he technology boom that has hit the nation's classrooms is
bypassing many children with disabilities, prompting a number
of educators and software developers to come up with programs
to serve this growing problem.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, only about
half of American public schools use the Internet and other
new technologies for students with disabilities. In many cases,
the department says, schools just aren't aware of the technological
resources to help special education kids.
Below are a few new and innovative software packages that
aim to enhance and expand learning opportunities for children
with disabilities. These learning tools, unveiled earlier
this year at a symposium in Washington, D.C., have been developed
with grants from the U.S. Department of Education's Office
of Special Education Programs.
Word problems are difficult for many children, regardless
of whether they have a disability. But math word problems
can be even more difficult to solve for a hearing-impaired
student.
Meet the Math Wiz addresses this need. The package of five
CD-ROMS consists of five levels of math word problems for
hearing-impaired children.
Several deaf-education teachers in Texas and Louisiana created
the tutorial, which includes eight demonstration problems
with colorful graphics, English and Spanish text and voice,
animation, and explanations in American Sign Language (ASL).
The word problems are all written below the third-grade reading
level and are for students in first through sixth grade. The
tutorial also includes 20 additional practice word problems
in English and Spanish text.
"Math problems are a major difficulty for deaf children,"
says Zanthia Y. Smith, assistant professor in deaf education
at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. "The reading material
out there for hearing children was not applicable for deaf
kids. Materials had to be more visual for deaf children. ASL
had to be part of the program so they could relate to the
language."
Smith says the program has increased hearing-impaired children's
awareness and ability to solve math word problems and given
them an opportunity to use technological resources just as
their hearing counterparts do.
"There really are not a lot of computer materials that can
be used by deaf kids," says Smith. "A lot of the educational
tools are good but involve sound. If you have [students] unable
to take advantage of that, then they are missing a lot of
what the program is intended to provide."
Meet the Math Wiz is distributed nationwide by the nonprofit
Curriculum Publications Clearinghouse. It costs $60 for the
five-CD box set; a math video is available for $15.
Cornerstones
Literacy Project
Also designed for hearing-impaired students, the Cornerstones
Literacy Project is a technology-infused approach to literacy
development for early elementary school children. The project,
established by the National Center for Accessible Media and
developed by eight teachers in New England, uses television
and technology to enhance the curriculum.
"We were looking at an opportunity for technology and media
to better serve deaf students," says Mardi Loeterman, Cornerstones'
project director. "We wanted to provide a supplement to regular
classroom material that would be useful to teachers to help
students with their literacy development."
The project is built around a video fable, "The Fox and the
Crow," taken from the PBS literacy series "Between the Lines."
For two hours a day over a six-day period, teachers use the
video to incorporate vocabulary, writing, and reading assignments
as well as other activities to improve language arts skills.
Materials include a teacher's guide, videotapes, student activities,
and computer games. The video also includes versions of the
story in American Sign Language.
Loeterman says teachers of hearing-impaired children have
a greater need for resources than mainstream teachers. By
using video and visual material, teachers will be able to
understand content and communicate more effectively with hearing-impaired
students. Cornerstones hopes to help hearing-impaired students
identify words in print, learn multiple aspects of words,
and practice story comprehension.
"Kids who are deaf have limited experiences with different
kinds of words and learning different meanings of words,"
says Loeterman. "Deaf kids often don't have the opportunities
to talk about things. Their exposure to different meanings
of words is really limited."
The Cornerstones Literacy Project is awaiting funding from
the Office of Special Education Programs to complete development
of the curriculum. Once completed, Loeterman says, the material
will be available online.
The
KidTools Support System
Children with emotional and behavioral disabilities can be
just as challenging for teachers as those who are physically
impaired. That's why researchers at the Virtual Resource Center
in Behavioral Disorders, based at the University of Missouri-Columbia,
developed The KidTools Support System.
KidTools, a three-program software package, is designed to
help children use self-management skills in school settings
and take responsibility for their own behavior.
"Often, teachers attempt to control children's behavior without
really involving children in that decision-making process,"
says Gail Fitzgerald, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia,
who helped develop the program. "The focus was to take control
from the teachers to children so that they could develop self-control."
The first two programs -- First Step KidTools, for ages 7-10,
and Second Step KidTools, for ages 11-14 -- consist of tool
templates with colorful graphics, text-with-audio directions,
and automatic record-keeping capabilities. The tools help
students identify behaviors for improvement, identify specific
self-control strategies, prepare self-talk statements to guide
their use of the strategies, and create printable materials
that support their plans.
"The approach is to give them computer-based tools that would
guide them through a thinking process," says Fitzgerald. "They
identify problem behaviors, they think through strategies
to change those behaviors, then have templates in the program
to create their management materials."
