TECHnology and literacy for adolescents with disabilities

King-Sears, Margaret Elaine, Swanson, Christopher, & Mainzer, Lynne. (2011). TECHnology and literacy for adolescents with disabilities. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 569-578.



At first, I thought to myself, “Uh-oh. Here comes another article describing a decision making model with a cute acronym.” With that in mind, the article started slowly for me as the acronym’s four steps (the letters in TECH stand for Target, Examine, Create, and Handle) were outlined and described. Up to that point, I was still thinking, “Yeah, yeah, another acronym, another model.” Then I got to the good part (luckily in this journal length restrictions keep that from happening too late in most cases!). The authors made the TECH model come to life by taking readers through not one but two authentic examples of how the model was used to make decisions about what technologies to use with specific students and how to use those technologies. The two examples are both interesting, and are quite different from each other. The first case is a male seventh grader with a written language disability; the second is a female tenth grade with Asperger’s syndrome. These two cases are similar to those that many teachers encounter every day. For both cases, the authors work their way meticulously through the four TECH steps, and in the process, share the real-life stories of these two young people and the teachers who worked with them. Then after the cases, which are the heart of the article, we get to the gravy: Table 1. That table provides a short list of eight types of assistive technology. Then for each type, we get actual names of products, and even web sites we can visit to find out more. I’m definitely going to visit some of those sites. This table will definitely become dated in a year or two as even newer technologies become available, some of which we probably cannot even imagine now. For now though, I plan to share this table with my students and colleagues (and hopefully the whole article with some). It can provide a beginning for our thinking about how we can use technology to adapt instruction to better meet students’ needs.



A final note: I fully appreciate the authors’ clear and complete discussion of what makes a technology choice an “assistive technology” and when something is simply “classroom technology”. Along with that, I appreciated the authors’ sensitivity to the issues raised when certain technology is used only with “special needs” students. In both cases given here, the desire not to be embarrassed by conspicuous use of assistive technology was an issue for the students. Not only that, it is probably desirable to make such technology available to ALL students if we possibly can. Multiple ways of “reading” and “writing” for all students would seem valuable in any classroom, whether they qualify as “assistive technology” or not.



Discussion Prompts:



1. What do the authors mean by “multimodal teaching and assessment” (p. 569)? How would that be different from the kind of instruction that is typically seen in K-12 classrooms?



2. What are some arguments that people might make against using some of the technological tools described in this article in the classroom? How might you answer those arguments?



3. The authors make a distinction between assistive technology and classroom technology. What is that distinction, and how would such a distinction mean in practical terms in a classroom?



4. What factors will affect whether or not technology is used in a productive way in the classroom?



5. Why do the authors stress that the TECH decision-making process “begins and ends with a focus on the targeted learning outcome” (p. 570)?



6. Go online and do some research on autism. One good site is http://www.autismspeaks.org/, but entering the term “autism” into a search engine will produce many sources of information. After reading about autism, think about why computer-assisted instruction might be especially helpful for students with autism. Also, what problems might arise?



7. One of the more “traditional” ways of using technology in the classroom is as an alternative way of presenting information. Many of these ways of using technology are not very interactive and really are just electronic ways of presenting the same type of teacher-centered instruction that was done in the past, just with more “bells and whistles.” Technology that can really make a difference for students will need to be interactive and student-centered. What might such technology look like in a classroom? Think in terms of specific content and skills students learn at various levels. How might interactive technology take students to higher levels of learning than “traditional” instruction (even if that traditional instruction is presented using technology)?



8. Access the website http://web.teachtown.com/ and explore some of the product information there. How might the resources on this site help students? What potential problems do you see with it?



9. Look at the case study of “Brian” beginning on page 572. What strengths does Brian exhibit? What are his biggest challenges?



10. Why might keyboarding devices like AlphaSmart (see this web site for information: http://www.neo-direct.com/intro.aspx ) be less than satisfactory options for some students?



11. What possibilities do state-of-the-art cell phones present for instruction? What might be some barriers to their instructional use?



12. What changes in society have occurred in recent years that make assistive technology use less stigmatized than it was only a few years ago? How have those changes shaped classroom instruction for all students?



13. One of the leading sellers of speech recognition software is a company called Nuance. Explore their web site at http://nuance.com/ . How feasible do you think this kind of software will be for schools? Should it be made available to all students?



14. What is “support anonymity” (p. 574) and why was it so important for “Brian”?



15. Look at the case study of “Michelle” beginning on page 575. What strengths does Michelle exhibit? What are her biggest challenges?



16. What conflicts are behind “Michelle’s” comment that “Only babies use toys (her word for manipulatives) to do problems”?



17. Go to the following two web sites, both of which were used with “Michelle.” How might you use these two web sites, which provide free resources, to help students? How did using the web sites address the problem that Michelle had with using manipulatives?



http://www.mathplayground.com/



http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html



18. What do you think about the usefulness of sites used with “Michelle” such as http://www.studyisland.com/ and http://www.skillstutor.com/hmh/site/skillstutor/Home, which provide practice keyed to tested standards for individual states? Also look at the free web site, http://www.purplemath.com/, and evaluate its usefulness.



19. What will convince various educational stakeholders (policymakers, administrators, teachers, families, students, and others) that “the opportunities afforded by adoption of devices and software outweigh the constraints” (p. 577)?



20. Explore some of the web sites given in Table 1, Technology Choices Matched to Literacy Learning (page 573). Which of these options do you think offer the most potential for students you work with or plan to work with?