Article Review #2

This article is titled technological aids for inclusive classroom written by and Richard Howell for theory into practice volume 35 number one inclusive schools continuing the debate winter 1996 pages 58 to 65. Published by Taylor and Francis LTD.

Mr. Howell starts off this article given sympathy it seems to regular education teachers who he thinks will be given more responsibilities for students with disabilities in their classrooms. He looks at whether the technological advances in both tools and techniques offers any help in reducing the load placed on regular education teachers. Richard Howell talks about the first applications of computers into education which were not adopted into many school districts around the country but a select few computer labs were placed in African-American Communities that showed promising results. According to the article when the microcomputer came out it was used as the primary educational aid with low achieving students using it for drill and practice instruction, and high achieving students being taught programming skills.

In next section of his article Howell talks about some of the positive and negative aspects of learning with computers. One positive is that it increases socialization skills, it was once thought and that computer instruction would decrease socialization and promote isolated types of learning environments. It has been shown that students working within a certain programming environment engage in more collaborative problem-solving with on task related assignments and had more appropriate social interactions with peers. More benefits of computer-based learning is students learn more factual and conceptual information have a better retention and transfer of learning and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. A negative aspect of learning with computers is children using traditional methods such as maps and atlases are able to achieve the same results.

In the last section Mr. Howell talks about specific special education groups and how each disability can benefit from computers and technology integration. In the last section Howell also briefly discusses the costs associated with technology integration, and that teachers should receive training on the devices and technology to be effective in teaching it to students. Lastly the author discusses of the maintenance of involved with these devices, and how it should be an important part of safeguarding your investment.