Special Educational Needs and the Internet

Issues for the Inclusive Classroom

Chris Abbott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780415268028
• eBook ISBN: 9781134497102
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

With Internet access for every school now a reality, teachers are beginning to explore the use of the Internet in the education of children with special needs. This book describes its benefits for children across the spectrum of special educational needs, from those with physical disabilities or sensory impairment to those with learning or social difficulties. With contributions from leading practitioners in the field, this book addresses the huge range of possibilities the Internet and associated technology offer for these pupils. Combining current theory and debate with practical guidance and inspiring case studies, this book considers: * how the Internet can be used to gather and publish information * how to communicate effectively through technology * policy and management issues for schools * the continuing challenges for access and inclusion. This book will be of interest to all teachers involved in special education needs, in both mainstream and special schools.

Chapter 1
Making the Internet special

Chris Abbott

Those of us who have based our careers around the support and education of young people with special educational needs (SEN) have seen far-reaching changes in our understandings and hopes for the children we serve. Many of the writers who have contributed to this book are based in special schools which might once have been seen as separatist or non-integrated provision. It is evident from the experiences and understandings they share here that a special school now is quite different from those often or twenty years ago.

Inclusion is not about building ramps or changing laws, it is an outcome of a developing understanding about the entitlement of all young people to the same standard of education. That understanding developed quickly in many special schools, and it is perhaps paradoxical that many inclusive practices have in fact arisen from the activities of those institutions.

Many UK special schools were opened in the later years of the nineteenth century and were the product of the efforts of enlightened individuals who were working within the system in order to change it. Forgotten pioneers, like Miss Bennett, who opened a school in the bandstand in Battersea Park, London, for local children who were TB carriers and banned from school, had as their aim the eventual inclusion of the children they taught into mainstream education.

In the same way, teachers and carers in special schools today strive to ensure that the young people for whom they are responsible are able to be included as fully as possible in the educational and social life of the community that surrounds them. There is much to be achieved, of course, and too often separation is an end rather than a beginning. It is too often true that:

we live in a culture in which children are removed from one school and placed in another just because their differences are deemed unacceptable, although usually there will be a paucity of evidence to suggest that this will result in any kind of success.

(Bfflington 2000:2)

Many of the contributors to this book might agree with this analysis but they cannot change the situation alone; what they are able to do, and are doing with a pragmatic zeal which is to be commended, is to include the excluded, and to go some way to provide opportunities where the state may be deemed to have taken these away.

In his discussion of what he terms the ‘pathologising’ of children, by which they are named and then categorised, Billington (2000) is critical in particular of the rise of the ‘expert’ within psychology and education. He asserts that too often experts base their knowledge on their position within the power structure rather than on science. They ‘lay claim not merely to science, but to fact, truth and reason’ (Billington 2000:29). The experts he is thinking of are presumably those who are responsible for allocating students to institutions: educational psychologists, social workers, LEA officers and all the panoply of the municipal bureaucracy. Those are not the experts who have contributed to this book; the writers here are teachers and head teachers, or people who go into classrooms on a daily basis; their credibility is without question and their voices are too seldom heard.

This book is about inclusion and entitlement, not about technology. Technologies are more or less visible depending upon our familiarity with them. I took my pump-action fountain pen totally for granted when I was at school, but today I would need to show a young person how to fill it. Similarly, the courses I used to run for teachers explaining how to move a computer mouse or start a program are entirely redundant, since those skills have become commonplace and no longer need to be learned.

However, not everyone has the easy access to technology that many in the developed world take for granted. Although much effort has been put into making existing technologies inclusive and available, newer developments do not always consider this matter as carefully as they might. The Internet, a catch-all term for an ever-changing gathering of allied but different tools, technologies and practices, is the focus here; but much that is said arises from our past understandings of the mutually advantageous links between ICT and SEN (Hawkridge and Vincent 1992; Blamires 1999; McKeown 2000).

Previous writing on the benefits of the Internet in school (Grey 1999) has indicated something of the range of possibilities in this area for pupils with special educational needs. One publication (Banes and Walter 2000) has begun to discuss the Internet with the needs of a specific group of learners in mind, and it is no surprise that several of the writers here have mentioned that book and the work of its authors at Meldreth Manor School, a pioneer institution in the use of the Internet in special education.

