Accommodation Through Assistive Technology

A huge education buzzword, for at least as long as I have been teaching (8 years now), has been: Differentiation. The Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talented Development at the University of Connecticut states: "Three components that are most notably associated with differentiation are: content--what is being taught; process—how it is being taught; and product—tangible results produced based on students' interests and abilities."

This idea of "differentiation" stems from a goal over the past 20 years of maintaining inclusive, heterogeneous classrooms that contain a variety of students, ability levels, and needs. Although there are many benefits to this, it is easier said than done! This means that an average class of 20-35 students will likely contain special-education students, gifted and talented students, and even among the remaining "normal" population, students vary wildly with regard to their strengths, weaknesses, learning styles, personalities and attitudes.

As a result, the idea of "differentiation" stems also from standards-based instruction, or the idea that the same core standards of learning should apply to the multitude of students in the same class or grade. As such, differentiation attempts to define ways to impart the same set of knowledge or skills to students, even if the products, processes, or systems of delivery vary from student to student.

In theory, this sounds wonderful. In practice, nearly every teacher -- from the overwhelmed rookie to the seasoned veteran -- will tell you that it is a Herculean task! Designing alternative lessons and locating (or *gasp* creating) the variety of materials to accommodate various groups and types of learners obviously takes much longer than "teaching to the middle." Yet the benefits are also clearly visible, as "teaching to the middle" leaves some students in the dust while shackling and boring speedier, more capable and gifted students. Is there a way to differentiate without overworking as a teacher?

Yes... and technology can play a critical role in that process. For as long as there have been federal mandates regarding special education, there have been provisions for technologies to assist those students -- from wheelchair ramps and mobility tools, to personal planners and modified classroom tools, to cutting-edge electronics. But the fact is that differentiation takes into account that not only "special needs" students are special; every student is unique and can benefit from tailored instruction.

So we need to get away from the view that technology as merely "assistive" for the disabled or "challenging" for the whiz-kids. The fact of the matter is that modern technology may be the single most effective means of making truly differentiated instruction a reality -- and this means for all students.

The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) prescribes a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework "for designing curricula that enable all individuals to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning."

It simply makes sense to design lessons, projects, activities, and classrooms such that they use multimedia, multi-sensory stimuli, multiple streams and sources of information and support, a variety of collaborative or independent opportunities, and tools to support student self-planning, organization, goal-setting, independent scaffolding, and other meta-cognitive tasks. By doing so, you reach not only "subgroups" of students, but you actually enable individually differentiated instruction that can meet the needs of every student -- whose profiles are as distinct and unique as fingerprints and snowflakes.

This seems like a daunting task, but through use of modern technologies it is actually much easier on the teacher than trying to do this with traditional tools, and management of students becomes much more hands-off as student/community autonomy develops. Here are some examples:

• By using audio-video tutorials/demonstrations, students are able to get direct instruction as usual... but are also able to repeat the lesson as needed on an individually self-assessed basis. This frees the teacher to monitor and manage other tasks and saves the teacher valuable time that would otherwise be spent tutoring or re-teaching.
• Interactive tutorials in the computer can act like "super texts" by extending textbook information with audio narration, animated or guided examples, and practice with immediate feedback. Not only that, but adaptive systems can determine student needs and provide immediate tailored intervention. Students benefit from the guided instructions, while teachers save time to provide more personal assistance.
• Likewise, computerized practice and assessment tools allow students to immediately gain awareness of their academic strengths and weaknesses and, with some correct procedures instilled, can seek their own remediation or challenges accordingly.
• Social networking and digital communication tools allow students to contribute to the class community, to share resources with each other, and to have equitable access to discussions, regardless of time constraints or personality types. Teachers no longer need to worry about the ticking clock, as students can contribute "on their own time" in asynchronous discussions... and even shy students can feel empowered to contribute their thoughts, ideas, and knowledge. All of this means much less stress and classroom management by the teacher. And by locating, evaluating, and sharing resources themselves, teacher planning time for preparing and providing materials gets drastically cut, while students gain 21st century information literacy and evaluation skills that will be critical in their lives.
• Creativity and productivity software allows students to create the same types of professional products the pros and experts do -- while allowing for easy corrections, sharing, and storing. Students get the benefit of motivational real-world skills, potential vocational training, and tools that make up for possible artistic or motor-skill weaknesses. Meanwhile, teachers save time, headaches, and money by not having to deal with acquiring, distributing, managing, cleaning up, and storing physical products and materials.
• Assistive technology for disabled students automatically mitigate a variety of handicaps, and may often be beneficial for "in-between" students on the spectrum. For example, magnification/zoom features and text-to-speech may not only benefit the legally blind, but also those with merely poorer-than-ideal vision, or students which reading difficulties.
  

