Digital Learning in Special Needs Education - Term Paper Example

Digital Learning In Special Needs Education (Student’s name) (Institution’s Name) INTRODUCTION Technology remains an integral component of any learning process. There have been several innovative steps taken to enhance the technology package that is used to aid in the learning process. In many instances, learning institution has continued to incorporate technology to help in addressing some of the demands of the students and also ensure proper dissemination of information. This explains why technological concepts are applied broadly in any modern learning set up. A rational normally classroom consists of students or learners with different abilities and capabilities. Some of the learners have better comprehensive abilities while others have special needs which must be addressed by the teachers. Studies reveal that the kind of special needs in students requires different approach of management and monitoring (Hwang & Wu, 2012). Digital learning is one of the most important components of technology especially in addressing the needs of children with special needs. Most libraries within institutions offering special needs learning are fitted with digital learning facilities for several reasons. This practice has been ion the increase in the modern days following the invention of better and more sophisticated digital learning applications and tools which have a positive impact in offering special needs education. This paper seeks to develop a proposal regarding digital learning in libraries offering special need education. It will, therefore, develop objectives of the study and the research methodology that will be advisable in examining the common presence of digital learning in libraries especially for special needs children. DIGITAL LEARNING FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS Every child who approaches a learning institution does so with a view of benefiting from the learning programs offered and consequently succeeded in education. However, not every child possesses full physical and mental orientation to achieve this objective. Some children have special needs due to physical or mental disabilities. On the other hand, some have full normal orientations and therefore are subject to the normal learning programs offered in such learning institutions. For a long period, children with special needs have faced a plethora of challenges in their pursuit for better and quality education (Sarah et al. 2004). Most of them have presented challenges in going through the normal learning system together with other children due to their differentiated needs and wants. This has therefore created concerns among the education stakeholders to necessitate the establishment of special needs learning institution (Sarah et al. 2004). One of the components in the special learning institution regards the use of modern digital learning experience. Digital learning is premised on the use of technology to offer a more quality, accessible and reliable education. This form of education is delivered through modern technological applications and tools such as writing aids, text-to-speech tools among many other items. The existing special needs among this category of students. Digital learning is argued as a cataclysmic invention which has brought a positive tectonic shift in the education sector and has further recognized the special needs existing among children (Pynoo et al. 2011). One of the most common aspects defining children with special needs regards the inability to properly read and understand as done by those children who have no form of physical or mental incapacitation. Reading and writing are the two major milestones in the process of learning. A child is not able to comprehensively succeed in the process of education if the ability to understand, write and read is incapacitated by either mental or physical inability. Most of the tools and programs used to enforce special needs education tend to focus the writing and reading aspects so as to give a strong foundation to the children (López, 2010). One of the commonly asked questions regards the ability of the digital learning experience to motivate the ability of the students to comprehend and enjoy their learning processes. Children with special needs have a difficulty matching the steps taken by other children who are devoid of any special needs. Whenever these two categories of children are put in one classroom and subjected to a common learning process, those will special needs tend to lag behind and after that feel de-motivated to continue learning. Therefore, this study will seek to identify some of the ways through which the digital learning experience aid in motivating children into the learning process. The presence of the digital learning facilities and tools in libraries for children with special needs is a clear indication of the supposed purpose of offering a better experience and motivation to children. Other researchers have also argued that these libraries are fitted with digital learning equipment so as to make the learning for children with special needs more relevant and more specific to their needs. Different physical and mental inabilities exist among learners. It’s common to find a specific need in one child quite different from that existing in another child. Therefore, a common learning methodology may fail to address the differentiated needs of such children. Research has also established that most libraries which offer special needs education are fitted with the digital facilities to aid in making the learning process accessible and easy for such students. There is a wide range of difficulty experienced in children with special needs especially in their pursuit of the better learning process (Peters, 2000). The difficulty experienced in most of these children concerns the inability to properly read, write and hear the kind of information disseminated in the classroom. Most teachers who offer the special needs education are forced to device other manual ways of ensuring that they communicate effectively to the children and advance their learning process. The manual system has however been identified as less productive ion several cases since it entirely depends on the skills and the abilities of the teachers themselves (Rose & Meyer, 2002). Digital learning presents various forms of qualities or aspects in the learning process. Many people who use this kind of technology are trained on how best to offer education using the various aspects of the integrated learning technology. For example, some advantages of the digital learning stem from the accessibility of the information through e-learning as well as the ability of the digital technology to convert the educational materials into an understandable form