Computer Applications in Special Education

All of us benefit from advances in and implementations of technology and we must remain cautious yet vigilant while embracing it - cautious and vigilant for the sake of the children. While tools and technology may be great for one child they may not be so great for another in providing the skills needed to enhance his or her learning experience. As I experimented with Second Life, Whyville, PowerPoint, Boardmaker and Inspiration, I found that even with these great tools, one or more of them would not be accessible to some children because of their disability. The disability could be a visual or hearing impairment, cerebral palsy, fine motor difficulty, inability to emotionally and mentally attend. What does this mean? What is most important is the child and their specific need.

Like the blogger on ilearntechnology.com states (http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=923), technology is a great and wonderful thing that is here to stay, however technology in and of itself is not the answer to our prayers when we ask the ourselves, how can we include and assist those children who have special needs. I believe that we many times we allow ourselves to get caught up in the all the bells and whistles of a new technology without fully considering what if my target audience can not see; can not hear; can not correctly order a set of numbers or quickly recall what the teacher asked him or her to repeat a phrase.

I used to program websites for ABC.com. Nothing frustrated me more than after testing a certain web page function on a certain version of Internet Explorer on a Mac, then to have it not work on a certain version of Netcape on a PC. Essentially this is the task at hand with respect to technology. Is it possible to have a tool that meets the individual needs of a child? Yes, but with any tool, we must know the nature of a child's disability first and then devise a way in which to manipulate that tool to include the child.