This paper explores some of the use of technology in general and specifically with special education students. It discusses the importance of having teachers involved and some research that has been done on this topic. Technology became a way for improvement in special education. It is a door that is open for many educators to use, however because of the overwhelming information and the mixed opinions on the topic, many controversies have emerged regarding the use of technology in general in our lives. Overall technology changed lives and is useful when implementation is done correctly.
Using educational technology for children with special needs
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. The word technology itself is very vast and in this paper it will be referred for the tech apps or software and hardware.
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 (Science, technology, education and math) 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 with a grant for teachers 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 internet while growing up. Code.org a great organization also offers free workshops and materials ready for the teacher to integrate technology in coding and programming. Many district are now training teachers to deal with technology as many campuses are 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. Some schools are using PBL (Problem based learning) or even flipped classrooms where students watch videos of lessons at home and come to the school ready to discuss and practice.
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). In fact, many of the technology was once used medically first and now became available for education.
Distance technologies for students with special educational needs.
There are many 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.
The student is not required to attend a certain place at a certain time which make it very flexible for many students. As are offered the courses in UHV, some require independent study, online participation, group work with discussions therefore there are many ways to interact with classmate and instructors. The flexibility of presentation allows the students to participate depending on possibilities.
With online education educators need to keep up with the technology and develop flexible curriculums that use approaches to accommodate special need education in the modern world. Adaptation must always be present to design activities, modify the curriculum along the way without compromising on the knowledge that need to be acquired and the rigor needed. “Educational courses can utilize a variety of technologies to facilitate learning 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. 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 an 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).
Empowering children with the use of technology
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 and 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? The word ‘Appropriate’ Education is controversial where many cases are present. 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.”
Another study” investigated the effects of using iPads in a class academic intervention to increase independent task completion and basic math skills of seven students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
Results indicated an increase independent task completion by a decrease in noncompliant behaviors and teacher prompt levels. Findings suggest iPads can be an effective instructional tool to enhance learning and independence, O’Malley, P., Lewis, M. B., & Donehower, C. (2013)
The traits of ASD can create challenges in the learning environment. The changes, distractions, and daily interaction that regularly occur in an academic setting can make it difficult for children with ASD to stay on task, which may lead to disruptive behaviors in order to avoid or escape the academic demand, Machalicek, O’Reilly, Beretvas, Sigafoos, & Lancioni, (2007). Therefore, the use of technology help educators avoid behavioral problems as well.
Given that teachers vary in their ability to utilize technology in instruction, it is likely that training should be provided. Research suggests teachers could benefit from training to create well- designed and meaningful activities incorporating technology to promote student learning, King- Sears & Evmenova, 2007.
Conclusion
This paper summarized some of the use of technology for students in special education. During my research it was difficult to find many articles on this topic. Many research focus on some students but not enough to generalized it to a big group. As much as we see growth in this field, much more is needed to improve the use of technology and with fast innovations teachers will always need to learn and adapt their lessons to tomorrow’s jobs