Diverse Students and Technology

There are so many ways that technology can meet the needs of diverse students. The media specialist has the opportunity to introduce many different technologies and there uses to both teachers and students. Ebooks and other books on line can be used with students who have learning disabilites and with students who are visually impaired. There are also benefits to using the many software programs that are available to students. These programs can be used with students who are performing both above and below grade level. So many of the programs and technologies that are available can be geared to specific learners and specific needs. Also, the use of video and movie maker make it easier to reach your divers populations because, again, it cna be geared to specific needs, grade levels, etc.
Our school has a growing hispanic population so programs that are geared to the hispanic population is also very useful.

Technology and Diversity

The diversity of learning needs in today’s general education classroom and media center continues to grow, including students with disabilities and those who are English-learners. Students with disabilities can benefit from a number of features that are built into existing technology available in the media center and many classrooms such as PowerPoint, Windows Movie Maker, and Kidspiration/Inspiration. These Software and web-based resources allow teachers and media specialists to gather video clips, pictures, maps, audio clips, and other means of presenting information. They can also provide students with advance organizers, such as outlines, study guides, "while you read" questions, and diagrams which present overviews of new material to be studied.

By the same token, English Learners can benefit from web resources which provide background information, interactivity, and relevant instruction, and multi-media presentations. The non-judgmental nature of the computer allows most students to make errors without embarrassment and can provide immediate feedback and correction. This can be as simple as writing in Microsoft Word with the spell-check turned on, or using an English language tutorial, such as the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/?ok). You can customize their Learning English site with a choice of 26 different native speaker's languages. The Voice of America Special English(http://www.manythings.org/e/voa.html) site is one of many that have word lists and quizzes.

Media, Technology & Diversity

The school I currently work at is a very diverse school. Many races and ethnic groups are represented in a single classroom. Based on the backgrounds of their home life or their culture, they sometimes view learning in different ways. A media specialist can be useful to the classroom teacher by introducing a variety of materials available for the visual learner to the kinesthetic learner. A more recent style of learning includes music which can be developed through technology. Ideas from music as a background noise during student learning or allowing the student to create a musical presentation for an assignment are ideas that the media specialist may assist a classroom teacher to help her meet the diverse needs of the students. As always, the media specialist must be open to lifelong learning as technology and the way schools are run are changing every day.

Ebooks/Digital Storytelling

Wow! It's exciting to see all that is available to us. I'm not sure that this would be considered an "e-books," but at the school where I am employed we have a subscription to "Tumblebooks." This site has bookbooks that are read to students, or students may read it themselves. It also has quizzes with many of hte stories. We also have a subscription to "Sylvan- Dell Books" which works much the same way. All of the classrooms have access to this. E-books are not used in the media center. At this point, no one at our school is using digital storytelling, though it sounds great. It seems to be a innovative way for students to do book reports and such, but Time constraints and the responsibilty of covering the curriculum oten takes precedence over learning new technologies. It is something I would like to dive into a little deeper and see how it could be used in the media center