The benefit of using IT in the classroom has been explored and debated many times over the last decade or so. At Salisbury House we have been exploring using online Maths and English programmes with some of our older children who have special needs.
We have found that this opens a window of opportunity for these students to both engage with academic content more independently and also to learn a life skill, such as data capturing, emailing and typing.
We are currently using IXL, which has a South African syllabus, including using South African money in its Mathematics syllabus. The student is able to click on each question and it is read aloud, which takes away the added challenge of reading the question, along with figuring out the answer. The visual cues of online programmes are more aesthetically pleasing than a regular text book and they are often interactive. Above all, working on a laptop effectively gives students with special needs a sense of autonomy and an opportunity to enter the regular job market later in life.
