Exploring and Implementing Available Writing Educational Technology for Students with Disabilities and Their Peers

Abstract

Written expression is an area of the curriculum with which many students with disabilities (SWDs) struggle. One solution to mitigate the barriers associated with this topic is to use educational technology supports such as speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and predictive text. Even though there has been an increase in technology access in the classrooms, challenges still exist with regards to determining which tools support which students, training educators to use the tools, and training students to use the tools. This can be attributed to the time investment required for educators to learn new technologies. This article provides educators with the steps to introduce and implement an intervention where SWDs support the special educator in teaching general education peers to use Google’s Voice Typing.

Educational Technology to Support Written Expression: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Student writing will continue to become more dependent on technology tools due to the prevalence of computers and access to smart technologies (Graham, 2022); all students are connecting writing activities with technologies (Goldman et al, 2023). One-on-one device initiatives enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic further increase universal access to laptops and mobile devices, eliminating the traditional barrier to writing technologies (Dinc, 2019).…”

“…The various specific types of PT and STT included in this review (e.g., Co:Writer, Dragon, Read&Write) and others (e.g., Google Voice Typing, Microsoft Dictate) are widely referred to in practitioner articles as supports for struggling learners (Evmenova & Regan, 2019;Goldman et al, 2023;Rowland et al, 2020a). Research is needed to determine the exact features of the tools that benefit students to support WE outcomes.…”