Final Thoughts

I did not expect to learn about the existence of so many both high tech and low tech ways to assist in the instruction of special needs children.  I think I expected to only learn about fancy technologies, such as Kurzweil or Livescribe.  When I completed the Boardmaker activity, I realized that technology can be very helpful, but it is not necessarily a replacement for simple, effective activities such as a matching game.

As I move ahead with my career, I will take with me a better understanding of how to design curriculum that is accessible to special needs children.  I hope that by thinking about these issues, exploring technologies, and creating lessons, I’ve internalized a general idea of how curriculum needs to be modified in order to reach more children.

In general, I’m glad this class did not focus simply on theory.  I’m glad that we combined theory with the learning of actual technologies.  Although learning technical information is often a challenge for people with a liberal arts background (which many teachers possess), I think that ignoring this challenge is a mistake made by too many technology-related classes at Teachers College.  Thank you.

Digital Minds

While listening to the presentation about children growing up in a digital age, I was thinking about what students would need to be taught in order to help them succeed in our new world.  Clearly, as technology becomes cheaper and more pervasive, students will have no problem gaining access to powerful, Internet-ready computers (this is true even in poor American neighborhoors--see Generation M2, a 2010 report by the Kaiser Family foundation).

The challenge, therefore, is to help children make the best use of these tools.  Current use of technology by young people focuses mainly on socializing and media-consumption.  Children are mainly using computers to talk to friends, watch YouTube videos, and play games, but they are not typically using technology to create their own unique media.  Although students' prefered use of technology is not all bad, it is arguably the role of teachers and parents to encourage students to use computers in more creative ways.  When students use computers for the purpose of blogging, video creation, podcasting, animation, design, and programming, there is greater chance that they will be developing the information, media, and technology skills required for success in the 21st century.

Special needs students should also be expected, as much as possible, to create their own media in the classroom.  Special needs students, just like their reguarly developing peers, are growing up in a digital world.  They see digital media all around them.  The excitement generated by learning how to contribute to this new world--as opposed to simply observing it--is something that special needs students need to experience.

Issues of Assessment

When listening to the lecture about assessing students, I wondered about how to compare the standardized test scores of disabled children with the test scores of non-disabled children.  Merriam-Webster defines the word "standard" as something set up for "the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality."  Arguably, as soon as a testing accommodation or modification is put in place, any resulting test score can no longer be measured against the test scores of students who take the non-modified version of the test.

Rather than change the test to meet the needs of disabled children, perhaps it would be better to create a larger number of tests that students could choose to take.  That way scores between students with similar disabilities could be compared.  For instance, a standardized reading test could also exist in a number of alternate forms, such as:

• One with more time
• One with presentation changes (e.g., questions are read)
• One with response changes (e.g., answers are given via an augmentative communication device)
• One with simplified questions

There would probably need to be more options than the four listed above in order to accommodate a wider variety of special needs children.  Furthermore, some students will always need to have unique modifications.  Nevertheless, by having a greater number of standardized tests to choose from, the integrity of scores would be better maintained.