How can technology help all students succeed?

Students all have unique learning needs and styles. Some are strong visual learners, others are strong auditory learners, and many benefit from just the right combination of visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile learning supports.

For students who are strong auditory processors, hearing text and instructions read aloud and interacting in an environment where auditory support can be readily provided to support a fuller understanding can make the difference. Furthermore, for students who are struggling readers, the ability to hear text being read can effectively break down this barrier and provide access to educational content ¹⁷.

The ability to independently turn the pages of a book regardless of physical challenges, click on a word to hear it spoken to reinforce understanding, view a picture of symbol to supplement text, or interact with moveable objects in an interactive scene to gain a fuller understanding of new vocabulary, are just a few examples of how on-screen interactivity may be applied to learning.

With the range of visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile learning styles educators seek to support, the application of on-screen environments and activities can be an effective, student-centered approach.

Technology can be used to enhance student motivation and success by embedding scaffolding supports, offering the ability for teachers to adjust the level of support to the needs of the student ¹⁷. Computer-supported instruction can be set to automatically adjust based on the students’ performance. For example, if a student answers a question correctly, a more challenging question can be presented, and if a student struggles, prompts can be provided ¹⁷. Electronic dictionaries and thesauri can be helpful supports for understanding new words, paricularly those that make use of additional visuals to support written explanations and related words. To support successful comprehension of text, teachers must focus on pre-reading related words. Symbols and pictures are often an important support for building on students’ prior knowledge and teaching important vocabulary ¹⁸. Technology can support students’ ability to visualize word meaning, hear words, and practice writing, which increases their overal reading, writing and listening vocabulary ¹⁸.

The applications of technology to support the design and delivery of universally accessible education materials has been a central focus in research and practice ¹³ and exemplified by tools such as PCS to aid comprehension and expression, graphic organizers to support mapping of new information to previous knowledge, talking books to support comprehension and independent access, and word processing programs to support successful written expression.

A variety of software programs are available to help you make curriculum modifications and adaptations. Among these is Boardmaker Plus!, which supports efficient access to PCS and on-screen interactivity to meet the needs of a range of learners. For example, standard, text-based materials can be copied into Boardmaker Plus! and symbols and auditory support can be quickly added to supplement text, or books can be copied or created in Boardmaker Plus! to allow students with physical or intellectual challenges to independently access and interact with the content.