Students With Special Needs and Technology Assistance Essay

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Technology on 4th and 5th Grade Student's Academic Achievement

Students today learn differently as a result of technology (Presnky, 2008). Schools differ in technology uptake and execution. Davis (2012), states that schools had to take this up because their students lagged behind and were not able to compete at the same level as those who had access to technology. In fact, education today requires the use of technology as information and research is easily accessed digitally.

Justification for the Research Problem:

There are some students who are particularly required to use technology to aid their learning. These are the millions of students, who due to physical impairment may not be able to participate and get full benefit from the old classroom set up. Hasselbring and Glaser (2000) state that there are several advantages that technology affords all students. It actually equalizes all students as it can be adapted for those with minor impairments and for those with more serious disabilities. Technology allows all these students, including those with no disabilities, to actively participate and learn from their interaction.

Governments have recognized the place of technology in modern society and have begun setting up initiatives that will aid public institutions of learning to inculcate technological culture into their students. The U.S. government, for example, through certain committees and offices, has reiterated the importance of enabling public school students to become competent in the use of technology as they will soon be released to a world, which is run on technology. Technology is greatly appreciated in the way it helps non-impaired children in their learning. But, according to Hasselbring bring and Glaser (2000), there is much more that children with disabilities draw from these specially designed technologies that aid them in their learning.

Plain lectures should be a thing of the past and no student in today's classroom should be subjected to this. Students must be empowered to accommodate change as the world they live in is very dynamic, making what was relevant yesterday irrelevant today (Tapscott, 2009). Agnello et.al, (2006) stated that educators commit an act of robbery when they pass on knowledge today as they did yesterday. This is an indication of the need to adopt new technology in teaching as it comes up. According to Dosaj and Jukes (2004), students will recall 90% of what they apply and pass on to others as opposed to 5% of what they hear and 10%of what they read. Davis (2012) explains this by noting that individuals every day are subjected to great amounts of information and they hardly retain any of it.

Social networking is a concept that is very real in today's world. Students with internet access use it every day and many would be hard pressed to imagine an existence without it. Statistics from the National School Boards Association (2007) indicated that of all the students with internet access, 96% are active social networkers. Over half of these students socially network for educational purposes. Students also use social networking for other purposes, such as messaging, sharing blog posts, pictures and videos. From all these, the non-conformist has arisen. This is the person who pushes limits, through creativity and innovation, and thus emerges as a leader. This is the person who creates something new by means of technology (Davis, 2008). These people come up with new ways to do things online, such as fulfilling certain traditional tasks online, such as publishing. Sprenger (2010) notes that many educational institutions limit or prohibit the use of social networking when it is actually a great tool for education.

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Such kind of actions will only work to lose the non-conformists (Davis, 2012).

From studies conducted by Bartsch and Cobern (2003) on how learning was affected by the use of PowerPoint presentations and overhead transparencies, it was realized that the students preferred PowerPoint to overhead transparencies. This was a clear indication that students preferred to learn with more advanced technology. The students reported that they had been able to learn more when their lessons had included PowerPoint presentations as opposed to when they did not. Davis (2012) also concluded that when unrelated slides were used, they reduced student understanding.

Deficiencies in the Evidence:

As far as the recommendation for more incorporation of technology in learning in schools is concerned, little literature is available that effectively correlates excellence in education with increased incorporation of technology in teaching. Students in the research above had access to technology incorporated in learning, as well as the internet. Studies need to be more specific in terms of which aspect of technology is being tested and its direct affect on educational excellence, for example, a comparison of Web 2.0 tools and resulting academic performance (Davis, 2012).

In our current world, called the digital age, technology is the norm. Researchers have shown that despite lack of proof that incorporating technology in education results in academic excellence, learners still prefer to have it. Most research in this area is in relation to PowerPoint (D'Angela & Wooley, 2007; Hansen & Williams, 2008; Koeber, 2005).

One of the barriers that exist to incorporating technology in education is the lack of trained teachers. This, however, is a removable obstacle as teachers can be appropriately trained. The use of technology places all students at an equal level by allowing those impaired by disabilities to access the same level of learning as those without them. Laws protecting the children with disabilities can be adhered to through the use of technology. Hasselbring and Glaser (2000), state that when everyone works together, they can develop an atmosphere that enables learning for all students through incorporation of technology.

Relating the Discussion to Audiences:

Some of the biggest beneficiaries of technology are children with physical and other impairments. The world of technology is everyday coming up with new ways to enable these children learn better, given their specific impairment, whether sensory, mental or physical. Interestingly, some of the things that are highly utilized by those without disabilities were initially developed for people with disabilities. For example, many people roll strollers down curb slopes when they were initially intended for those using wheelchairs. Today, when one scans documents into material that can be edited, they are actually making use of a device that was developed to aid visually impaired people called an optical character reader (Behrmann, 1998).

Issues of students with disabilities feeling inferior or left out of normal learning environments need not arise with today's technological developments. Most students with disabilities can be placed in normal classrooms and gain the same amount of knowledge through the aid of technological devices. Those with hearing impairments can now sit among their peers as they are assisted through hearing aids and microphones worn by their teachers. All this is expected to evolve further as technological advancements are made every day. Keeping the teachers at par with these developments will greatly assist these students to gain the most from these technologies. Thus, they must be supported, trained and retrained to keep up. To reap maximum benefits from these technological advances, and continue to bridge the gap between students, they need to be.....

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