Innovative Applications To Enhance Learning For Students With Special Needs

You are to identify-develop two specific technology-enhanced strategies for EACH of the special needs below. Describe the strategy (include links to access that technology) and HOW it will increase the chances that a student with that special need will be successful with the topic/s covered in your content area.

• Students with Cognitive Difficulties
• Students with Physical Difficulties
• Students with Sensory Difficulties
• At-Risk Students
• Gifted and Talented Students iPhone-iPad-Android Apps for Meeting the Needs of Special Learner

• While the iPad/iPhone/Android can offer engaging, exciting learning opportunities to all students,

Perhaps one of the greatest ways the device can be used in education is helping those students who have exceptional learning needs beyond their peers. As a capable and very extensible device, the iPad/iPhone/Android can become a powerful and useful tool specifically to ensure special learners can succeed in any learning environment.

• For EACH of the special needs listed above, specify two Apple or Android apps. Include the name of the app/assistive technology and HOW is will assist a student with that special need in learning-understanding the topic/s covered in your thematic unit.

Assistive Technology for Cognitive Disabilities

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the new innovative applications which are desired for promoting the learning ability of the disabled students. The feeling of confidence in the disabled student can be gained through the application of assistive teaching methods in the education platform of these students. Different applications are designed by Android and Apple for using them on the iPhone and iPad platforms according to the requirement of the disabled student. Some of the learning apps are summarised below:

The cognitive disabled students are not able to read and write. They only grab the learning through their listening ability.

My Bionic Brain was designed by APPLE to provide a learning tool to the students who are having cognitive difficulties. The learning ability of the student can be enhanced by working on this application. It is very useful who suffers from short term memory, problem of emotional control, and others.

How it help:

It helps the student by raising their confidence in grabbing the information provided on the learning tool with efficiency.

PEAT is the learning app designed by the APPLE for providing executive teaching platform to the cognitive disabled student. The virtual environment is provided to the student who is having to impairment in learning ability. The artificial intelligence is used for the development of virtual environment of learning platform.

How it help:

The virtual environment has a direct impact on the knowledge gained by the disabled student.

The student who are not able to go to school for getting education due to some or more physical disabilities are having some apps which help them to gain knowledge by sitting at their home and enhance their learning ability. Various applications are designed for the students who are not able to hold the pencil in their hand.

This Application provides the virtual buttons for navigation. The student can directly navigate throughout the application by making use of virtual button. The students do not have to press those buttons. This application is useful for the students who are having physical disabilities in their hand.

How it help:

 The student can perform their daily routine learning abilities by making use of virtual buttons of the App (McClure, 2014).

This application is useful for the students who are having disabilities in their hands. The cursor on the screen moves according to the movement done by the student by his head. The learning ability of the student can be enhanced by guiding through the new applications. It makes the student to work independently without having any assistance from the other person due to their physical in capabilities.

Technologies for Physical Disabilities

How it help:

It helps the student to overcome their weaknesses of their body part. They can also live a life of a normal student without depending on any assistance from the other person.

The Android and APPLe have designed various apps for the students whose sensory organ does not work such as who are deaf, blind, and dumb.

This application was designed for visually disabled student who are not able to diagnose their surroundings in which they are living. This application was developed by Android to provide an online sighted volunteer to guide the student in his learning by video connection (Alves, Monteiro,  Rabello, and Carvalho, 2014).

How it help:

The special virtual assistance is providing to guide them in carrying out their daily activities routine job.

This application was specially designed for the Autistic student. The Autistic student communicates with other people through their drawings. This application creates a non-verbal language for the autistic student to communicate with the other person in the language of symbols.

How it help:

The learning ability of the Autistic student will be enhanced when they start converting images into text (Parette and Karlan, 2007).

At risks students are the student who are facing difficulties in handling real life scenario problems. The family issues create a feeling of fear in them so they restrict themselves to be reserve and are not able to show their inner talent to the world due to the lack of confidence in them. The student are not able to perform well in their exam and get failed.

It is the learning app in which the student can read and learn academic content on the social platform. The inclusion of social platform helps in raising the level of confidence in the students who are at risks and are not able to explore themselves in front of others. The sharing and development of the academic contents helps in enhancing and broadening his power of creative thinking.

How it help:

The use of schoology software works well for the student who is not able to show their performance in daily curriculum activities. It provides the social platform for

This application provides a virtual environment of classroom to the students who feel fear in going to school to get their academic education. The elementary education can be effectively provided through Google classroom by setting course target to be completed by the student on the daily basis. The alert will be generated for submission of the tasks. The student has to submit their assignments on time through digitization (Walsem, Howe,  Frich, and Andelic, 2016).

Assistive Technology for Sensory Disabilities

How it help:

It creates learning interest in the student through the inclusion of virtual classroom. The feeling of competition helps in exploring their inner talent and skills.

The student can enhance their learning experience by inclusion of practical knowledge with the deployment of some simulation application. The inclusion of simulation application helps the student in guiding to learn the applicability of the task in the real life situation. These application helps in rolling out the scheduling of activities which are required for completing the task.

It is the best application suitable for the student who wants to explore their knowledge in the computer programming field. This application provides sufficient and tutorials to enhance their knowledge. The educational resources can be directly retrieved from the Google AI app. The student can learn how to make use of artificial intelligence in carrying out their daily activities.

How it help:

It helps the student to guide them about the simulated environment study. The learning through simulation helps in gathering knowledge of applyinh theoretical

This application helps the student in providing quizzes and group discussion online. The student can enhance their personality development skills by participating in the quiz environment. The game based learning creates interest for exploring their level of education and knowledge.

How it help:

 The setting of the target helps the student to work hard to get the target clear. In this direction, they gather lot of knowledge from different sources (Debord, Aruguete, and Muhlig, 2010).

Conclusion

The inclusion of assistive technology in the education platform helps in building confidence and power to face the real world situation in the student who are physically disabled due to one or more reason. The assistive teaching environment provides a platform to the student who are not be able to get the elementary education. It creates the feeling of hope in them to explore themselves in the world of competition without any assistance or dependency on the other people.

References

Alves, C., Monteiro, G., Rabello, S., and Carvalho, K. (2014). Assitive technology applied to education of student with visual impairment . Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d461/92e240e3af9a3e95661fc389119c14326a01.pdf

Debord, K., Aruguete, M., and Muhlig, J. (2010). Are computer assisted teaching methods effective. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/370f/24057954f8ce6cb46205459fb20aeef984eb.pdf

McClure, N. (2014). Developing specific skills, competiencies and point of view needed by professionals. Retrieved from https://www.ideaedu.org/Resources-Events/Teaching-Learning-Resources/Developing-specific-skills-competencies-and-points-of-view-needed-by-professionals-in-the-field-most-closely-related-to-this-course

Parette, H., and Karlan, G. (2007). Facilitating student achievement with assistive technology. Retrieved from https://www.daddcec.org/Portals/0/CEC/Autism_Disabilities/Research/Publications/Education_Training_Development_Disabilities/2007v42_Journals/ETDD_200712v42n4p387-397_Facilitating_Student_Achievement_With_Assistive_Technology.pdf

Siu, Y., and Morash, V. (2011). Teacher of student with visual impairment and their use of assistive technology. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1114878.pdf

Walsem, M., Howe, E., Frich, J., and Andelic, N. (2016). Assitve technology for cognitive. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5088402/