Using Compensating Technology With Special-Need Children Ed Clement

A couple of summers ago, I had the opportunity to work for a company that helped local industries set up work stations for their disabled employees. One day a very distinguished and impeccably dressed man rolled into our office in a powered wheel chair. It was equipped with a speech synthesizer, similar to the one the mathematician Steven Hawkins uses, and a lap top computer with a modem connected to a cell phone. I later learned that after being crippled in his youth in an auto accident, he had become a self-made millionaire.

It was hard for me to imagine how so disabled a man could have become so successful. I eventually got up enough nerve to ask him. His simple one word response was "technology."

Sometimes it is obvious that a student, or students, just aren't going to master educational skills in the traditional way. When that happens, maybe a technological solution is worth trying. Some of the modern technologies that I've found particularly useful in my classroom are:

• Calculators: This technology is so useful in improving computational skill and math literacy that I encourage all my students to use one. I especially like the Texas Instruments TI-83 graphing calculator, which lets a student enter a string of math operations in the order in which they're presented.
• Pocket Translators: these devices have really helped my non- English speaking students function more effectively in an English speaking educational system.
• Pocket Speaking Dictionaries: These are particularly useful because they allow my poor readers as well as my bi-lingual students to work more independently, allowing me to give my other students the time they need.
• Spell Checking Pocket Electronic Dictionary: No wonder half the people in America can't spell when we have words like pneumonia in the English language.
• A PC with Internet access: This is the most useful technology by far because it will allow you to find the grant money, and there is a lot of it out there, to purchase all the compensating technology your students will need. Keep an eye out at this site for my tips on grant writing.