Inclusion in the classroom has become a topic of discussion in recent years. Though all students deserve to be included, those with disabilities often get overlooked or cast aside. Many theories and ideas have surfaced in regards to this, but successful execution of inclusive education is seen few and far between. One school that has effectively integrated the inclusive model into each of its classrooms is the Hope Technology School. As a K-12 school - including a Vocational Education program and a developing high school called “Learning Curve” - HTS is the embodiment of implementing inclusive education. Russ Ewell sits down with students and educators from HTS to get their thoughts on what inclusion means to them, along with practical ways to execute inclusion using technology in the classroom.
Episode References
Inclusion in the classroom has become a topic of discussion in recent years. Though all students deserve to be included, those with disabilities often get overlooked or cast aside. Many theories and ideas have surfaced in regards to this, but successful execution of inclusive education is seen few and far between. One school that has effectively integrated the inclusive model into each of its classrooms is the Hope Technology School. As a K-12 school - including a Vocational Education program and a developing high school called “Learning Curve” - HTS is the embodiment of implementing inclusive education. Russ Ewell sits down with students and educators from HTS to get their thoughts on what inclusion means to them, along with practical ways to execute inclusion using technology in the classroom.
Episode References
Hey producer, Nate here. A quick note before we begin. So we recorded this podcast on location. Uh, so please bear with any audio quality differences between the microphones that we had. Might throw you off a little bit at the beginning, but it should ask without by the end. All right, please enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:digital[inaudible] digital scribbler.
Speaker 4:This is a great podcast. Where on location at the hope technology school. It's very exciting. We've got some of the students from learning curve here from hope technology school and they're going to help us today with a podcast on inclusion. The actual practical real ways that we involve ourselves with inclusion can do differ, but some people can execute on inclusion and other people have it as a theory hope technology school is excellent at executing inclusion. They've had a number of graduations from the school kids who've gone on to college and had done really well. They are still in the, in the throws are though the work of building their learning curve, which is their high school program. And we're excited to have some of those high school students with us. Um, today. Um, we have with us, uh, in a an assortment of, uh, creatives. Uh, Matthew and Christopher Mia, uh, one of their teachers, Courtney, Dylan, Kayla and Jaden, and they're all here to enlighten us. Let's get started with really some of the ideas and thoughts about education and accessibility, which are important with regard to inclusion. So let me set the table with these things. Of course. My name is Ross. Julian, as I've already mentioned this as the digital scribbler podcast and this episode, we will discuss ways in which technology can open up the education system for children with disabilities. Now, one of the key words regarding inclusion and, and use of technology and education is accessibility, being accessible, the capacity to make it easy and frictionless for someone to be able to operate in a classroom regardless of their ability or disability. And so I want to share with you a few statistics to put things into perspective. The high school graduation rate for students with disabilities is significantly lower than that of those without disabilities. A study conducted by John Hopkins University in 2013 concluded that 62% of people disabilities graduate high school as opposed to the 81.4% of American students as a whole. They graduate high school. That means 20% fewer people with disabilities graduate high school than those without this disparity is significant and linked unquestionably to the inaccessibility of the American education system and its inability to serve students with disabilities adequately. This is the truth in fact and one has already mentioned that hope technology school has been successful at overcoming. When I ended up to go to Facebook a couple of years ago, they invited me to come in and talk about accessibility because it's not only an issue with education as an issue with technology. It's an issue with life. Now to continue to add context, there's a history of work being done to make the education system more accessible. In 1985 the individuals with disabilities education act, Ida was put in place. This act quote makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities and throughout the nation and ensure special education and related services to those children. The Ida governs how states and public agencies provide early intervention, special education and related services to more than 6.5 million eligible infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities. So the idea of education and technology making education more accessible, which really comes down to being inclusive technologies is important for an minimum 6.5 million children. Now, although this act aims to open the education system, it does not necessarily mean that sufficient means of accessibility and inclusion are available or offered to students with disabilities. It is excellent in theory, but rarely excellent in execution. Although legal measures ensure access to education at a very foundational level, the education system and classroom settings are still not geared toward those with disabilities. They often do not have the resources, human, technological or otherwise, or the training to ensure that disabled students can make the most of their education. This is why I want to introduce some ideas for ways in which we can work both. On an individual and societal basis to make the classroom and learning as a whole more accessible to students with disabilities. Again, this podcast is not about theory. It's about the ability to execute, to get it done, and it requires thinking different, so how can we work to change this? Technology plays a