Helping students with disabilities

In today’s society, it is almost impossible to live a functional life without technology. Cornish (2005) describes this phenomenon as “technological progress”
(p. 22). During this time, a significant amount of resources have been added to better assist students with disabilities. One piece of technology that a great amount of teachers are using is promethean boards. Promethean began in Blackburn, Lancashire, UK in 1995 by a small group of professional people. Promethean boards were created to provide interactive learning technology that empowers teachers to engage, educate, assess and motivate learners and helps teachers prepare digital lessons quickly and easily. The technology enables them to create, customize and integrate text, images, quizzes and tests, web, video and audio content, so they can more easily capture students' attention and accommodate different learning styles (Promethean, 2007). It can be used in grades Kindergarten and higher to enhance the education of students. There are over 2.5 million children and students in over 70 countries seeing lesson through Promethean products and services (Promethean, 2007). These boards are offering teachers alternate ways to enhance their instruction and are giving students more exciting and creative ways to receive instruction. Through technological progress, students who aren’t able to participate in daily instruction are given the opportunity to embrace learning through alternate methods. For example, a student by the name of Joe, from Florida was able to use the promethean board to interact with his teacher and peers. Joe is wheel chair bound, uses a breathing machine and is paraplegic. He has an Activpanel velcroed to his hat which allows him to see everything that appears on the Activboard and gives him the control of the board through the panel. The class is able to see everything Joe does without them having to reach across him.
These boards seem to be enriching the lives of students who thought education was difficult to learn due to their disability. Teachers are given a chance to offer their students something different.

Students

All students are special and deserve the same recognition of achievement no matter how small or large the achievement may be.