As educators we strive to make our content as accessible as possible for all students. For those students with special needs this may involve using technology to meet the unique challenges of the individual. The unit of Instruction that I have developed for this course is on Urban Ecology. There are technology mediated teaching strategies that can assist us in reaching all students in the class, aiding them in mastering the topics and components of this unit. The following technology mediated suggestions are meant to address each of the five special needs target groups (as defined by Roblyer in In Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching) for a unit in Urban Ecology.
- Students with cognitive disabilities
Students with cognitive impairments fall into place across a wide spectrum of disability levels; from mild to severe cognitive and emotional disabilities. These student benefit from the ability to review materials and engage with them in multiple ways.
Lecture Capture or Video Podcasting: Recording lectures as video podcasts using a tool such as Camtasia Studio (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp) allows students to repeatedly review the content. This aids students in understanding the necessary conceptual knowledge points in the unit through repeated review. According to Roblyer, "Videos enhance acquisition, maintenance, and transfer of functional behaviors", video podcasts of the procedural knowledge integral to each unit would aid students with mild cognitive disabilities in mastering those skills and therefore succeeding in the unit. An example of a unit requiring procedural knowledge is the unit on mapping the ecosystem where students are expected to preform quadrat counts on their sample site. A video of how to do this would aid students in succeeding.
Multimedia editing tools: Multimedia editing tools from iMovie (http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/) to Glogster (http://www.glogster.com/?) to Animoto (http://animoto.com/) to Prezi (http://prezi.com/) allow students to express themselves in modes other than writing and speech. For students with cognitive challenges, this can be a great way for them to express themselves creatively. Content can be conveyed through alternative means freeing the students from the burden of writing. These tools could be a great alternative to the written ecological brochure project. - Students with physical disabilities
Students with physical disabilities face several challenges in the traditional classroom. These challenges are often challenges of inclusion and access as their physical disability can limit their participation in certain activities without technological intervention. However, the integration of technology in to the classroom can educators to create a inclusive environment.
Mobility devices: While not specifically an educational tool, mobility devices, such as motorized wheelchairs, can aid students in participating fully in outdoor activities. This is important for student inclusion and engagement. Text to Speech and Voice Recognition: Fine motor control is often a problem for students with physical disabilities. This makes touch typing particularly difficult. Text to Speech and Speech recognition tools can aid students across the unit by aiding them with reading and writing. Tools such as Nuance's Dragon Naturally Speaking (http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/) can aid students in the classroom and in the filed as they have both desktop and iPod/iPad compatible applications. - Students with sensory disabilities
Sensory disabilities are disabilities that effect any of five the primary senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. In education, the sensory disabilities effecting sight and hearing are the ones that receive the most attention as the have the greatest direct impact on a students learning and participation in classroom activities.
iPod Touch/iPad apps: Part of the Urban ecology unit is a section on bird identification called "Celebrate Urban Birds." This unit could be quite challenging for students with sensory disabilities, especially those who have reduced sight. The inclusion of an iPod touch application that not only has visual descriptors of the birds but also auditory information could aid these students in completing identification based on bird song. Applications such as iBird Explorer Pro provide information on bird appearance as well as bird song samples. For students with very limited sight pairing them with a sighted student who can operate the iPod may prove beneficial to both students in the pair as students often feel bolstered by the experience of helping one another.
Assistive listening devices: Assistive listening devices can help students with limited hearing to more fully participate in both classroom activities as well as group work. Assistive listing devices typically consist of a transmitter and receiver. The hearing impaired student wears the receiver and the transmitter is either worn by the single speaker or placed close to a group in the case of group work. This simple technology can aid a hearing impaired student by allowing them to participate more directly in group activities in the unit. - Students who are at-risk
At-risk student are students who are struggling in school. These students often do not fit the definition of disabled in any way, yet due to several factors are failing to thrive in the school environment. It is important to help these students stay focused on the tasks at hand and to engage with the classroom materials as fully as possible.
Student Planners: Student planners and sequencers can aid at risk students in keeping on-task and meeting important deadlines. Each module for the Urban Ecology unit comes with a rough timeline. Instructors could share this timeline with their students and then assist at-risk students in entering the information into an online planner. Planners can range from free generic planners available on the web (Remember the Milk : http://www.rememberthemilk.com/) to paid subscription planners specifically designed for students (Student Planner.com; http://www.onlinestudentplanner.com/). Regardless of whether a free of paid product is used, it is important to mentor at-risk student in the use of their planners and to help them understand the benefit in doing so.
Blogs: Blogging offers a venue for students thoughts and opinions to be shared either privately with the instructor or publicly with the class. Asking students to blog about their learning experiences and the content being investigated allows them to engage with the materials on a personal level. This type of engagement is integral to the success of at risk students as they are often disengaged from classroom materials. - Students who are gifted and talented
Students who are gifted need to be challenged in order to stay engaged with the materials. The following two suggestions would challenge these gifted students to move beyond the basic curriculum.
Virtual Field Trip creation: Part of the Urban Ecology unit was to map our the habitat around the school to identify safe routes to school. This mapping involved looking for obstacles on routes to school and mapping them in order to alert their peers to hazards on the routes. The virtual field trip assignment extension would be for students needing a little extra challenge to create a virtual field trip of one of the routes to school. The virtual field trip could be a Google map with markers and information or a video detailing the route. The assignment would allow students to not only engage with the technology but to also express their creative side by defining the medium for their project. For tips on creating a virtual field trip assignment see: http://eduscapes.com/sessions/virtual/create.html.