The use of technology in teaching students with special needs was revealed and indicated that teachers enhanced their teaching and flexibility. It was evident that teachers strived to provide equal opportunities for students to achieve their full potential. It was revealed that each student, no matter their challenges, should take part in training and deduction and not be subjected to discrimination. Industry and digital technologies are available to each student, making them easy to use (Cesare et al., 2021). Technology from PowerSchool has been at the forefront of helping students with disabilities; it reveals that no single technological solution can be suitable for all special needs students, and thus teacher involvement is highly recommended. PowerSchool special technology that is customized to suit students with disabilities has proven to increase the independence of each student, which frees them from the need for constant teacher involvement. PowerSchool technology was revealed to help improve teachers’ IEP compliance, which helps with timely funding.
The application of technology in teaching has helped instructors overcome the barriers of dealing with students with special needs. Speech recognition and synthesizing have helped reduce the use of paper and pen when dealing with students. It helps the students process visual information correctly, as some students need help to use the normal form (handwriting). Adaptive computing has also been shown to benefit students with disabilities, such as screen readers like JAWS and braille keyboards, which allow students with visual impairments to use computers (Cesare et al., 2021). Augmentative communication systems were said to help students overcome communication barriers. The system employs specialized computers to provide word prediction to improve communication effectiveness. Also, there is the use of web-based solutions that are suitable for distance learning (McNichol et al., 2021). For students who cannot get to the school, the system comes in handy as there are online applications for IEP evaluation, video chats, and automation of standards, which helps create a database that reduces the amount of paperwork and improves efficiency and productivity in an organization.
Ethical issues arise with the use of technology in teaching. Students’ information that can be stored on the laptops can be taken out of the school by the teacher without the consent of their parents. Their instructors can use laptops made for the students for other illegal means, thus hiding in plain sight. The use of technology made the teachers relax on their work as they just gave the students the gadgets and let them work with them without their guidance, while the whole time they were using the school internet for their gain. Students’ work was not protected as the instructors just let them on the gadgets without proper protection, and anyone could access them (Blaga, 2019). The teacher for the students with disabilities did not follow the “acceptable user policy,” which says they can do anything with the computers. Cases of lack of confidentiality were prioritized, as some teachers were reported not to keep student information confidential.
Ethics and law issues were addressed in different ways; the teachers were not allowed to carry out the school gadgets outside the premises that were made for the students. Confidentiality was highly advocated, and any case of leaking student information would be taken to a court of law. Each school employee, the teacher, was mandated to take care of students’ media, images, and work through copyright (Fichten et al., 2020). Student data and information were prioritized, and each teacher was told to secure the information in a secret place on the school premises. School gadgets were protected with firewalls to protect the students from cyberbullying and restrict some sites so that the teachers could only focus on the applications installed to teach the students.
Individualized education programs will help students with disabilities achieve their full potential by having access to learning material. They have a right to equal evaluation just like their counterparts, and ethical considerations must be put in place to ensure that students with special needs are well taken care of when it comes to the use of technology. Through the use of technology, it will be easy to help students with disabilities and create for them a unique platform for learning. Specializing and teaching will help realize the potential of each student, as no technology can fit every disabled student, so it will be good to deal with each student on a personal level.
