The Council for Exceptional Children’s Division of Technology and Media (TAM) has come up with a great tool for helping teachers know how to evaluate software to see if it fulfills the needs of our students. Keeping in mind that all students’ brains develop differently and that we must understand the psychology of each child individually, this checklist identifies what we need to consider when choosing the appropriate software to suit our students. This checklist reaches beyond the typical student and evaluates the software according to the needs of a child who is learning disabled. Go to http://www.tamcec.org/pdf/TIA%20Nov%202007%204Web.pdf to see the latest issue of this newsletter. Here, you will find an in depth explanation of how the checklist was devised, what its purpose is and why it was created. At the end of the article are reproducible that you can use to test software for yourself. Most software available today offers some sort of downloadable short term version that can be used as a trial version; I recommend (especially for teachers whose kids have learning disabilities). With the trial version, use it for yourself. Then observe a student using it, complete the checklist and determine that the software is appropriate for the needs in your classroom. Do this before purchasing the programs and you will save yourself money and aggravation.
Boone, R, Higgins, K, (2007, Nov). The Software Checklist: Evaluating Educational Software for Use by Students with Disabilities. Technology in Action, 3:1, Retrieved March 20, 2008, from http://www.tamcec.org/pdf/TIA%20Nov%202007%204Web.pdf
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3 comments:
Thanks for the checklist. I'm not a school teacher, but I can see the benefit in using this check for other aspects of my job. Many of the questions could apply to anyone.
This type of checklist makes sense for looking at software in general. Knowing what you want out of it and your targeted audience should be considered before purchasing for each unique educational environment. Here is a link to an additional article by Higgins and Boone on this subject.
http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.aspx?r=785
KB
Thank you so much for posting this. I do plan to use it. I am a member of the CEC, but I didn't subscribe to the technology dept. information. I am so glad to see that there is something to help us decide if something is appropritate rather than just using teacher discretion since some teachers underestimate student ability while others overestimate.
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