The third program is Tool Resources, designed for teachers.
The package is provided free to teachers and others at educational
conferences and events.
Transitional
Mathematics Program
Too often, students in remedial math get left behind and
eventually just give up. The Transitional Mathematics Program
was developed to help late elementary and secondary special
education students move from low-level math to more rigorous
mathematics.
"At the late elementary and middle school level, [students]
who have learning disabilities are stuck trying to do math,"
says John Woodward, a professor in the school of education
at the University of Puget Sound, who developed the program.
"These students struggle with complex multiplication and long
division. The idea was to find a way to transition these kids
into more rigorous concepts and address these deficiencies."
The project, which is expected to be completed this summer,
has both a technological and a print component. The technological
component includes 67 Internet-based brief Java applets that
demonstrate a mathematical process such as rounding numbers
or approximating sums. Each applet is narrated in English
and Spanish and consists of animation and graphics. The applet
modules will be converted to CD-ROM this summer.
"Traditional special ed math classes tend to be a lot of
drill and practice and focus on very traditional skills,"
says Woodward. "That's a kiss of death for special ed kids.
We do not believe that curriculum by itself solves problems."
Woodward says the Transitional Mathematics Program is a shifting
of priorities. He says the biggest departure from traditional
math is the program's emphasis on talk and strategy. This
lets kids work through what makes a problem difficult and
helps them think strategically about facts.
Woodward is currently working with the state of Washington
to make the program's CD-ROM available for free once the project
is completed. He says the program is one way to introduce
more rigorous math to remedial students who otherwise are
destined to be math illiterate. It may even help solve future
problems, he says.
"Low-achieving kids just flounder when it comes to math,
and at one point by the middle school level, it's not just
a math issue, it's a motivational issue," says Woodward. "We're
trying to move them out of this whirlpool that sucks them
down."
Nemeth
Code Tutorial Project
Math literacy has long been a problem for visually impaired
students as well. But the Research and Development Institute
(RDI) in Sycamore, Ill., has developed a tutorial to help
the blind read and write math using the Nemeth Code.
Though most visually impaired students use Braille to read
and understand certain symbols, they must know the Nemeth
Code to study math. The complex Braille code displays Braille
equivalents of print math symbols found in all fields of mathematics.
RDI has developed a Nemeth Code Tutorial to help visually
impaired students improve their computational and technical
skills. The tutorial software is loaded onto a Braille Lite,
a small handheld computer used specifically by the blind,
and includes 18 lessons that describe the Nemeth Code as well
as practice exercises.
For more information, contact Gaylen Kapperman or Jodi
Sticken at (815) 895-3078.
Project PRIDE (Providing Resources through Interactive Instruction
in Deafblind Education) has developed a technology-based interactive
training program using DVD technology for children from birth
to age 21.
Children who are both blind and deaf receive assistance from
teachers, service providers, and parents who use the technology
in early intervention programs and classrooms. Instruction,
information, and guidance on the appropriate accommodations
and modifications to assist children with deaf blindness are
included in the general curriculum. The DVD has an interactive
menu that includes four different curriculums, interactive
quizzes, language tracks for English or Spanish, and subtitles
for the hearing impaired.
CD
Software for Hearing Impaired
Two researchers from the Texas School for the Deaf have developed
several programs on CD-ROM for students who are deaf or hearing
impaired.
Rosie's Walk, based on a book by Macmillan, is designed
for preschool and early elementary students and is the first
children's story made accessible to the deaf. Each page of
text in the story is signed and includes enrichment vocabulary
words. At the end of each story, students use games to practice
connecting words with signs and pictures.
The second CD, for middle school students, includes four
Aesop Fables told in American Sign Language. The four fables
are "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Milkmaid and Her Pail,"
"The Fox and the Grapes," and "The Lion and the Mouse." Each
story ends with five activities to help improve students'
use in pronouns, sequencing, reading comprehension, and vocabulary.
High school students can review two O. Henry stories, "The
Gift of the Magi" and "The Retrieved Reformation." The CD-ROMs
include animation, music, voice, and grammar activities such
as sentence fragments and subject-verb agreement.
For more information, contact Denise Hazelwood or Gerald
Pollard at (512) 462-5416.
Leveling
the playing field
Technology has become a staple in nearly every school in
the nation. But even though it may be available to a majority
of students, children with disabilities are just beginning
to see the opportunities available in cyberspace.
Lou Danielson, director of the Office of Special Education's
Research to Practice division, says it's important that students
with special needs have access to technology. He believes
new innovations will provide special education students with
high-quality standards-based materials and help level the
playing field.
"Children with disabilities should have an opportunity to
learn in school what other kids are learning and go on to
lead productive adult lives," says Danielson. "Technology
is one of the key tools to enable that to happen."
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