'Educational Technology Essay\r'

'With the passage of time, the advances of engineering science be making their straw man felt in every walk of vivification from space exploration to clean a room. The telephone exchange though behind these technological advances is to make lifetime more comfortable, efficient, and safe. As much(prenominal) engine room is an inviolate opus of daily worka mean solar day life. Newer forms of engineering be being introduced with cleansed rates of dexterity, safety, and comfort.\r\nIn this indirect request, cellular comprehension of technology in education has as well pass the hard norm of the fork over educational arranging of much(prenominal) a country as the united States of America with the same concentrate as quoted above. Henceforth, any important landing fields of educational pick uping exhaust been hinged with the inclusion of technology. One such region of focus today, with compliments to the inclusion of technology in education, is the educationa l instruction of the change and a nonher(prenominal) disadvantage students’ enhanced larn.\r\nThe portray paper examines in detail the inclusion of technology in education with relation to the attainment of modify and disfavor students. The paper first of all arguees the present literature on the present state of educational technology and handicapped learners; exceptmore, the present paper particularizedally examines studies conducted in the same bea to investigate the authenticity on educational technology inclusion to teach the modify students, say, English language, and see what difference the technology inclusion makes upon the study of the students.\r\nLiterature Review\r\nIn the past several decades, changing perspectives on the expend of technology inclusion in education for the handicapped students has ca implementd the curricular guidance to undergo changes that are epochal on their own. It was in the time of the 1970s and the mid-eighties that par ents and teachers came to realize the vision that graduating students with disabilities could now go on living and working in the common friendship environment with around confine that differed according to individual. This vision, then, bypassed the shelters of workshops, middle(a)s for day treatment, and other massive settings for residential purposes which were indispensable for the previous students. This revolutionary vision then gave birth to â€Å"the development of curricula that were relevant to students’ functioning to everyday life” (Davern, et.al, 2001).\r\nIn addition to the above, the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1997) to a fault paved the authority for the educators to look for technology inclusion that can boost up learn in the disabled students; hence the premise of this act is that:\r\nA free and appropriate public education volition be set upd for all children with special collects. IDEA 97 emphasizes the booking of st udents with disabilities in the usual curriculum and requires that individualise Education Program (IEP) teams make many decisions that support and encourage student performance in the general curriculum and general education classroom (Robinson, et.al, 2002).\r\nHowever, when it comes to the participation of the disabled students in the learning of more heterogeneous cognitive content (say dealing comprehension or learning vocabulary, and so on) with the mainstream education, with their peers, it is seen as an obstacle that these students sight a difference of learning from their peers. Hence on that intend are various involvements made by researchers. These interventions focus on overcoming these differences among the two types of learners. â€Å"Curriculum-based assessment”, â€Å"Direct precept curriculum design”, and â€Å"learning strategies Deshier” are nigh of them (Carnine, 1989).\r\nToday, as such, technology is fast becoming the norm of the area of educating the learners with disabilities. The times of the twenty first hundred has given speedy rise to technology integration in education. Henceforward, as Dr. Frank B. Withrow, Director of schooling Able Company Washington D.C. (2000) notes that â€Å"Technology predictions for the twenty-first century include sensory prosthetic devices for disabled people. This may be one of the virtually note valuey factors in providing all children an equal and appropriate education.” He further points out that â€Å"Cochlear implants are already providing many hard of hearing youngsters with functional hearing.” Moreover, â€Å" run-in synthesizers give voice to mute individuals. New developments in microelectronic lenses may enable a declamatory number of visually disabled people to read printed books” (Frank, 2000)\r\nHowever, it is another thing to investigate the integration of technology and its feasibleness with the production: effectiveness of technolo gy with regard to the learning rate of the students with disabilities. In the later part of the paper I would examine the role of technology in relation to this very theme. I would discuss the role of the educational package system system for the special education.\r\neducational Software and Special Students\r\nToday, like all other areas of education, special education is also influenced by the knowledgeableness of newer and newer bundle that provide the educators the opportunities to better teach the disabled students so that their learning can be worth it. Since commercial software program system for education usually shapes the center of instruction which is technology-based in special education (also for general classroom education), there is a very rapid race among the educational authorities to obtain the most effective and result-oriented software. However, with the advances made in this area, there are certain concerns raised by the educators and researchers about the feasibility of these software packages with regard to effective learning among the disabled students.