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Technology in Secondary Special Education Articles:
CONTENT AREA: No Special Equipment Required
GRADE LEVEL: 5-18
URL: http://www.iste.org
Authors Kimball, Cohen, Dimmick, and Mills explain the use of features on word processing software that make it adaptable to the student with special needs. Given the example of a high school student with limited vision, his teacher used the Accessibility Wizard on a Windows computer to make the screen visibility such that he could participate in a class assignment. Other options described in the article are Macintosh’s built-in PlainTalk for students who have difficulty reading text, Window’s features for the deaf or for impaired hearing and for those who have mobility impairments.
CONTENT AREA: Assistive Devices Help Challenged Kids Get the Most From Learning
GRADE LEVEL: K-Adult
URL: http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech086.shtml
The important role assistive technology plays in equalizing educational opportunities for students of all ages is the topic of this comprehensively developed article. Steele-Carlin discusses what assistive technology is and what classroom assistive technology is in general use. She provides an extensive list of links to online resources for readers to further their inquiries about what is available for the special needs student.
CONTENT AREA: Motor Control and Sequencing of Boys With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
GRADE LEVEL: High School
URL: http://www.ingenta.com/journals/browse/bpl/bjet
This article presents the results of a study carried out by researchers Houghton, Milner, West, Douglas, et al. that investigated the effect a platform computer video game on how long the subjects of the study, 49 unmedicated ADHD boys and 49 non-ADHD boys, took to complete tasks called for at three stages of the video game. The tasks were performed first with no working memory load and then with a low working memory load. The results which showed the control group performing tasks more quickly but with no significant difference on the memory load task have implications for classroom use of video games as instructional tools.
CONTENT AREA: Practical Money Skills
GRADE LEVEL: High School
URL: http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/students
The Practical Money Skills article speaks to the need for students with learning disabilities to have a familiarity with financial responsibilities they will assume as adults even though impaired. For teens there are fourteen lessons designed to walk special needs students through such money-related matters as budgeting, living independently, buying a home, banking, using credit cards, obtaining credit, buying a car, being advertising astute, saving and investing, and finding help if financial difficulties arise.
CONTENT AREA: SeeWord—A Personal Word Processing Environment for the Dyslexic Computer User
GRADE LEVEL: High School
URL: http://www.ingenta.com/journals/browse/bpl/bjet
In a study carried out on six dyslexic users aged 14-16 years old by Gregor, Dickinson, Macaffer, and Andreasen, SeeWord, it was found that this configurable software was of significant benefit to these school pupils when attempting to read text from the computer monitor. Their accuracy improved greatly, and their comfort level with reading other than black-and-white text rose considerably. As a means of increasing accessibility to computer-based assignments, SeeWord can serve the dyslexic well.
Related Technology Integration Websites:
CONTENT AREA: Closing the Gap
GRADE LEVEL: High School
URL: http://www.closingthegap.com
This web site devoted to special education is an especially valuable resource for teachers to locate tried-and-tested strategies to integrate technology into the curricula. The Forums link is notable. It is an active exchange that promotes sharing of ideas by teachers with how they have used technology to assist their special needs students. One suggestion, for example, that appeared on the Forums came from Juanita P., a teacher who told of how she used PowerPoint for her students with cognitive disabilities to write age-appropriate books and stories.
CONTENT AREA: Developing a Community Skills Slide Show Library for Trainable Mentally Retarded Students
GRADE LEVEL: High School
URL: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/education/lessonPlans/lessonPlan135.shtml
This lesson plan is one of many that the Kodak: Education site www.kodak.com offers, many of which are written by teachers for special education classes. Here James R. Engle of the Everest School, Vallejo, California, for the severely handicapped high school student relates how 10 developmentally disabled students produced slides showing how other handicapped can travel around their community and participate in community activities in spite of their disabilities. The lessons on the Kodak web site are all thoroughly developed, as is this one, to show the purposes and descriptions, activities, materials, resources, and expenses, and the outcomes and adaptability encompassed by the plan.
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