Bridging the Gap: 21st Century Technology Helps Special Educators Meet the Unique Learning Needs of their Students - February 11, 2010
By Cheryl Meadow/Special to the Minuteman

We all know that electronic media takes up a huge amount of kids' leisure time, but new technologies have also led to a sea change in the way that schools can deliver classroom instruction-to mainstream students and those with diverse learning needs.

Research is showing that technology-rich special education classrooms are providing exciting new opportunities for engaging students, helping them understand difficult concepts and reinforcing what they have learned. This is particularly evident in the Developmental Learning Program (DLP) at Clarke Middle School, where interactive whiteboard technologies funded by the Lexington Education Foundation (LEF) were installed in the classroom this fall. The DLP serves students with significant developmental delays, neurological conditions, physical challenges, and intellectual impairments.

LEF has long supported the use of technology for all students in the school system-in the past five years, LEF dedicated nineteen percent of its grant making to technology, including six whiteboards-and recognizes the effect it can have on students with special learning needs.

An interactive whiteboard is a white presentation board that interfaces with a computer and an LED projector. A digital projector displays the computer images on the board, where the entire class can see them. Teachers and students can add notations and emphasis using a pen or a highlighter tool. Notes and drawings can be saved or printed out and distributed to the class. Teachers can control the software from the computer or the board. The available applications span a wide range, from online websites to PowerPoint slide presentations to DVDs.

Dr. Beverly Hegedus, Lexington Public School K-8 Supervisor, felt that the use of interactive whiteboards would be especially valuable to the students in the DLP. "Because these students may have a shortened attention span or be easily distractible, they can benefit from learning tools that increase the allure of learning and showcase the curriculum in new ways. The ability to teach using a multi-media application is valuable because it provides students with a strong point of reference when they are introduced to a new subject. This kind of technology empowers the students to learn the information more quickly and retain it better." Use of the technology has helped students reach grade level in seventh-grade World Geography.

DLP special educators Erin Maus and Nina Shrayer are passionate about their new interactive whiteboard. More importantly, their students love it. "The kids are as motivated to use it today as they were in September," says Maus. She finds her students more engaged and motivated than before the high-tech tools were installed, and their attention level has skyrocketed. "My students learn, understand, and retain their lessons better than before. It's wonderful to see their level of engagement; they are volunteering and participating at a much higher rate."

Shrayer finds that the whiteboard also provides an excellent opportunity to model learning strategies for the students. She uses the whiteboard to demonstrate proper note taking, editing, identifying key ideas in a text, and then creating a "post it" note to add to the lesson on screen. Then she prints it out for her students to keep in their notebooks. "The whiteboard allows us to explicitly teach learning strategies in an engaging, interactive way. We can provide concrete examples of abstract concepts; our students get to see images, hear sound clips, watch movies, and play interactive games. This allows them to visualize and make connections to challenging, grade-level concepts. It really facilitates active learning!"

Funding twenty-first-century technology is just one way that LEF grants are enriching many areas of learning, including math and science skills, literacy, social studies and world culture, the arts, and social and physical well-being.