Tools for Education of Disabled Students - Assignment Example

Question 2 What types of technological tools are used in your school for students with any of these disabilities (hearing impairment, visual impairments and intellectual disabilities). For this research question, this question was meant to give the educators an opportunity to indicate the types of technologies that are available in their schools for children with any of the aforementioned disabilities. The educators were asked to name the kind of technology or technologies used in their schools as well as the kind of technology that they have used themselves. The educators’ responses were used as an indicator of the equipment and technologies that are available for use by children with the disabilities that were the focus of the study in the respective schools in Saudi Arabia. This, in turn, gave the researcher an overview of the extent to which these technologies were being used to support the children with disabilities as well as their educators. The data in answer to this question were analysed with the assistance of Leximancer qualitative data software. The first step of the analysis was to identify the themes in the data. The themes that were identified in the end were computer, board, iPad, projector, Braille, programs and recorder. To identify the themes, the researcher entered all the transcribed interview data for question 2 into the Leximancer software. The initial list of concepts that were obtained contained several items including computer, board, projector, iPad, Braille, programs, recorder, television, video, CDs, data, devices, easily, educational, games, information and pictures. The researcher then deleted items that were deemed to be unrelated to question 2. The items that were deleted included the following: data, devices, easily, educational, games, information and pictures. Thereafter, the remaining concepts were merged so as to produce the final concept map. For thematic analysis, Leximancer was used to mine the data and identify the key words that provided the foundation for each theme. Using the key words, Leximancer configured the concepts that constituted each theme. Leximancer was then used to display the relationships between keywords in the different concepts and themes. Detailed analyses using Leximancer revealed that ‘computer’ (100% in 31 hits) was the most dominant concept. The word ‘board’ was the second most mentioned tool at 55% in 17 hits. The third most important dominant tool was ‘iPad’ with 48% occurrence in 15 hits. Leximancer ranks the themes based on the frequency of the concepts that constitute each theme. The frequency is interpreted as reflecting the relative importance of the concepts, and is portrayed in the Leximancer output as illustrated in Figure 4.1 below. As shown in Figure 4.1 the aforementioned concepts (computer, board and iPad) constituted the main themes which represented the types of tools that were used to help children with hearing impairment, visual impairment and intellectual disabilities in Saudi Arabia. See Figure 4.1. Figure 4.1 Leximancer analysis of themes and hits in the data As shown in Figure 4.1, the word “computer” ranked highest in regard to themes, with 31 hits. It was followed by the word “board” which had 17 hits. The themes “iPad” had 15 hits while “projector” had 14 hits. The themes with the least number of hits were “Braille” (6 hits), “programs” (4 hits), and “recorder” (3 hits). The number of hits of each theme gives an overview on the kind of technology that was mentioned most by the educators who took part in the research. This is in line with the fact that Question 2 sought to determine the types of technological tools that the research participants’ school had put in place to help children with any of the three disabilities that were the focus of this study. Therefore, based on the results of the analysis, it can be seen that the computer is the technology that most of the research participants mentioned as a technology that their respective school use to help children with disabilities in their learning activities. What the above findings mean is that many of the research participants were of the view that their schools were using computers in various ways to help meet the needs of children with disabilities as regards the children’s learning needs. And looking at the answers that were provided by the research participants on the types of technologies that their schools, use the word “computer” is mentioned several times either alone or alongside other technologies. Some of the responses include: “auditory peripherals, computer and projector”; “computer, projector and smart board”; “smart board and computer”; “resource room, smart board, educational games, iPad and computer”; “Smart board, computer, iPad, TV and DVD”; “computers and smart board”; “sensational and visual tools like computer and educational objects and smart board”; “some teachers use computer and projector”; “computer, projector and smart board”; “computer, television and educational games”; “talking computer, Braille sense, pronto, and Smart view for visually weak students”; iPads and computer supported by talking programs”; “computer and Braille sense’; “computer”; and “projector, recorder, computer, headphones, video and television”. The implication having the word “computer” mentioned by the research participants several times is that computers and other computer-related technologies were arguably the most common types of technologies that were being used across the schools whose educators took part in the study. As noted above, “board” was the second most mentioned theme, with 17 hits as shown by the Leximancer analysis results in Figure 4.1. Indeed, the word “board” was mentioned several times by the research participants in reference to the word “smart board”. This can be seen in number of the research