huge role in providing independence and learning equity. Students with disabilities assisted technology comes in many different forms, ranging from everyday devices like keyboards and laptops to more specified devices like hearing aids and screen readers. Assistive technology is primarily defined as a type of technology that is used to assist a disabled person and give them the tools to succeed and procure independence as most spaces educational and otherwise aren't typically designed. With accessibility in mind. There are many assisted tools and every day in our technological age, more are being developed. These are significantly improving both the quality of life and access for people with disabilities and students in particular. However, even when students have the same disability, it does not imply that they need the same technology or tools to learn. Just as no student has exactly the same learning style. Each disabled student has a different of optimizing their access. Finding a system for each student is a highly individualized process and often one that will only be optimized through trial and error and I make you're going to learn that hope technology school is excellent at providing individualized process to learning. They know how to think different. I like to go over a few specific assistive technologies and explain how they can have drastic impacts on the academic performance and engagement of the student with disability. A particular tool that can benefit students with a wide range of disabilities is text to speech software, which as the name suggests, converts text to speech. This is helpful for those who have difficulty reading print, including those who are blind, have dyslexia, have a learning disability, autism, ADHD, or a variety of other disabilities. This can open up the classroom and course material to students while also giving them the ability to independently function when it comes to studying and reading materials instead of having to either rely on someone else or not get the most of the material. That's the possibility is made when we we can innovate and avoid the resistance to innovation by using these technological tools. Teach thought provides a breakdown of how this type of technology works. Explaining that quote, the technology works by scanning and then reading the words to the student in a synthesize voice using a large number of speech sounds that make up words in any given context. With the advances in speech synthesis, t t s technology is more accurate and lifelike than ever. Now let's get to the bottom line. Empowering. There are also many tools and technologies available to students with autism, although not particularly high tech noise. Canceling headsets can be used in the classroom for students taking an exam quiz or filling out a worksheet. This will drown out any background noise that has the potential to overstimulate them or disrupt their focus. Noise. Canceling headsets can also be a good option for those with ADHD or other disabilities that result in difficulty maintaining focus. In terms of autism as well, there are increasing amounts of apps for the iPad or iPhone geared at helping autistic students communicate. For instance, advent free speech and protocol for texts all aim to help non verbal children communicate and of course digital scribbler produces quick talk. They turn type words and pictures to speech as well as provide exercises for practicing using the system to communicate better. They're also a variety of forms of technology that can help those who have difficulty with fine motor skills navigate the classroom. Recent devices like the iPad or certain tablets can be useful in allowing a student to circumvent the physical act of writing and still function independently. For instance, students can fill out worksheets on an electronic device for either math and language arts that require clicking a correct answer or an abbreviate to allow them to still participate in an exercise. Additionally, many alternative keyboards are available that can be created and programmed with features specific to students with accessibility needs. I'll be attaching a link to a vendor that sells these types of keyboards below, so if you are a student you know is interested, they can quickly and easily find it. This of course is just a brief dabbling in the wide range of technologies available. There are over 400 products that aim to make the world and classroom more accessible to those with disabilities. These assisted technologies and accessibility tools will undoubtedly improve the ability of the school system to accommodate students with disabilities and ultimately have numerous positive outcomes on an individual level. It will allow students independence and equity when accessing the classroom as well as studying and doing homework outside of the classroom on a systematic scale. It would undoubtedly result in much higher statistics of students with disabilities graduating high school and college with better grades as they will finally have equal access as their non-disabled peer. This is the power of inclusive technologies at this point. That is not as much a matter of technology and devices being developed as they already have. It is much more a matter of students all over the world having access to these technologies in a classroom setting, but also in a personal capacity. The major problem is that access to these resources is limited by many factors. Whether that is lack of knowledge or financial barriers we need to do better to remedy this problem without limiting students access to their education. A considerable part of this process is raising awareness and bridging understanding so that students with disabilities can be empowered and have access to the education system. Carol Dweck talks about a mindset growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. The belief with fixed mindset is that students are essentially who they are when they enter the classroom, and there's not much you can do to change it, but a growth mindset takes on these technologies and puts them to work to help students overcome their human limits. And so again, today we're fortunate enough to have students from hope technology school who have used technologies, who've worked really hard in school, who've worked with teachers to create a culture where accessibility exist for all types of students.
