You Need
Review of SpecialneedsIT 2002
You might not believe this but mainstream teachers desperately need to learn from the SEN world. At the present time they are not doing that but it is not all their fault. The SEN world, to the outsider, can often seem to be cliquey, a private ghetto with its own codes, rules and rituals.
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| The Business Design Centre, Islington where the SpecialneedsIT exhibition takes place. |
Nevertheless, mainstream teachers have a lot to learn particularly in the area of ICT. Lengthy reports bulging with dubious statistics tumble off the presses each year desperately trying to point to evidence that ICT is having a positive effect on learning. Few are completely convincing. However, there is one sector of education where such special pleading is not needed, where it is so obvious that ICT is having a profound effect that only a Luddite liar would deny it. That, of course, is in the area of special needs.
Looking at the SpecialneedsIT London 2002 show held in Islington at the beginning of November you begin to wonder which truths should be excavated from the experiences of SEN teachers and carried back to the world of mainstream schools. One obvious conclusion might be that we are all special needs and that most pupils could all benefit from the subtle application of information technology. There are more, many more.
ICT is desperately needed in SEN schools. The child who was born autistic or with cerebral palsy can find a kind of salvation with ICT. It helps them maximize their potential. But don't all children need ICT just as much? Don't all kids need to maximize their potential? Are we kidding ourselves if we believe that centuries old teaching methods are doing that? The improvements that we regularly see in SEN schools are there for the copying. It requires the leap of faith from mainstream teachers that many SEN teachers have already made. If ICT can do what it has already done in SEN what might it do in mainstream when mainstream education starts to take it seriously?
SEN teachers are often working in situations that are fraught and they will call on everything to break through to a child. What we don't realize is that teachers in mainstream are also working in desperate situations but for some strange reason they do not call as readily on ICT's unique power... If teachers using ICT can make a massive difference to the life chances of many children than so can all teachers if they are as inventive and open minded. ICT, after all, is about releasing potential.
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| The main exhibition hall at Special Needs London 2002 with 'upstairs' in the background and 'downstairs' in the foreground. |
Why, we should ask, is ICT so essential in SEN and yet so marginal in mainstream? The SpecialneedsIT London 2002 show in Islington is divided into two sections: upstairs and downstairs. At Islington they are different worlds. Upstairs is the conventional: pens, puppets, musical instruments and books. Downstairs is the heart of the show. This is the assistive technology area. "Assistive Technology" is a probably an American phrase in origin. It is used to describe the ICT end of the market. "Liberation Technology" might be a better phrase.
The simple reading pen on the Don Johnston stand means that all texts can be opened up. The student guides the pen across the lines of text in a book or magazine and the text is read to them. Even definitions of words can be given. The digital video portfolio from Inclusive Technology can be used anywhere. Quite simply it is a new way of reporting. Achievements can be recorded on video and burnt on to CD to become the new way of reporting. Cool?
You find devices to give voice to speak words. One teacher was criticized for spending too much money on a BIGmack. A BIGmack is a device that when pressed will say a word. "What price is a word?" asked the teacher. "How much is a word worth?" The switches on the Penny and Giles stand open up students to all areas of the curriculum.
One notable feature of the whole show is the absence of most of the big guns in ICT. Not enough money to be to be made? Or are they lacking the level of invention that is required to impress these SEN teachers?
If they looked at SEN, mainstream teachers might open up the debate about whole class teaching. SEN teachers are about working with individuals, with hardware and software targeted at individuals. Whole class teaching in SEN works about as well as whole class counselling. Does it really work any better in mainstream? Would whole class work be done if it did not suit the lazy teacher and was not a command from on high? For the first time in history we have the tools to individualise the curriculum and what do we do? Whole class teaching. Why should Granada/Semerc's IEP Writer be confined to SEN? IEP is something that could well be adopted in mainstream. How many mainstream teachers have that degree of detail about their students?
Have you ever been in a multi-sensory room in a secondary school? Probably not, but every kid should have that experience. Ever composed music with a light pen? Ever had images of war twelve foot high beamed on to a wall with sound full on to recreate an experience of a bomber taking off? It is thrilling, stimulating and just a little frightening. OptiMusic hits you between the senses; it is simply sensational. Every child would love to experience it. It is a musical system that anyone can play by interacting with coloured light beams, a great tool for stimulating the senses and bringing out creativity wherever it resides. Put this into a multi-sensory room and it would be like living in the middle of a fantasy world.
Most mainstream teachers do not know about the kind of technology teaching that goes on in SEN schools. And yet there is an insistence that many SEN students should attend mainstream schools. Nice ideal, like the care in the community strategy that ended up with needy people ending up on the streets. Many SEN pupils would drown in the mainstream as things are now. One way forward is for all teachers to at least become aware of what is going on in SEN.
The SEN world needs to look at itself. Is it outward facing or does it quite like its exclusive special status? How are you going to present yourselves to mainstream teachers? You have nothing to be ashamed of. You have more to give to them than they have to give you. How long can we keep these separate worlds? Should we even be trying?
John and Ann Crick's "Clicker" has an enormous following and is one of those programs that can bridge the gap between SEN and mainstream. Similarly IntelliPics Studio is a massive multimedia program that is under the umbrella of Inclusive Technology. That could bridge the gap too. It is sad but true that once material is labelled SEN it is pigeon holed for life.
We do need to move closer. How we do it is a matter for debate. It should start soon and be fairly brief.
Report by Jack Kenny
November 2002