Inclusion by Way of Technology

Inclusion by Way of Technology
One thing Teachers need to be aware of every year is the making sure all of you students are participating in the classroom and learning experience. A Childs unique learning style and interests makes it hard for a teacher to keep everyone involved with what’s going on. Another aspect to getting and keeping children involved is children who are in your class with learning disabilities. This broad title includes children with physical and mental disabilities. No two children will have the same disabilities. With all of these differences in the same classroom, one teacher has a very difficult task in front of them at the beginning of every year. One thing that helps with many disabilities in the classroom is the use of technology. This learning technology is not just for the students how can not function in the classroom with out it but also a tool for students to learn and see information in new ways.
Technology can help children who could not participate in a normal classroom years ago be able to interact better with their school and also their classmates. This means a child with sever autism can say hello to his classmates every morning before starting the day. The use of a tango can help a student become part of the class and help them interact with their classmates. This interaction could be a brand new thing for the child if they did not have access to this technology before school. This technology can also benefit students who do not need the technology to be part of the classroom. By allowing other children to look and use the same technology as a disabled student in the classroom, the student may learn how to communicate better with the student who has to use the technology.
By sharing assistive technology in the classroom with students who don’t need it, will help them understand their classmates who do. For example, if a child is paralyzed from the neck down and has to use a Lomak device, it would benefit other students in the class to use it as well. By allowing them to use the technology they get to see how the other student has to do his or her work. By allowing the children in the class to better understand what the child with the disabilities is doing the students may connect better and open up more lines of communication between your students. Also by allowing children to use assistive technology in the classroom they get the opportunity to view information in different ways.
By changing the Childs view of information they may become more interested in the lesson and may also soak up more information. For example, if a child is suppose to read a chapter in a book they could read it online using a Read Please. This way you could have the student read every other paragraph and let Read Please assist them. This is a different way to get children who don’t like to read more interested and willing to do it. Another example would be, instead of having your children write there next paper they could practice typing on a Dana or Alphasmart. This is a new way to get children’s ideas written out and some children may enjoy this for better than handwriting. These are more ways to bring assistive technology into the classroom fro everyone’s benefit.
I think all the assistive technology options are great for teachers and fro their students. It helps keep children interested in school but also gives teachers another way to show their students information. I think the more ways we, as teachers present information, the better it is for our students. By bringing new things into the classroom all the time children will not be so inclined to ‘get bored’ with school.