This publication aims to take that work forward by sharing a range of strategies and practices that developed in the 1990s around the use of the Internet in SEN settings, and particularly where the aim is to promote and enhance inclusion.

Models of technology use within special education, and in order to support inclusion, have varied greatly over the 1980s and 1990s. We have largely moved on from any simplistic notion of the computer as a teaching machine, although some of the hype surrounding integrated learning systems bears strong similarities to that era of understanding. It was depressing if unsurprising to see in the early years of the Web, the mid-1990s, a small revival of discredited ‘drill and skill’ software, this time in the form of small applets on Web pages. Just as some of the early computer software seemed to exist in order to provide a showcase for its programmer, so did some of those short-lived on-line skills programs. The full story of those years has been told elsewhere (Abbott 2000) but it as well here to remember that so much in education is cyclical. With new technologies we always need to be on our guard lest we are offered once again the discredited and unhelpful practices of the past.

It is sometimes helpful to be reminded (Papert 1996) of the ways in which our understanding of the role of computers in education has developed. The 1970s and 1980s saw the beginnings of the use of computers to support learning, rather than the study of computers as an end in itself. That early experimental stage of what was often called computer-assisted learning was linked, too often, with a simplistic belief in the ability of machines to teach. As has been shown (Abbott 2000), it took many years for the tool metaphor to become accepted and it is still not universal. It is hardly surprising therefore that some educators have made the mistake of thinking the Internet can, by itself, teach students. It is simply the latest manifestation of an ICT tool, albeit one with considerably more potential than many of its forebears.

Such simplistic belief in the power of the machine would not be acceptable to any of the contributors to this book, all of whom place ICT at the centre of their teaching. Even more than this, their experience and understanding enable them to see how the Internet can promote inclusion, provide entitlement and build on achievement.They write from different perspectives, as teachers, managers, advisers or resource providers, but all have as the centre of their work the learner’s needs and a fundamental belief in inclusion for all.

We begin with the Web, perhaps the Internet phenomenon which above all others has brought the on-line world to prominence over the last decade. Not even invented at the beginning of the 1990s, the Web is now an all-pervasive presence in much of the developed world, where no advertisement is unaccompanied by a Web address and no television programme fails to have an associated Web site. The focus of the first part of the book is the use of the Web to gather and, more especially, to publish information.

There are particular issues that arise from Web use and these form the focus of the next chapter. Building a school or centre Web site is a process requiring much planning and thought: not so much about the technical processes, for that expertise can be purchased, but in order to consider what information should be published and why the school may need a Web site in the first place. It is a natural impulse to seek to celebrate the achievements of students, but this can be an area where careful thought is needed, especially if names and photographs are to be published on the Web. The chapter goes on to offer guidance in this area, and to suggest ways of ensuring that the site finds its intended audience.

Chapter 3, written from the perspective of a special school ICT co-ordinator, takes the process further. David Fettes explains how one severe learning difficulties (SLD) school set up a Web site which was aimed to be not so much a publicity agent for the school as a tool for learning to be used by the students. He explains how different groups of staff were involved in the process and the kind of planning that was needed to ensure that this was successful. As a classroom teacher Fettes is only too aware of the problems and challenges that arise as learners with a wide range of needs begin to access the Web, and he offers a variety of strategies to help other schools facing the same difficulties.

The British Museum is a much larger institution than Mandeville School but also has the needs of SEN learners very much in mind. Many large museums have developed extensive education Web sites and several have attempted to ensure that the needs of all learners are met in some way, but the British Museum was determined to plan entitlement of this kind from the beginning.

In Chapter 4 Carolyn Howitt and her colleague Jodi Mattes, who is now based at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, describe the importance of considering the needs of all users from the earliest stages of a project. They explain how their first priority was to ensure that the on-line collections database was accessible to visually impaired and blind users. They provide clear advice about screen readers and parallel text-only pages, as well as explaining the use of other text enhancement tools. Their project then went on to consider the needs of students with learning difficulties and, working with a partner special school, a further version of the collections database was developed. Learners in mainstream schools who have special needs were not forgotten either, and Howitt and Mattes explain how they built differentiation into their museum resource centre.

Sally Paveley divides her time between teaching in a special school and training special needs teachers to use ICT, so she is well placed to consider strategies for improving access to the Web. In Chapter 5 she explains how she has built on earlier understanding about accessing ICT in order to develop a range of approaches to the Web for students with learning difficulties. School intranets are considered, as are switch access and the need for usage agreements.