participants’ responses such as “smart board and projector”; “computer, projector and smart board”; “smart board and computer”; “resource room, smart board, educational games, iPad and computer”; “Smart board, computer, iPad, TV and DVD”; “Computers and smart board”; “sensational and visual tools like computer and educational objects and smart board”; “computer laboratories, data show and smart board”; “computer, projector and smart board”; and “smart board, computer, iPad, projector, and magnifying lens”. It is important to note that a smart board is an interactive white board that enables smart applications such as touch and scrolling interactions that make it possible for users to use devices such as computers without the need to have conventional devices such as keyboards and mice. Therefore, since smart boards and computers go hand-in-hand, it can be said that some of the schools that have invested in computers (the seemingly most widespread technology) have also invested in smart boards to help learners with any of the disabilities that were the focal point of this study. The discussion about computers and smart boards above can also be applied for “iPads” and “projectors”, which are the other themes that have a relatively high number of hits, with “iPad” having 15 hits and “projector” having 14 hits in the Leximancer analysis results. What this means is that iPads and projectors are other technologies that most of the schools that were sampled in this study had invested in to help meet the learning needs of children with disabilities. Notably, iPads can be used as computer devices while projectors are used alongside computers to project the learning content on a computer screen onto a larger screen. Therefore, it can be argued that on the basis of the Leximancer analysis findings, the themes “computer”, “(smart) board”, “iPad”, and “projector” are closely related. Also, in regard to the research question, it can be understood that the four technologies that have been mentioned above are the ones that most of the schools in the study have in place to help children with disabilities meet their learning needs. The four technologies are followed by others such as Braille, relevant computer programs and recorders. In addition to the graphically illustrating the themes shown in Figure 4.1, Leximancer also produced an illustration that is called a Concept Map. In relation to Leximancer, a concept map is a visual display of the concepts that are identified in a given set of text and the relationships between these concepts. When the Concept Map opened, the concepts that were visible were “computer”, “programs”, “board”, “iPad”, “projector”, “Braille” and “recorder”. Based on guiding information from Leximancer Pty Ltd (2017), these concepts are the ones that appeared most frequently in the interview text that was being analysed, and are also those that were most-connected to other concepts on the concept map. The brightness of each concept’s label indicates the frequency of that concept in the text that is being analysed (Leximancer Pty Ltd, 2017). The brighter the concept label of a given concept, the more frequent the concepts must have been coded in the text that is being analysed (Leximancer Pty Ltd, 2017). The Concept Map that was obtained from the analysis is illustrated in Figure 4.2. Figure 4.2: Leximancer analysis: conceptual map of questions 2, types of technology Like the ranking graphic illustrated in Figure 4.1, the Concept Map also shows the seven themes that Leximancer found in the data. As shown in Figure 4.2, the seven themes were computer, board, iPad, projector, Braille, programs, and recorder. This means that these seven were considered to be the most dominant tools used as technology in schools for the students with the aforesaid disabilities in Saudi Arabia. Figure 4.2 also shows the themes and their associated concepts. In the Leximancer output, the smaller grey nodes are the concepts and they are grouped into different rainbow-coloured themes. The most important theme place in this research appeared in red in accordance with the Leximancer output. This was followed, in a descending order of importance, by other themes that were identified by orange, yellow, green, blue and purple colours. Leximancer identified eighty-one concepts. The more different concepts were placed within a particular theme, the richer the meaning of the theme was expressed. Unlike the rank-order graphic which just portrays the relative frequency of the concepts, (Figure 4.1), the CM (Figure 4.2), gives us the opportunity to see which concepts constituted each them, as well as the possibility of investigating deeper into the nature of relationships among the different concepts. Because Leximancer uses the ‘hotness’ of colours to infer the importance of the different themes, we can see in Figure 4.2, that the computer was regarded as the most important theme in relation to the types of technologies that are available in schools for children with the different types of disabilities being highlighted in this study. This result is consistent with the interview data which demonstrated that all the educators agreed that the computer is an effective tool since it helps them in clarifying information faster and helps draw students’ attention through the use of applications such as Microsoft Office. For example, one participant said: “Computer and projector. It uses projectors (photo show), practical lessons and lessons to where the students can determine their needs, and daily lessons and activities.” The second most important theme as found by through Leximancer analysis is the board. Here, board was used to mean the smart board. The educators said that the smart board is useful for students with different disabilities because it enables the educators to display lesson contents easily through the use of a wide screen that facilitates enhanced