Innovations in Classroom Technology for Students with Disabilities

Technology to Access the General Education Curriculum

Not only are SWD expected to access and learn from the general education curriculum, but teachers are expected to use evidence-based practices (EBPs) that include the use of technology to help students learn. Access to the general education curriculum is defined by some as involvement and progress in the general education curriculum. Involvement is defined as participating in lessons/activities and progress defined as students achieving measurable academic outcomes (Quick, Ryndak, & Taub, 2017; Ruppar, Knight, McQueston, & Jeglum, in press; Ryndak, Jackson, & White, 2013). For SWD participating in general education and inclusion classrooms, the use of technology offers an opportunity not just to access the curriculum but also to be active participants in classroom activities and to make meaningful progress (Okolo & Diedrich, 2014).

Teachers should know how to use technology, once in these classes, to assist student learning. Unfortunately, a recent national study found that while teachers reported higher rates of use of technology for students with low incidence disabilities (e.g., 16.1% of students with low incidence disabilities reported technology use within the past year), far lower rates of technology use were reported for students with higher incidence disabilities, only 3.3% for students with LD and EBD (Bouck, 2016). In a large-scale study by Okolo and Diedrich (2014) of general and special educators in Michigan, teachers reported that the three biggest potential impacts of technology for SWD were (a) improved access to the general education curriculum, (b) improved academic outcomes, and (c) improved instruction.

Likewise, Bouck (2016) suggested that technology has been underutilized in schools among SWD in general, but in particular among students with high-incidence disabilities. To further complicate matters, general education teachers often feel underprepared to teach this group of students in content classes (Robinson, 2002) and are often reluctant to make substantive modifications to student learning, including incorporating technology into instruction (Stufft, Bauman, & Ohlsen, 2009). Despite teachers’ realization of the promise of technology for student learning, they also see barriers to incorporating technology that involve inadequate staff/teacher knowledge about technology, lack of access to technology, and issues implementing technology into classrooms (e.g., lack of teacher time to learn and implement technology, restrictions on loading or using software or applications; Okolo & Diedrich, 2014).

The Call of the Sirens

In some ways, the call for more technology in schools is like the calls of the Sirens in Greek mythology. Using beautiful music and voices, the Sirens would lure in sailors, only to crash their boats on the rocky coast of the enchanted islands. So too school administrators often hear the “beautiful voice” of technology promising to solve their woes, only to wake up and face the reality that technology alone didn’t solve their problems as expected. In many cases, the shortcomings of technology are due to several reasons that include (a) a mismatch of the technology with the curriculum, (b) a lack of understanding by teachers and students about how to use the technology, or (c) the recognition that new technology has been quickly outpaced by outdated research (Thomas, Peeples, Kennedy, & Decker, 2019).

First, technology must be matched with the curriculum and skills for which it was intended. For example, smartpens were originally developed to help students record better notes. Therefore, teachers who want to use smartpen technology should be cognizant of which content areas (e.g., social studies, science, English language arts) the technology might best be optimized and recognize those situations when the technology should not be used.

Second, using technology properly and effectively means teaching technology with fidelity. Teachers should not simply hand off new technology to students and expect students to teach themselves, but like other skills and techniques for SWD, teachers need to model for students, provide opportunities for SWD to practice using the new technology alongside guidance and feedback (i.e., guided practice), and then assess how well students can use the technology independently. Teachers also need to understand an important final step at helping students to become acclimated with technology and generalize its use to other materials or settings. Related to this, any new technology is best learned when it is embedded within the context of curricular activities, thereby reducing or eliminating the need for training in generalization (Basham, Israel, Graden, Poth, & Winston, 2010; Fan, Salleh, & Laxman, 2018).

Third, the use of the term technology brings to mind such terms as “innovative,” “new,” and “state-of-the-art.” However, technology takes time to be properly tested to work out the bugs and put through empirical studies. And, as time passes, newer and better versions of technology rapidly emerge. Unfortunately, the rapid pace at which technology changes also inadvertently causes a gap between technology-based products and empirical research supporting their use for SWD (Kennedy & Boyle, 2017; Kennedy & Deshler, 2010). For teachers this means, that like other interventions and EBPs, they must not just “trust” that the new technology will work, but they should use progress monitoring and data recording procedures to insure that the new technology is doing its job. This requires not just examining distal measures like end-of-the-year test scores or grades, but it means examining more proximal measures like the effectiveness of the technology in daily lessons and its mediating impact on student outcomes, including IEP goals and objectives (Thomas et al., 2019).

