Special Education Technology

Technology: We love it, but a fine balanced is needed in order for us to make sure it’s use is appropriate for our students. We know that technology is a tool, but it is not something that we should use solely or without generalization instruction.

Below you will find a few different resources that will give you some tech tools that you might want to try with some of your students. We hear a lot about making sure our students are 21^st century learners because they are living in a 21^st century world. Technology is certainly one aspect of that. Many jobs require our students, no matter what level of learning, to access some type of technology. In addition to requiring our students to become 21^st century learners, we also have to be 21^st century teachers and leaders.

Take a look at some of these tools and see what you think might work well in your classroom.

Favorite Simple Apps for Special Education: This is a compiled list of apps that the Simply Special Ed blog has put together. Some of these apps do have a cost, but this Special Education Teacher has found them worth it for her students. There are free apps on this list as well. Just taking a look at them might spark some ideas for you.

Favorite Simple Special Education Apps

Data collection in Special Education can be such a cumbersome process. We are trying to teach kids, schedule groups, schedule paraprofessionals, and encourage learning in every aspect of the students day. So how can we minimize the data collection time but not the quality of the results. 

Google forms has been one way of decreasing the time and energy of data collection but not the information you will be able to gather. Putting the form in live view and sending out the link will allow general education teachers, paraprofessionals, and any other team members be able to take data in many different settings as well. 

Google Forms can collect information. These can be used by teachers to record student data.

This box shows how teachers can collect missing work for their students from other teachers.

This image shows how a teacher can collect data about a specific student. This data can be used for interventions, IEP data, or simply tracking progress. Additionally, the image to the right shows the spreadsheet automatically created when using forms.

Teachers can use forms to give quizzes with automatic feed back for their students. Pictures, videos, and text can all be entered into the forms.

*And some of the themes move on the page as well!