Part II deals with communicating information, very often through the use of e-mail, but increasingly through other tools, technologies and practices such as video-conferencing, fax, Web telephony or recorded video. Chapter 6 looks at the area of communication in general and notes that the entitlement to communicate is a basic human right.

The Internet is not the first communicative technology to which schools have had access, and valuable lessons can be learnt from the use of fax and telephone. E-mail is entering a new era for many users as symbol e-mail becomes possible, and this is discussed alongside newer on-line communicative practices such as chat in some of its many forms.

Some schools have built on the use of e-mail to extend and develop the curriculum for their pupils and include them more fully in the wider world. In Chapter 7 David Ware writes about how this has been done at one school for children with learning difficulties, and he explains why the school feels that this area is so important. With particular emphasis on the school’s very successful use of the Travel Buddies model, Ware provides guidelines and case studies to illustrate a wide range of different approaches to the curricular use of e-mail.

Ken Carter and his colleagues have been keen users of the fax machine through the innovative projects with which they have been involved while working with the dren community. Many past technologies have been particularly exclusive of the dren and hearing-impaired, but access to ICT and the Internet can be promoted for this group as the authors of Chapter 8 show. Carterjames and Lansdown describe the development of an on-line resource area for those who are dren or have a hearing impairment. They also explain the work of the research unit they have set up to investigate the use of ICT in inclusive environments.

As the head teacher of a special school in Glasgow, Maggie Pollard is well placed to give an overview of the use of the Internet in her school, an institution well known as a centre of excellence in this area. With strong reliance on the power of a good story, and belief in the entitlement of her students to gain access to their local environment, Pollard explains how the story of five swans was able to do just that. The school puts a strong emphasis on the importance of the arts: beautiful displays fill the classrooms and corridors, and music and drama have a major role in the curriculum. ICT and the Internet are used in innovative ways during arts activities, always linked with the school’s key principles, which are described in the chapter.

Part III deals with the vital policy and management issues which must be considered in this area. It begins with a discussion of the implications of the broadband connections which have recently arrived in schools. Such fast connection speeds have the potential to offer an Internet experience which is as much connected with video, audio and images as with text or even symbols.

Chapter 10 looks in more detail at the topic of symbols, the alternative systems of communication and literacy which have helped to include more and more students in education, recreation and daily life. Symbols provide access to communication and literacy, and as they begin to be more visible on the Internet it is important that all resource providers are encouraged to take note of the needs of this group.

The chapter also describes how the rapid improvement in connection speeds has led to changing practices in areas where it has been installed for some time, and then raises some of the important issues for schools seeking to use broadband Internet safely and successfully.

Mel Farrar ran a very successful special school in Oldham, north-west England, until it was amalgamated. He describes in Chapter 11 how the school’s beliefs were reflected in the ways in which it has used ICT and the Internet to promote its activities and celebrate achievement. Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the number of curriculum and consumer awards that can be won by institutions such as schools, and Foxdenton was very successful in this area. Farrar explains how the school Web site was crucial to this success and enabled the school to present itself as it wished rather than through the eyes and words of others.

Becta is the UK agency charged by the government with responsibility for supporting all aspects of ICT in the education system. Becta, and its predecessor NCET, have both been lucky enough to have access to members of staff with particular knowledge of the SEN and inclusion area. When Becta was asked to take over responsibility for the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) it was not long before plans were laid for the ambitious Inclusion site. In Chapter 12 Terry Waller, a long-time NCET and Becta stalwart, and Chris Stevens, now at Becta after being responsible for SEN in the curriculum at a government agency, describe the development of national resources to support teachers who are committed to inclusion. They explain the differing ways in which mailing lists and Web sites can provide support, and some of the thinking behind the Inclusion site. They also offer a valuable summary of the ways in which government has sought to legislate and intervene in this area, and the chapter illustrates the framework within which the work described in the other chapters has been able to take place.

John Galloway works as an SEN advisory teacher in a local education authority, but he too has a strategic role, although across a smaller range of schools and with a need to provide locally tailored rather than national ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms
• Chapter 1: Making the Internet Special
• Part 1: Gathering and Publishing Information
• Part II: Communicating with Others
• Part III: Policy and Management Issues
• Glossary