Opportunities Abound at Wal*Mart

When I went home this weekend, I, as usual, talked my mother into buying a few things for me to take back to school. When we were in the pharmacy section of Wal*Mart, I spied a machine I hadn't seen in any of the other ones. It measured blood pressure, but also BMI and eyesight. I love new toys and technologies, so I ran right for it. I set it to Spanish just to take advantage of the available practice. This machine was pretty fantastic. I had to listen, read, and type in information. The reading part was the easiest, but the typing is what I really focused on because I rarely get to practice writing in Spanish. It was fun to tell my mother and brother what the machine was asking and what my responses were. It was also interesting to see them pick up on words that they didn't previously know. Because they know I'm as blind as a bat, they could pick out words from my vision results that they probably wouldn't have been able to figure out before. This let me know how important context clues and prior knowledge can be. While using this machine, I also thought about my thematic unit because it talked about daily health and eating routines. I may try to make a website or "game" that requires students to use the same skills that I had to when using this device.