Abstract
Lately, technology integration has been important in all domain of education. STEM learning, computational thinking and algorithms are the skills of tomorrow. With the recent growth of available software and hardware in all domain, the education field had to take on the role of integrating the devices that student as young as one year are using on a daily base. Inclusive education provide opportunity for all children and encouraged differentiation. Each child is an individual with special skills. With the availability of information, teachers are becoming facilitators and are moving away from the traditional setting where information was delivered to the child. Education leaders are working with programmers to design software that can improve academic achievement in all subject and for all ages. Software to help students with special need learn and intrigue the brain in a special way. Technology empower those students and give them hope of a better tomorrow where they could integrate with the society and shape their dreams.
Today’s technology in education
Technology helps teachers that are open minded and would like to differentiate and equalize in the class. Many schools are using STEM in science to integrate technology to their education. We teach CS with partnership of Austin University have a program with many scholarships and opportunities where the goal is to increase the amount of computer science teachers and increase the amount of student knowledge of computer science. Many training are offered for free for teacher to reach a certain goal in Texas. The need to improve our use and knowledge of technology is necessary to be transferred and the best way is to train teachers, teachers that never had a computer as children or never experienced the net while growing up. Code.org a great organization also offers free workshops and materials ready for the teacher to integrate technology. Many district are now training teachers to deal with technology as many campuses become BYOB (Bring your own device) which has created issues for some teachers who do not know how to deal with this new fast growing computer replaced world.
Assistive technology for special education children
“The definition of assistive technology applied to education is extremely broad, encompassing “any item, piece of equipment, or product system whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.” Behrmann, M. (1998, May 01).
Many students with disabilities benefit from technology in the classroom. Incorporating technology increases students’ motivation to learn and personalizes lessons to a student’s individual needs. Many students would not be able to attend a class or learn without technology. Children with disability are often drawn to computer and gadgets and the wide variety of differentiation is difficult to do without using the devices that are provided. From gifted to a special education child. Assistive technology has made things possible that were never before.” E-readers help students turn book pages without applying dexterity, and voice adaptive software can help students answer questions without needing to write. (Edwards, 2006).
Distance technologies for students with special educational needs.
There are amny people who are not able to attend a classroom and traditional forms of learning because they cannot go to high school college or university in the usual way. Many of them are unable to travel or sit in classrooms. Online learning has allowed that to be possible. Sometime a combination of both is even used for flexibility.
Empowering children with the use of technology.
In the journal of special education, three junior high school students with autism were to “engage in a series of social skills through the use of video modeling and verbal prompting” when buying at a grocery store. It was done virtually through modeling. For three weeks they watched videos, had a one hour break and then performed a task virtually. One of the student was able to learn the skill and the other two had different results. This research was based on a small number of students therefore it is difficult to generalize to many student, however we can see the method that was used. Glaeser, L. l. (2016).
. The US constitution has laws as The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142) and with the legislation “free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment” for children with disabilities for the first time the field of special education began to expand. The law created many controversies where appropriate education varies. Is the availability of assistive technology included. Would that be too expensive? ‘Appropriate’ Education. Some researchers (Alavi, Yoo, & Vogel, 1997; Millbank, 1994; Navarro & Schoemaker, 2000; Sankaran & Bui, 2001; Schutte, 1996; Sherry, 1996) have found web- based instruction more effective than regular for many children who are not able to attend on site school.
The student is not required to attend a certain place at a certain time which make it very flexible for many students. construction of knowledge, automating and monitoring instruction, and curriculum. While some courses offer independent study using a guide and comprehensive course manual, others require online participation, group work, and discussion between instructors and learners. The very nature of online technology has the potential to encourage learners to interact with the course material and subject matter in new and different ways, offering flexibility in content presentation.
the willingness of educators to develop innovative teaching methods or to change and adopt the existing approaches to accommodate new concepts of special needs education and modern technologies. If a learner is unable to manage a particular activity (due to physical or sensory barriers), alternative activities must be designed or adapted, so that he/she gets a chance to receive the needed information and demonstrate the results. To implement this intention ICTs must be fully integrated in SNE curricula. Curriculum modification is not about its simplification for some students or lowering of academic requirements or standards. The modified curriculum must preserve the skills or knowledge required for a particular course and distribute knowledge and training resources in a more creative way and on a more equal basis. In the new millennium, online delivery has become the most prevalent way of presenting the up-to-date information to students in the quickest, most flexible, and innovative ways possible. Educational courses can utilize a variety of technologies to facilitate learning and interaction between participants: asynchronous and synchronous communication and collaboration tools (e-mail, bulletin boards, whiteboards, chat rooms, videoconferencing, and teleconferencing), interactive elements (simulations, immersive environments, and games), various testing and evaluation methods (self-assessment, multiple choice testing, etc.). Educational content can be presented in various media: text on a website, multimedia, such as digital audio, digital video, animated images, and virtual reality environments. This content can be created in a multiplicity of ways, utilizing a variety of authoring tools. As a result, ICTs transform educational dynamics by providing alternative, authoritative sources of information, which requires teachers to become facilitators and, in some cases, intermediaries between specific information sources and a learner. At the same time, ICTs can break teacher’s isolation, providing them with prospects to communicate beyond the traditional school-management hierarchy.