TECH3008: Using Technology in Special Education

Can Technology Change Education?!

` Students with disabilities ,as defined by Macmillan dictionary, are those who lack the ability "to use part of their bodies or brains properly because of injury or disease." Technology is one of the ways used to help this group of students copes with their world. Using technology for students with special needs is vital because there is an increasing number of these students – "50 million" (p.50) students are labeled as special needs in America only. One advantage of using computers to teach disabled students is that computers help them work independently. Computers also widen special needs' opportunities in the classroom by changing impossible activities, such as "participating in lab activities" (p.50) to easy achievable ones. Furthermore, media facilitate fine-motor-requiring tasks by using ''single-switch" (p.50) technology which asks students to click the mouse only to solve activities. Our world is designed for able-bodied people which creates many barriers and difficulties for disabled people doing normal tasks. Thereby, it is very important to use technology to address disabled people's needs, so that they can live normally.
Autism, as Gillian, Hayes, Hirano, Marcu, Monibi, David, Nguyen & Yeganyan note, is one of the diseases that needs serious intervention as soon as it is diagnosed. Autistics are individuals "with extremely limited verbal communication"(p.679). Helping autistics involves the use of a variety of visual tools that display real-life abstract and concrete concepts by "images, words, and tangible objects" (p.664). Using visual tools is effective to diminish "the symptoms" (p.664) of autism and to enhance individuals' communication and learning skills.

Microsoft SenseCam

An experimental research conducted to examine the effectiveness of media to help autistic children, provided children with autism with different media. One medium is "the Microsoft SenseCam" which is created to record automatically the child's everyday activities with pictures when it is worn. This cam is accurately designed to take photos of everything the wearer sees. SenseCam equips autistic children with enough pictures to express their ideas and take decisions about their different needs including favorite food. Moreover, this device helps teachers who need to collect images themselves for autistics. Caregivers also use recorded images to understand their children's behavior and satisfy their needs. The research further declares the fact that media which is used to help children with autism can be modified according to the time they are used and the user 's age. For instance, SenseCam provides the user with big number of photos and gives him or her the freedom to use them in the best way that serve their needs. The research find that media can effectively enhance autistics' communication skills which help them perform well in their study.

       There is a great emphasis to use technology in education in our country but little attention is given to the importance of using technology for disabled students. In our schools, disabled students are asked to do the same tasks as their able-bodied peers in same sittings regardless of the challenges that they face to cope with this difficult situation. In our country there are many talented disabled people whose creativity is killed by all the barriers which they face to survive.
        Thereby I'm planning to spread the awareness of involving technology in teaching disabled students. I'm using this post as a start point so that by the time I become a teacher this issue will be settled.
         Besides, it is important to know that technology is not fully bright. It has some drawbacks that force us to be careful in dealing with it. From my experience with technology in SQU I have learned two facts about technology. On one hand I learned that technology is indispensable and on the other hand I learned that technology is not trustworthy. Although these facts seem contradicting each other, they are both correct. As part of our academic program, we are asked to do many tasks using technology ,including presentations, assignment and research papers. But each time we have to display a presentation for instance, we have to go to the class at least half an hour before its time to make sure that all the devices are working well. Because it has occurred for several times that we lost part of our lectures to fix technical devices. When I become a teacher I will do the same when dealing with technology since this is out of my hands.

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