The world of special education is very different from the traditional classroom. While in a traditional classroom you are typically only teaching one lesson to all the students in your class at that time, in special education you may only have 5 students in your class at a time. Still, you have to teach 15-20 different topics during the class. This creates unique challenges, to overcome these challenges I have embraced technology to supplement goal areas for individual students. There are many research-based websites that have allowed students to work on the goals and areas they struggle with, allowing me to provide direct instruction in other areas to small groups. The differentiation that being a one-to-one school with the Chromebooks has provided has greatly increased and benefited student achievement in the special education classroom.
Many wonder how we monitor students' work on the computers if we are teaching a small group. We use a program called GoGuardian that allows us as teachers to see the students' screens while they are in class. I have noticed that students will do what they are supposed to be doing, and honestly, students straying from their tasks hasn’t been a problem.
The doors that have been opened to these students with the Chromebooks are too innumerable to list, but another great benefit is that the students are able to listen to books read to them without looking different than their peers. Many students listen to music or have earbuds in their ears to block out background noise, so students having earbuds in is normal! Technology has leveled the playing field for all students and opened a whole new world to struggling learners.