Speaker 1:Pardon the interruption for a quick word from our sponsor. The hope technology school fosters achievement through innovation, technology and community and a challenging academic environment through inclusive classes. They provide opportunities for every student regardless of ability to thrive academically, physically and socially in order to develop into globally responsible citizens. They offer an individual learning experience to all students in each of their accredited classrooms from preschool through high school. So if you'd like to learn more, visit hope tech school.org, that's hope tech school.org. Now back to the show.
Speaker 4:So let me just start off by asking you guys a few questions. We've got, some are great students here, but uh, one
Speaker 5:of the questions on here that I think is really interesting and you guys worked as a team to kind of think these things through, but as do you think inclusion is popularized in our culture or do we have a long way to go? That's a, that's a really cool question. What do you think about that? Kaylee, you have a thought on that?
Speaker 6:Um, I think inclusion is definitely not popularized in our culture. Um, just cause I think that people usually bully people instead of include them. And they usually singled out. And I don't think people really like know much about special needs. So then they don't include because they do not understand.
Speaker 5:So does that mean to you guys that when you practice inclusion it's going to decrease how much bullying goes on? Do you think that, do you have any thoughts on that? Meaning that when you have an inclusive class where there's all kinds of different students and they're always accepted, do you think that it makes bullying less often or do you think it's more often? What do you think? Um, I definitely think it'll make bullying less often because if everyone is included in that same group, then no one would be like looked down on cause they'd all be like together and no one would be alone. So you guys have an inclusive class, is that right? Yes. So what, what do you, what do you do to help include each other? Talk, you talk, chat. You just chat. So in other words, instead of leaving somebody in the corner silent and ignoring them, you include everybody in conversations. That's interesting, right, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. Um, I would say just being a friend to everyone and, and, and Matthew was talking about that being a friend involves talking. Yeah. So what are some of the ways, like I know you like, uh, I don't want to say what you like, but you have some favorite sports and favorite games. Are there any sports or games you use to include people or try to learn how to include people? Um, well, just like any, any game in general, you just like, if they don't know how to play it and then you can, um, you can just teach them and then cool lead them in and then they can have fun with you. Because I know a lot of times, you know, I, I, when I was going to school, if a kid couldn't do something, you just generally left them out. And so what you're basically saying is that hope technology school, the mindset, you guys have this, if someone's not able to do something, you're willing to teach them how to do it with. What do you think about that?[inaudible] have you ever, have you ever seen that happen at the school where, uh, where someone's being left out and you guys try to include them?