As you can see, there are many examples of technology that are: (a) individually and communally beneficial; and (b) are a win-win situation for both students and teachers.

References

Dinnocenti, S. T. (1998). Differentiation: Definition and Description for Gifted and Talented. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut.

Roblyer, M. D. (2006). Integrating Educational Technology Into Teaching (4th Ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Relative Advantage of Technology for History

The study of history is powerful and important for many reasons. It allows us to determine the variables that influence why we are where we are, but the ultimate goal of studying history is actually much more pragmatic; in fact, the study of history, we could argue, is actually the first step in prediction and forging of the the future. It gives a window to past situations, problems, challenges, and solutions -- it allows us to learn from the mistakes and successes of others in similar circumstances.

If one thing has revolutionized the study of history more than anything else, it has been multimedia. History requires understanding a multitude of variables, experiences, and perspectives. Such ideas were expressed, recorded, and shared throughout time in oral history stories, ballads, songs, engravings, and other arts. Eventually, invention of the printing press allowed, for the first time, mass production and distribution of these individual experiences, stories and perspectives.

The benefit of being able to share and consume from a multitude of viewpoints and perspectives cannot be underestimated in its value to truly understanding and using the lessons history provides. When an event occurs in space and time, the impact, consequences, and connotations will always be perceived differently depending on who is involved and how their first-hand experience. Thus, we can say there is not really such a thing as one "true" or "objective" history, but rather that every point in history is a Gestalt experience. In other words, the more perspectives and viewpoints and artifacts and experiences we can piece together, the more "true" our impression of that event or experience will be, as a whole. The sum of the parts is what provides the synergistic power of studying history.

For this reason, multimedia and the Internet are perhaps the most powerful tools ever created to understand history.

1. A variety of media allow for multiple types of "experiences" -- visual, verbal, physical, interpersonal, intellectual, emotional -- to be shared and witnessed. The printing press allowed a variety of stories and perspectives to be shared, but use of only words is not always sufficient to convey a place, time, thought, or feeling. Art, photography, television, radio, and film have provided the tools required to convey and evoke the emotional and visceral impact that words alone may not be capable of evincing. Having our own sensibilities addressed in the variety of ways that a first-person witness of a historical event would means that we can more realistically understand and empathize with the situation. In essence, multiple media creates a "virtual reality" of the past.
   
   
2. Unlike mass media of the past, the Internet and World Wide Web has become a huge game-changer in the social studies -- especially politics, sociology, and history. Our understanding of history is enabled through the examination of stories and artifacts -- items and images and recordings throughout time. Proliferation of affordable media tools and the advent of "Web 2.0"user-created online content has resulted in an explosion of such individual experiences, perspectives, stories and artifacts. Unlike the idea of a single expert or textbook delivering the "true" history, we now have an overflowing source of primary-source materials and experiences that is growing and evolving daily.
   

The great power and benefit of this is that we can observe, consume, analyze, and compare a wide variety of perspectives, viewpoints, and ideas. Unfortunately, the drawback is that this allows allows for wide dissemination of misinformation, or even pure bias.

However, I believe this does not need to be a reason to avoid using the Internet to study history. The more perspectives we have, the closer we can get to understanding the "universal truth" of a historical event. How, then, can we reconcile the fact that many sources on the web are likely to be biased or just plain wrong? I believe instead of avoiding the plethora of resources out there we should embrace this opportunity to learn and to teach our students some of the most basic and useful cores of social studies:

• History is not a one-sided story
• There is no such thing as "objective" -- everything is shown through a lens or told through a framework of personal experience
• Drawing conclusions and making predictions requires analyzing and comparing multiple sources and considering many variables
  

The fact of the matter is that this now the world in which we live -- a world of universally-shared and universally-accessible content and media. We now have an imperative and a wonderful opportunity to teach our students how to be thoughtful, careful, critical, and perceptive interpreters forgers of conclusions, beliefs, predictions, and solutions... and this can all be aided through Internet and multimedia technology.