There is a growing body of research that serves as a rocky but useable foundation for using technology tools with SWD. Technology innovations mentioned in this special issue were developed with different high-incidence populations (i.e., LD, EBD, ASD) in mind and were developed to be used with SWD and their teachers. This special issue focuses on two themes: (a) technology to support learning in inclusive or general education classrooms and (b) technology to promote student engagement and enhance performance feedback of teachers.

Technology to Support Learning

Instruction in inclusive classrooms involves helping SWD gain meaningful access to the general education curriculum. For older students (i.e., middle grades and high school), the implicit demands of classrooms dictate that students should be able to gain information from textbooks or other sources through reading and note taking (Deshler, Schumaker, Bui, & Vernon, 2006; King-Sears & Duke, 2010). Other demands and expectations of students in an inclusive classroom involve (a) being able to use complex writing skills such as those involved in the writing process, (b) using self-regulation skills to monitor writing, (c) writing multiple paragraph compositions, (d) writing essays of different genres, and (e) writing research papers based on information derived from multiple sources (Graham Harris & Beard, 2018; Schumaker & Deshler, 2009).

In order for SWD to be prepared to meet these demands, three articles in this special issue describe using technology in the areas of reading, writing, and note taking. In the first article, Howorth, Rooks-Ellis, Flanagan, and Ok describe how augmented reality can be used to assist students with ASD in learning to read. The authors discuss how students using the HP Reveal app on a mobile device can point at a word, text passage, picture, or image to trigger a teacher-developed video to support reading. Moreover, the authors describe how students with ASD can use this technology that supports word reading, reading fluency, or reading comprehension.

The second article, by Evmenova and Regan, describes technology-based graphic organizers (TBGO) that teachers can use to support the writing skills of students with LD and EBD. The TBGO was developed through Project WeGotIT! (i.e., Writing Efficiently with Graphic Organizers—Teacher Integrating Technology) and can support students with different genres of writing (e.g., persuasive, argumentative, personal narrative). The authors walk the reader through the different stages of the writing process using technology along with the IDEAS strategy to support student writing. In each step of the writing process, the authors point out how technology tools can be used to support student writing. In addition, the authors also explain how technology is used to support student self-regulation skills.

The third article, by Boyle and Joyce, describes how smartpens can be used to support the note-taking skills of students with LD. The authors discuss how the TARGET note-taking strategy was developed to help students use a smartpen to effectively record notes. The authors then explain how a smartpen works by synching previously recorded notes with the corresponding recorded portions of the lecture. They also discuss how the smartpen strategy incorporates steps on how to use the pen itself with steps on how to effectively record notes. The authors also discuss other types of smartpens available on the market along with suggestions for teachers who want to instruct SWD to use smartpens in content-area classrooms.

Technology to Promote Student Engagement

As mentioned previously, with the influx of SWD in general education, teachers of inclusive classrooms encounter a diverse population of students. Not only are teachers dealing with teaching academically diverse students, but they must also be prepared to use effective classroom management to keep students engaged in learning. However, technology is beginning to play a larger role for engaging SWD in both the general education and inclusive classrooms, helping teachers improve their teaching (Peeples et al., 2018; Varank & Ilhan, 2013).

Hirsch, Alves, and Dunn, in the fourth article, discuss how teachers can use technology to increase opportunities to respond (OTR) for students with EBD. The authors explain how a teacher-delivered and technology-based OTR, Poll Everywhere, can be used to increase student engagement during lessons in which PowerPoint or Google slides are used. They explain how to use this app before, during, and after instruction and how teachers can assess learning behaviors. The authors also discuss pairing the MotivAider (i.e., a device worn on the belt that vibrates at preset intervals) with behavior-specific praise (BSP) so that teachers can begin to increase their own rate of BSP. They explain how to use BSP when the device is activated and how to monitor its effectiveness.

In the final article, Rodgers, Kennedy, VanUitert, and Myers discuss the use of technology to support performance feedback provided to teachers. The authors detail a five-step process showing how teachers can use technology for observations and feedback. The Classroom Teaching (CT) Scan is highlighted, illustrating how it can be used to collect teaching data in real time during lessons. The authors also discuss how other types of technology (e.g., video-based reflections, bug-in-the-ear technology) can be used in concert with coaching to provide performance feedback to teachers.

The guest editors hope you enjoy this special issue on technology for SWD. We hope that practitioners use the links provided in the articles to explore how technology could work with students in their classrooms. Teachers are encouraged to assess the effectiveness of technology on targeted skills. While technology offers the promise of improving students’ skills and behaviors, it should not be viewed as a panacea. While the voices of the Sirens promise easy solutions to student learning and behavior problems, caution should be exercised when teaching with technology and assessing its effectiveness.