\r\nIn this connection, the most common practice entrap among the educators is that they â€Å"rely on experts in commercial businesses to make water quality educational software for classroom use, with the laying claim that the software has been designed to image the unique learning needs of the population of students for whom it is targeted” (Boone, et.al, 2000). In other words, the consumers of the software assume that the software was properly designed and certain with a population being the focus of that software, for example, students with disabilities, jr. school students, students learning English as a second language, and so forth. The net result that these consumers reside from the software obtained, as such, is that it will help them improve the learning capabilities of their students †in our case students with learning disabilities and disadvantaged students.\r\nOn the contrary, Boone et al. (p. 109, 2000) observe that though many of the software developers are aware of the fact that consulting educational experts and researchers is way important in order to develop a result-oriented, population-targeted software, â€Å"some companies still develop software without winning into account education factors that may affect learning” (Boone, et.al, 2000).\r\nThey point out three major areas regarding such software development for the disabled students, which were major concerns of the educators:\r\n1) The highly-developed software did not have a conjectural base for its formation;\r\n2) There is an overemphasis on such technical aspects of the software as high computer graphic designs and audio add-ons; and\r\n3) The software development manifested an improper improvement toward educational concerns.\r\nWith these three major concerns, Boone et al. (2000) also name three major areas †investigated in a Delphi resear ch study †which, according to educators, the educational software for the disabled students was proved to be lacking. These areas are:\r\n1) The investigation revealed that software lacked an incorporation or association of higher- aim of thinking;\r\n2) The software also lacked a grounding in the educational research and pedagogical investigation of the related teaching content to the disabled students;\r\n3) The last major area of lacking of the educational software for the disabled students was that the software lacked the inclusion of a number of different level skills which can be used to effectively meet an individual’s specific needs.\r\nTherefore, Forcier, 1999 (as cited in Boone et al. p. 01, 2000) notes that because of these so complex issues with regard to the educational software, it seems unclear as to which degree such educational improvisation is actually meeting the needs of the educators/teachers and their students. (Boone, et.al, 2000)\r\n valuation of Software\r\nBoone et al. (2000) point out the importance of the educational for the disabled students so that their feasibility can be put to a check. For the rating of an educational software, the authors state that many of the educational software developers and publishers are not providing enough schooling to the educators. This is a practical problem for the educators who opt for a specific software program available in the market suiting the needs of their educational linguistic context; however: (Boone, et.al, 2000)\r\nâ€Å"Educators often find that software they have purchased is not adaptable, does not teach what it purports to teach, or does not support what is occurring in the classroom. For these reasons, educators must independently approximate software by taking into consideration the spare-time activity”. (Boone, et.al, 2000)\r\n1) The educators must look for the software’s intend use by monitoring the help that the software lends to achieve their o bjectives;\r\n2) Content which accompanies the software must be scrutinized; it is also seen whether or not the software has a teacher’s supplement for implementation;\r\n3) â€Å"the instructional presentation and whether the software meets the principles of universal design (i.e., quadruplex representations of content, multiple means of expression and control, and multiple forms of engagement)” (Boone, et.al, 2000);\r\n4) they should also go for software that is user-friendly: that is easy to use both by the teacher(s) and students;\r\n5) the software should also provide considerable amount of documents and other support;\r\n6) The software should also contain user inputs.\r\nWith these areas in mind, the authors further come up with the valuation criteria of the two kinds of evaluation of the software: formative and summative evaluation done the use of the software to make sure of its compatibility with the learning of the disabled students. I discuss both these step of the evaluations separately so that a thorough correspondence of the issue can be grasped.\r\nFormative Evaluation and Learning Software for Disabled Students\r\nTo evaluate the efficiency of software for students with disabilities Boone et al (2000) state that the first and the foremost focus of the educators should be to take into account an area of the students’ learning and/ or other aspects of their life; this are can be the learning characteristics of those students; or their learning goals; or it can be the area of their favorable skills and goals, and so on.\r\nAfter this specification, the educators should put the software to audition on a crossways-student level, that is to say:\r\nSoftware evaluation by students should involve a high-achieving student, a middle-achieving student, and a low-achieving student who all have a contingent disability. This allows the educator to determine the software’s usability across students with a particular disa bility and, beforehand, to identify specific areas in the software with which particular students may need help (Boone, et.al, 2000).\r\nThey also give a vigilance to the educators that they should not count on the opinions of the parents of the students because it is possible that some software is not efficient to adults; however, the same is greatly enjoyed by the students.\r\n'