Assistive Technologies 1

According to the National Education Association, over the last 10 years the amount of

special education students has grown over 30 percent (IDEA). With numbers growing every

year, teachers need to always be learning new ways to help students. We also have had

tremendous growth in technology and devices in the classroom during that same time. The

opportunities to help students has never been more readily available than it is today. The use of

assistive technology can help not only students with disabilities but those who may fall just short

in learning new content.

The technology I researched for this assignment is called Kurzweil 3000. It is an

interactive program that assists students in reading, comprehending, and displaying their

knowledge. A first glance at the program shows me that it was designed with students with

learning disabilities in the area of reading. It has the ability to take a piece of text and read it to

the students. While reading the text it also highlights the words for the students to follow along.

These features are the same as the ones I have on our school issued laptops my students use. The

difference comes with everything else it can do. It has a save feature that allows you to return to

a page with a push of a button, a talking calculator for math, and a magnifying text button for

visually impaired students. These features alone would be amazing to add but it also can create

study guides, writing paths, and even graphic organizers.

The other way this could be used in the classroom would be for ESOL or ELL learners in

the classroom. The technology has all the same features but can translate this into 18 different

languages and dialects. This feature would be amazing to have in the classroom for those

students who do not speak English as a primary language. We had a student last year from

Vietnam who spoke zero English so communication in our school was non-existent for him. A
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program that would allow him to communicate with his teachers would have been an excellent

resource.

The issue with this particular resource is going to be the price. The current price of one

user is $700. If you have two to nine users, it comes down to $400 a user. The next tier is 10-29

users for $200 and $3000, for 30 users. If a school wants to purchase a school package, then the

standalone price is $4,000. While this price seems high, it could be a benefit to the entire school.

Students who may be just above of the 25 percent range for an IEP could have access to a

program that would help them grow.

Overall, I feel this program would be a great benefit to any school who could acquire it.

It would lend itself to not only students with learning disabilities but students who need extra

help. It has relatively low maintenance as it only needs to be updated when new versions are

released. The price when breaking it down over multiple students at a school could be relatively

low depending on the number of students using it. My school currently has a form of assistive

technology on the Chromebooks, but it pales in comparison to this program. With all the new

technology in existence, schools need to be on the lookout for programs that will help, and I feel

this is that program.

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References
IDEA/Special Education. (n.d.). National Education Association. Retrieved July 7, 2020, from

http://www.nea.org/specialed