Students with Special Needs
Projects allow students with special needs to develop their strengths and apply their creativity to material and products that interest them. Students with special needs, particularly those with specific learning disabilities, often have difficulty reading, writing, reasoning, remembering, or organizing information. Technology Literacy projects are specifically designed to develop these skills and cannot be completed successfully without them.
When students with disabilities have access to appropriate technology tools and resources, the Technology Literacy projects provide excellent opportunities for developing the skills these students need to be successful learners. Imagine a classroom where:
- A student with attention deficit disorder applies strategies for coping with the syndrome by gathering and organizing information during the research process.
- A blind student uses screen reading and voice recognition software to research and write a narrative essay from the point of view of a blind hurricane survivor.
- A dyslexic student who has never liked school becomes the class’s foremost expert on desktop publishing and looks forward to a career in graphic design.
- A student who dislikes math because of computation difficulties uses a spreadsheet application to conduct a sophisticated analysis of survey data and creates charts that illustrate relationships among the data.
- An augmentative communication device allows a student with cerebral palsy to lead a group of students in the design and production of a newsletter on career opportunities for people with disabilities.
Strategies for Students with Special Needs >
Several strategies have been shown to be effective in teaching students with special needs and most of these strategies benefit all students.
Techniques for Students with Special Needs >
When teachers establish clear and consistent rules and procedures, regular technology use can significantly benefit students with special needs.