for the students. An example is a digital facility translates audio information into the visible form for those who have difficulties in hearing. Several libraries offering this kind of education understand the plight of the children with special needs and the difficulties under which they go. Studies reveal that children who go through this kind of learning procedures come out as better known as opposed to those who depend on manual methods of education (Warschauer, 2007). This is a similar case to the institutions which have the digital facilities to enable them to enforce special needs education. The kind of performance outcomes from such schools is more positive and highly advanced as compared to the institutions relying on remote manual means to offer education. Some libraries, however, have not fitted the digital experience to support the children with special needs in enabling them to attain a better education. Some of the reason cited includes lack of sufficient finance and lack of skills to operate and offer such kind of education on a digital platform. For the libraries across the world which have the digital facilities, positive strides have been seen in special needs education. The general nature of students who depend on this kind of digital technology is those who have much need that cannot be addressed on manual frameworks, besides, the urge and need of better education has been cited as a motivating factor towards seeking for digital experience in the learning process among children with special needs. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. How has digital learning contributed towards motivating children with special needs in education? 2. What is the relationship between digital learning and cognitive learning among children with special needs? 3. How has digital learning succeeded in personalizing education according to the differentiated needs of children with special needs? 4. What is the relevance of digital learning in ensuring the success of special needs education? METHODOLOGY The development of the methodology encompasses; the target population, the sampling procedure and the sample, description of the research design, instrumentation, data collection procedures, and data analysis. Research Design This research study will be carried out utilizing a non-experimental methodology. This is in regards to the effectiveness of both the experimental and the non-experimental methodologies about the purpose of the study and the population to be used. The research proposal deems that the most appropriate form of non-experimental study, in this case, is the survey method. Specifically, the survey technique that will be deemed as more appropriate will be the analytical survey, since the desire is to explore the variable of digital learning and its presence in libraries which offer special needs education as per the research topic. Sample Population The study will focus on picking five top libraries with digital technology in the US and which specializes in children with special needs. Further, the study will pick a total of four students from each of the five libraries so as to constitute a total of twenty students. The aim of establishing this target population is to assess the experience of the students who have undergone learning using the digital technology and why such a technology is significant in each of the libraries chosen. Sampling Procedure The sampling procedure will be a stratified random sampling technique from the target population selected. A stratified random sample will be used to ensure that the sample is unbiased and that it is representative of the target population. The stratified random sample is a probability sampling method in which each element in the strata chosen (digital libraries offering special needs education) within the target population has an equal, known, and non-zero chance of being selected for inclusion in the sample. The advantages of the stratified random sample are being biased free and having control over the variables. The major disadvantage of the stratified random sample is that a fairly large number of elements or respondents are necessary to achieve representativeness in the sample. Data Collection and Analysis Procedures There are three primary data collection methods potentially available for this type of survey; the personal interview, the telephone interview, and a questionnaire. The data collection technique that will be employed for this project will be a questionnaire. The questionnaire will be intended for students, and library management across the sample chose. It will be administered through telephone means. The analysis will be qualitative in nature since most of the information in the study is qualitative. Qualitative analysis and discussion of the findings from the research questions will then be developed. Conclusion Digital learning is one of the modern inventions in the education sector. Most libraries and learning institutions have integrated this technology. One of the areas in which digital learning is highly needed is in addressing the learning needs of children with special needs (Rosenberg, 2001). This paper develops a proposal which seeks to study the common availability of digital learning in libraries which offer special needs education. The proposal entails research questions, little literature review, and methodology of the proposed study. References Hwang, G. J., & Wu, P. H. (2012). Advancements and Trends in digital game‐based learning research: a review of publications in selected journals from 2001 to 2010. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(1). López, O. S. (2010). The digital learning classroom: Improving English language learners’ academic success in mathematics and reading using interactive whiteboard technology. Computers & Education, 54(4), 901-915. Peters, O. (2000). Digital learning environments: New possibilities and opportunities. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 1(1). Pynoo, B., Devolder, P., Tondeur, J., Van Braak, J., Duyck, W., & Duyck, P. (2011). Predicting secondary school teachers’ acceptance and use of a digital learning environment: A cross-sectional study. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(1), 568-575. Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1703 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 (Product no. 101042: $22.95 ASCD members; $26.95 nonmembers). Rosenberg, M. J. (2001). E-learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age (Vol. 9). New York: McGraw-Hill. Sarah, C., Jane, B., Rónán, O. B., & Ben, R. (2004). Quality assurance for digital learning object repositories: issues for the metadata creation process. ALT-J, 12(1), 5-20. Warschauer, M. (2007). The paradoxical future of digital learning. Learning Inquiry, 1(1), 41-49. Read More