Technology: How it Helps Special Needs Students
As I was trying to decide what this blog should be about I was discouraged with this feeling in my mind I began to feel exactly what Special Needs students feel with many subjects so I thought why not...
This is me looking into how technology helps these students.
In my research I found this site
As the mission for this Common Sense Media website creators say;
"As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume."
With this site I saw that this website it allows for options how to apply the difficulties such as these categories...
Browse the Guide by Category:
Browse by level:
One great example of how technology has influenced or changed the education of Special Needs students the ED Tech Newsletter received this statement on March 28, 2013 from Wendy Burkhart an Assistive Technology Coordinator for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District...
"Successfully educating a special-needs child has always hinged on matching him or her with the best assistive learning device or application available. Fortunately, what's available has expanded and improved by quantum leaps over the past five years as traditional assistive technologies have converged with consumer technologies, giving the district's special education department a "much bigger toolbox to work with,"Another great idea that has come to my knowledge is the ECOT online learning school. It is more like homeschooling for students off the internet, if anything I could only hope that this schooling system would have the Special Needs in mind. The website school originally advertised that it is a good alternative to children not learning due to bullies. However now the web-school advertises that it is good to just teach students of any capacity.
A commercial of the ECOT School
A Link to the Article off of the ET Newsletter Website...
Also in the article ED Tech newsletter the article How Technology Is Helping Special Needs Students Excel by Heather B. Hayes it is listed what Special Needs students gain from assistive technologies these students
- achieve greater levels of independence;
- gain confidence;
- more willingly reach out to their teachers and peers to ask questions and collaborate;
- self-advocate;
- challenge themselves; and
- seek out new opportunities.
"These include speech recognition, screen-reading tools, Braille displays and text-to-speech solutions for the visually impaired; and sound amplifiers, closed-captioning applications and video conferencing technologies that facilitate sign language and lip-reading for the hearing-impaired. Students with motor and mobility disabilities also can use speech recognition tools to turn speech into sharable text, e-books to eliminate page turning and portable eye-gaze devices that are powered by blinks."
This is a great video for the thoughts of educational apps, websites, and games for the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learner...
Works Cited
Bowser, Gayl. "Power Up!" Power Up: Apps for Kids with Special Needs and Learning Differences. Common Sense Media Inc., 2013. Web. 23-24 Sept. 2013.
- This website is a resource for teachers, and parents with tools and ideas for helping their children and/or students with their learning or physical disabilities. Or as I stated before through their mission statement, "As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume."
- Many of the contributors are either teachers, psychologists, or people within the fields of helping and assessing children's knowledge and learning patterns. The website is very clear on the struggles and difficulties of any child struggling in school. Since this website new by publication year one could safely say that the website is updated anytime there is new media available to students; this includes movies and television shows.
- I can say now looking through this website that there are means out there to better understand technology and how it helps Special Needs students or for that matter any student struggling. I would say that this website targets Special Needs students and how they learn, the suggestions and activities are not exclusive to just these students but to all students in need of a little extra help in school.
Hayes, Heather B. "How Technology Is Helping Special-Needs Students Excel." EdTech Magazine. CDW LLC, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 23-24 Sept. 2013.
- This article is an analytical article about how technology is helping Special Needs students. Mainly the article discusses how technology has made great strides to make learning and communicating easier for Special Needs students simply by the popular demand of all consumers. Since all consumers want easier ways to communicate and do tasks on computer media systems. Many times these educational magazines are always asking the questions that teachers, administrators, or superintendents are not asking, addressing them before that point pf question, (otherwise the magazine or newsletter would not make money). This article is informative.
- Heather B. Hayes' biography states, "Heather B. Hayes has been covering technology, business and education topics for more than 20 years and has written more than 2,000 published articles". So needless to say after twenty years of education topics she would know a thing or two about the education system and what is needed at any given time through research and many interviews with people in the field. The article is written within this year so yes it would be considered new and accurate, granted in the six months since it has been published I am sure there are more advances in technology.
- In reading this article it gave me a since of humility towards the world of technology and what it has done for Special Needs students because before my research and even finding this article I felt cynical and angry that technology left these students behind now I see that just from popular demand of consumer needs everyone needs or just thought of ease with learning or communicating in general and select companies went as far as to design technology for hearing and/or vision impaired students of any age.
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