Speaker 6:[inaudible] most of the time in like PE or like some sport that we play
Speaker 5:in PE. Oh okay. That's cool. So that means when you guys get a break in, you're out in PE, well a break from sitting in a chair in the classroom that a lot of times you guys are trying to include kids who might not normally be included in that. That's awesome. All right. What do you guys think about, um, the, what it means to include, cause we've been talking about inclusion. So what does that even mean? Cause a lot of people out there saying, I like what these kids are talking about. Less bullying, more talking, more helping other kids be involved, but they may not even know what it is, what inclusion is. So just tell them what it means to you. Um, honestly I think what inclusion mean to just not leave anyone behind. And honestly, like an example of inclusion is if is sitting alone, you would just go up to them and include them in your group. Right. That's what friends do. And in order to include yet to be friends to everyone. So you know, I would got to go to one of your basketball games and a lot of people may not know the hope technology school has an assortment of sports and one of them is basketball. Um, and maybe later on, uh, Courtney, the teacher who's in the podcast can talk about, uh, the sports they have. But, uh, I know if you, if you play on the basketball team, so does the basketball team have inclusion? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Ha. How does, how has that happened? You mean you have some kids on your basketball team that have special needs? Yeah. So does, does that bother you? Does that make you feel like, oh no, we're going to lose now? How do you feel about it? Uh, we just helped to include them and get them a chance to, um, just make a great play and have fun. Oh, that's cool. So you've actually worked to get them a good place so they can feel like they get the experience or something like that. Does it, does it make everybody on the team happy when someone was special needs succeeds? Is that, do you, have you noticed that? Yeah. Cause it shows progress shows progress. And does it mean a lot to the kid? If you noticed that the one kid that's special needs is able to succeed with other kids that are typical, there's a sense of them feeling more of the group, more part of the group because they're able to do what everybody else can do. Have you noticed that? Yeah. Speeds. I remember one game, one of the kids on our team who has special needs made a shot and everyone just went crazy. So that just made us all happy that he made his first shot at the season. Feels like a group accomplishment. Huh? So one of the things we're learning about inclusion is inclusion is something that makes everyone feel successful. Not only the special needs kid or person with disability to get included, but people who are typical feel successful, helping that individual make progress. So these are some pretty good things. Do you guys have any questions? Get any questions in your mind right now? Got Any jokes? No jokes are made jokes. You don't have any jokes? I've got a joke. Not, not. Who's their mo? Mo Hu. Mosquito. There you go.[inaudible] what did you think when I was, when we were going over the introduction, what did you think about the fact that it said there's 6.5 million kids with disabilities? I don't think it's too crazy because there's a lot of people in our world, you know? Um, but it's still a big number of people. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's a bit, it's a, it doesn't surprise you in some sense cause you may be having been in an inclusive classroom so you are aware of people with disabilities. Right. Whereas I think some kids aren't. Like when I was growing up, I really, I just was like, oh that's the special ed kid over there. I never had them in my classroom. I never associated with them. And so by being in hope technology school, I think you guys are a lot more familiar with that. How about, how about you guys? Anybody else? 6.5 million. Yeah. Um, I'm surprised that it's so low because, um, well I guess one reason why is because not everyone is diagnosed. Yes. And um, just everyone has their challenges. So, um, it might not seem like they have, um, like any special needs, but they might have some. Yeah. Yeah. And we do that fact that the typical ed graduation rate of typical students is 84%. You have to wonder if that 20% are people who have an undiagnosed disability and just right out of school. Right. Yeah. So I think that's an excellent thought. Go ahead, Courtney.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Even as an educator, I was actually amazed by the, by the stat because it made me think, wow, we really, we really need this and we really need inclusion just in general. Um, cause I thought that was a, a large number of, of students that were missing in, in our education system.