vision by the students. This was typified by various responses of the research participants in which the participants mentioned the phrase “smart board”. Such statements include the following: “computers and smart board sensational and visual tools like the computer and educational objects and smart board”; “talking computer, Braille sense, pronto, and Smartboard view for visually weak students”; “smart board and project”; “computer, projector and smart board”; “resource room, smart board, educational games, iPad and computer”; “smart board, computer, iPad, TV and DVD”; “computers and smart board”; “sensational and visual tools like computer and educational objects and smart board”; “computer and smart board”; “computer laboratories, data show and smart board”; “computer, projector and smart board”; and “smart board, data show devices and resources room”. The finding about the smart board being the second most-mentioned technology suggests, while attempting to answer research question 2 of the study, that most of the schools that were sampled have invested in the smart board as one of the technologies that they use to help meet the learning requirements of children with disabilities. Given that smart boards are used to display content that is generated by computers, a connection can seen in that schools that have invested in computers are also likely to have invested in smart boards. This explains why the concepts “computer” and “board” appeared close together on the concept map, with “computer” having the brightest colour label followed by “board”. As it can be seen in the concept map, Leximancer identified the iPad as the third most important theme among the tools used in the sampled schools. This result emerged in the data that were gathered from the educators who participated in the research. In particular, some of the educators’ responses indicated “iPad and laptop” and that the educators’ schools had “educational audio programs downloaded on iPads by a company that supports this program mechanism.” Other responses that were provided by the research participants in which the word “iPad” was mentioned include the following: “smart board, computer, iPad, TV and DVD”; “iPad and projector”;”iPads and smart phones”; “Luttas Case is a program for communication by using CDs; iPads have programs for communication, speech viewer program for vocalizing words by computer and Voice Amplifying devices and vocalization training device”; “computer, Braille sense, and iPad”; “iPads and computer supported by talking programs”; “iPad”; “iPads and mobiles”; “smart board, iPads, and PowerPoint”; “projector, laptop, iPad”; “smart board, computer, iPad, projector, and magnifying lens”; and “computer, projector and iPad”. The responses provided by various educators suggest that the educators’ schools had in place devices such as iPads, smartphones and other related devices which they used alongside other technologies like computers, smart boards and voice amplifying devices. It can be argued that iPads and other related devices such as smart phones and tablets may be preferred by schools that have children with special needs because of the portability of such devices. iPads are also small gadgets and can be used to provide the interactivity that children with disabilities require in their process of engaging in different learning activities. The educators also mentioned projectors, Braille, programs, and recorders as the other types of technological tools that are used in schools for students with disabilities in the schools involved in the research. The fact that these concepts (projectors, Braille, programs, and recorders) appear in dull colour labels on the concept map indicate that they were not mentioned as frequently as the other three concepts (computers, smart boards and iPads). However, it is important to mention that the fact that projectors, Braille, programs, and recorders appeared on the concept map means that these devices or systems are some of the important technologies that schools that teach children with disabilities use after computers, smart boards and iPads. In particular, projectors are used together with other technologies such as computers and smart boards. It is therefore not surprising to find that the concept of “projector” closely followed that of “iPad” on the concept map. The same can be said for “Braille” and “programs”. Notably, Braille can be used to refer to various equipment and software that help people with visual impairments to read. And programs refer to different software that can be used together with computers and other devices such as iPads to help people with different types of disabilities to learn (e.g. voice recognition software or Braille software). The fact that “Braille” and “programs” were commonly mentioned by the research participants together with the technologies such as computers shows the interrelationship between these technologies. Examples of the statements that included “Braille” or “programs” and words like “computer” include “Computer, Braille sense, and iPad”; “Talking computer, Braille sense, pronto, and Smart view for visually weak students”; “Computer and Braille sense”; “Talking computer and Braille sense”; “Speaking computer, iPad, Braille sense, Vision program, NDBA, IPhone programs, Devices for people having good vision and changed to be using Braille, Cell phone” and “iPads and computer supported by talking programs”. Similarly, recorders can be regarded as special software or devices that help users to record different kinds of sounds. On the concept map in Figure 4.2, it can be seen that the concepts Braille, recorder, computer and programs appear close each other, thus indicating the correlation between these concepts. References Leximancer Pty Ltd. (2017). Leximancer user guide – release 4.5. Retrieved from http://doc.leximancer.com/doc/LeximancerManual.pdf Read More