The Ellsworth American - Computers Effective In Special Education

Computers Effective In Special Education

Written by Tom Walsh

Thursday, June 28, 2007

TRENTON — Nearly every study of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) has shown that laptop computers are a particularly effective tool in teaching at-risk and special education students.

Doug Bird

Now in its fifth year, the program provides all seventh- and eighth-grade students in Maine’s public schools with Apple iBook G4 laptops. It also provides their teachers, principals and school librarians and technology coordinators with laptops and with training in integrating high-speed, wireless Internet access and other laptop capabilities into classroom instruction.

Surveys of nearly 5,000 middle school teachers from throughout Maine show that laptops improve motivation, engagement and class participation for special needs students and for students considered “at risk” for low academic achievement.

“Technology plays a big part in leveling the playing field for students with disabilities,” said Doug Bird, a special education teacher who works with many of the one-in-five special needs students within the Trenton Elementary School’s K-8 enrollment of 124 students.

“This is a format for some kids to really excel, and a lot of schools are now using laptops with younger kids,” he said. “Personally, I believe that we will get fewer students referred to special ed because they will have had more opportunities to learn in different ways and to show that they’ve mastered those ways.”

“A special ed teacher can stay on top of an in-class project without damaging self-esteem. … I can follow up with a student without going into the room, and that’s huge. It allows these students to have more normal interactions with the other kids in their classroom.”

— Doug Bird, special education teacher, Trenton Elementary

Bird said educational software that addresses learning disabilities ranging from blindness to dyslexia provides special needs students with more access to education, much as ramps provide people in wheelchairs with better access to buildings once equipped only with stairs.

“It follows the concept of universal design, where the Americans with Disabilities Act told architects that they had to design buildings that were universal in their usage, with ramps, toilets, the whole nine yards,” he said. “That was carried over into education, telling educators that lessons have to be universally designed so that all students will be able to access those lessons, without issues.

“It’s not a mandate, but a best practice. It’s taking a look at what you are teaching and teaching it so that everybody can learn. It’s like taking a look at your building and making sure that everybody can access it. It becomes a little bit more complicated when you get into education, but, once everybody is doing it, we’ll wonder why we ever did anything else.”

Jaime Philp, a seventh-grade special education teacher at the Ellsworth Middle School, said laptops have helped her students who find the pencil-to-paper process of writing to be a physical challenge.

“For kids who have difficulty with handwriting, being able to use a keyboard makes a big difference,” she said. “Not only do they write more than they did when they did it by hand, but kids who were writing paragraphs that were once three sentences long are now writing a page or more. It’s been tremendous for them.”

Bird said keeping up with advances in educational software targeted at special needs students is a challenge. So is finding new leaning tools that are affordable.

At a Glance

Teachers

More than 4 out of 5 teachers surveyed reported that students are more engaged in their learning, more actively involved in their own learning and produce better quality work.
Teachers reported that all types of students are more engaged in their learning and more motivated to learn, particularly at-risk and special needs children.
Teachers and principals reported considerable anecdotal evidence that the laptops have had a very positive impact on student attendance, behavior and achievement, although concrete evidence is still sparse.
Teacher usage is 20 to 30% higher for teachers with more advanced technology skills and higher for teachers who have participated in four or more professional development activities.
Over 70% of the teachers surveyed reported that the laptops helped them to more effectively meet their curriculum goals and individualize their curriculum to meet particular student needs.
Over 75% of the teachers reported that having the laptops helped them better meet Maine’s statewide learning standards, the Learning Results.
Teachers reported that the greatest obstacles in integrating the laptop technology more into their curriculum and instruction are the lack of technical support, the lack of more professional development opportunities and the lack of time.

Source: Maine Education Policy Research Institute

“There are two aspects to special ed: We have to work to remediate skills deficits and we have to support students by making accommodations so that those deficits don’t impact learning. That’s consistent with what we’ve done with technology. We have some direct, explicit instruction software, and then there are the still-emerging support pieces that allow alternative presentation of material. It becomes very teacher-student specific.”

Bird has been experimenting with a learning tool called TextParrot. The low-cost software converts on-screen text to audible speech, a capability he uses with special needs students with learning disabilities in reading.

“The laptops come with text-to-speech, but it’s very electronic sounding and that’s very off-putting,” he said. “My goal was to find something more natural sounding at a price that a school can afford. There is existing software out there that is incredibly sophisticated and good, but we don’t need all the bells and whistles, and to spend that much money is certainly not fiscally responsible.”

At $40, TextParrot allows students to select from more than two dozen male and female voices that will read aloud digital text while highlighting on screen each word as it is pronounced. Students can also vary the speed at which they hear the text being read.

“One of the kids I work with chose a very slow speed, and I’m trying to figure out why because she’s a tremendous auditory processor. Visually impaired kids quite often speed it up to something you or I wouldn’t hear as intelligible because they are so focused on auditory.”

Bird said the in-school network that supports the laptops at Trenton Elementary allows him to remotely monitor the progress of special needs students as they interact within groups of traditional and high-achieving classmates.

“A special ed teacher can stay on top of an in-class project without damaging self-esteem,” he said. “I can prompt a student – ‘Where are you?’ – without going into the room. I can follow up with a student without going into the room, and that’s huge. It allows these students to have more normal interactions with the other kids in their classroom.”

Former Maine Governor Angus King Jr., who initiated the MLTI in 2001 during his second term in office, has received a lot of feedback, pro and con, on the program. Among the letters he has saved is one from a mother whose son was failing at school before laptops became an everyday learning tool.

“She said her son was failing in school completely,” King said. “He couldn’t communicate and had lost all of his confidence and self-esteem. Basically school was a nightmare. She said the laptop has utterly changed his life. He’s getting good grades and feels good about himself. It enabled him to do school. She said ‘It saved my kid’s life,’ which is incredible.

“The impact this program has had on special needs kids was an entirely unexpected and pleasant consequence,” he said. “As we conceptualized the project, that wasn’t something we focused on or realized would be really good. It was something we didn’t anticipate, but, in retrospect, it was important.”

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