Teaching+the+learning+disabled+with+web+2.0

**Teaching learning disabled students with the tools of web 2.0**
The new web, web 2.0, is the way of the future. It is an amazing, interactive, and collaborative work space. We can now use the power of the people to increase and improve our own work. It is a very exciting, and useful tool as both a learner and a teacher. Incorporating Wikis and blogs into our teaching and learning styles, in my opinion, helps our students and teachers begin to speak the same language. Our students are digital natives. Therefore, when we use the web to enhance teaching we are engaging our students on an entirely new level.

As a teacher, I have gotten very excited about the possibilities that web 2.0 holds. However, I have begun to process the problems that it holds for students with learning disabilities. According to the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities, one in five people have a learning disability. ( http://www.nichcy.org/disabilities/specific/pages/ld.aspx) Learning disabled students have a huge impact on the way we teach, and the tools that we use to teach. We must make every child successful. So how can I effectively use web 2.0 with my disabled students? With the associability issues is it possible?

I think that by using the power of the web we can actually make an LD student's life easier. For instance by using blogs, teachers can post assignments, classroom notes, and other classroom material on their blog. This is beneficial for the entire class, but would also allow a student who struggles with a disability to review class material multiple times. We could also use blogs for students to respond to writing prompts, student who have difficulty writing with the traditional pen and paper can participate, particularly if they use speech-to-text or word prediction software to assist in their writing.

As we as society become more aware of the power of the web, we also need to be more aware of the barriers it brings to the learning disabled. Just as Universal Design has become the norm when building a new office complex, when developing new software, developers need to strive to make it accessible to all. Make sure navigation is consistent throughout the site**.** Support increased text size, don’t use color to convey information, provide content using video and audio, and keep things simple. By just being aware of different learning styles, we can help make this exciting new tool accessible to everyone.

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Learning Disabled students change in learning styles.

In his article, Growing Up Digital: How the Web Changes Work, Education, and the Ways People Learn, John Seely Brown (2002) uses ecology as a metaphor to describe an environment for learning. Brown says, “An ecology is basically an open, complex adaptive system comprising elements that are dynamic and interdependent. One of the things that make an ecology so powerful and adaptable to new contexts is its diversity.” Brown further describes a learning ecology as, “a collection of overlapping communities of interest (virtual), cross-pollinating with each other, constantly evolving, and largely self-organizing.”New Web 2.0 technologies and websites, such as a blog, Wiki or YouTube, make new demands on learning and they provide new support to learning, even as they also dismantle some of the learning supports upon which education has depended in the past. If we agree that there are changes occurring across the learning ecology and that new conceptualizations are required to use these emerging technologies, then some care should be taken to think deeply about the impacts of Web 2.0 on the processes and practices of pedagogy. The above quotations taken from John Seely Brown (2002) holds true in some of today’s classrooms with older teachers. As a co-teacher in a regular classroom, I am consistently trying to change the view of fellow teachers in how they deal with many of my learning disabled students and the change in their learning styles. The Web2.0 site [] can be used to teach Learning Disabled students to write all genre of essay writing. Many students enjoy expressing themselves if they can create a product at the same time. In using goanimate.com, students use the site to create and tell a story using characters supplied or purchased on the web site. I have seen many of my students become so engrossed in creating their story that they at times do not want to leave the classroom. This Web2.0 site lets the students see their writing come to life in the form of a live cartoon which can be anywhere from a few minutes to ten minutes. Not only does this site capture the attention of Attention Deficit Disorder students, many of whom have attention problems, but it brings out their creative side and shows their peers that they are able to develop a great product in the classroom. Teachers can also use this site to teach a lesson to the visual students in the classroom. Students will be more willing to watch a cartoon that is teaching a lesson over and over again, than hear the voice of the teacher repeating the topic over and over. As a teacher, we have to learn to move away from the uses of only pen and paper as a way for students to express mastery of any topic.  By Wayne Wollaston

= **Students’ Use of Lifelong Learning Skills** =

Information and communication technologies are drastically changing the world we live in, and education institutions are now scrambling to attend to these changes. Involving students in Web 2.0 intrinsically motivating learning activities is an important part of a child's education. The surfacing of Web 2.0 technologies has great potential to support lifelong learning. It allows informal, real time, day-to-day learning. Unfortunately, people are often ill-equipped to engage in lifelong learning (Dunlap, 2005), let alone take full advantage of the abundance of resources available at their fingertips via Web 2.0 technologies. Lifelong learners have specific characteristics that allow them to learn, unlearn, and relearn. They are able to learn and adapt because they reflect on the quality of their understanding and seek to go beyond what they know (Dunlap, 2005). This requires a love of learning and willingness to engage in learning. T his is the very skill set needed for lifelong learning. But there are different types of learners. M any educators and personnel are finding  out today, that the illiterate of the 21st century will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn—in other words, those who lack lifelong learning skills and dispositions. Our goals as teachers need to change from a teacher centered learning environment to a student centered learning. A student centered learning environment allows for student discovery and construction of knowledge from using hands on learning. This type of discovery will make learning more meaningful and lasting for students. This will hopefully encourage and develop students to become lifelong learners.

By Pam Few