive device intentionally tapping an image on the screen.

In the Elizabeth Lee Black School, Tap-its have been useful in the classroom by successfully maintaining the students attention on the lesson at hand and serving as a great motivator for students to learn, as well as a way to practice fine motor skills. The TAP-its feature a slanted screen, which enables all students, some who may be in wheelchairs, to comfortably interact with the device.

“It’s very prominent in the classroom. They’re all motivated when they see it, when we go up to it,” Dzurik told SmartEd. “They’re excited to reach up and touch it and to take their turn at it. Just being motivated to participate in the activity has been a big thing.”