Speaker 5:Right. And some of these students are people who grow up to be famous. Albert Einstein was in Churchill. Those are two guys who went to church. It wasn't very good in school. I mean most of you may not, or many of you may not know who he is, but he's the prime minister who led England is the reason that World War II was one. Albert Einstein didn't even speak for the first few years. Uh, and so what happens a lot of the times is we think people are not able to do anything special because when they, when they first meet them, when they're young, they're limited. But if they can get through that limit and get through those breaks, make, make a breakthrough through those limits, all times something special happens. All right. Let's talk about a couple of other things. What helps you be successful in your classroom? So you've got an inclusive classroom. What helps you be successful in there? Not An overload of homework. Not An overload of homework. Yeah. Don't want to get followed up. Tell me why homework can, can make it more difficult to learn. Um, well if there's too much of it, it's hard. It's easy to get like behind if you don't finish it and then you're already behind, you know? Yeah. Um, and then you keep on getting more and then it piles on and piles on and then you sometimes start to procrastinate and then, you know, I'll, I'll just keeps on piling on. So it sounds like in your classroom here at hope technology school, this, the, the teachers are really focused on making sure you learn, not just giving you a lot of homework. So that's pretty cool. What else you guys think about it? Um, mmm, I think like, um, something that helps me be successful in the classroom is usually like listening to music, right? He's, when I listen to music while I work, it just takes my mind off of things I could that could be distracting. So what music do you like to listen to? Uh, I usually listen to like hip hop, sometimes pop. Can you give me a favorite, a favorite song? Or if they were artist. How about artists? I have favorite artist. I like listening to Brock Hampton, Brock Hampton. I've never even heard of Rockhampton. Rockhampton. I listened to his islands. You listen to them. Sometimes you have rockhamptons like it cause listen to music while you're doing work. I do. You do Christopher, what do you listen to? Um, I also listen to hip hop and rap. Okay. Anybody to any favorite song or artists? Um, I like a juice world. Alright. I don't even know who that is. Uh, Zach Fox. I don't know who that is either, but I'm glad you're listening to them. I hope. All right. Okay, cool. So when you listen to music, sometimes it helps you. I imagine relax helps you focus and that's really cool thing. And you're allowed to do that in the school, Huh? So some schools wouldn't allow you to listen to music while you work. So again, that's another way that hope technology school makes sure that your education and your homework is in visual individualized to you. All right, let's look at a couple of other things. Cause I think you guys have been thinking about a lot of these things. Can you tell me what kind of devices or technology you use since this podcast is about the use of technology? What kind of devices do you use? Can you tell me about it? Anybody? Chromebooks. Chromebooks. All right. All right. And is this a laptop? A desktop? Would he have laptop or, yeah, a laptop. Okay. What else? We use phones to phones. Smartphones, yet we allow the phone. They don't ban smartphones. Huh? All right. So use them[inaudible] and that helps you in, in class helps you do better. Is that right? Any other devices that you use? Um, we use the TV sort of, we look at it, but it's connected through the computer. So I guess we're technically still using the computer. Yeah, but you're using, you're using projection technology so that while you're working on your Chromebook you can also have the teacher explaining things from the screen and that keeps you guys all networks together. If you know what that means. You're all working together on it. Courtney, are there?
Speaker 7:Yeah, I uh, for English class we use an audio book in class, so we listen to the book as a class during class time and then they have access to that if they want to read it at home or there's also youtube will often read the books out loud that we have in class also. Okay. All right.
Speaker 5:That's very good. Anybody else? Any thoughts on the technologies that you use, devices that you use? Um, anything else that goes online? Haven't you used virtual reality any point? Oh yeah, we did. Yeah, we did that like twice.[inaudible] you've used that twice. It did not want to use it again. No, I love it. I'm hoping to use it some more this year. Okay, well you gotta put a plug in there, put a plug in for your teacher. Say let's get more virtual reality. Tell me what you liked about virtual reality though on a virtual reality. What I like about it is just like when you put the thing on, you can just like see like everything and you don't have to like worry about anything that's around me. You can just see like whatever's in the, what do you call it, the in the virtual world to old world. Yeah, we did recently Rome. Right. Where we actually put ourselves inside the coliseum. Yeah. And we got to see everything that was in here. No, that's really put yourself inside the car. Did it dope that all of you get to do that or was it just the one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What did it feel like to you Kayla, when you went in there and you took a look?
Speaker 7:It felt kind of weird because looking places isn't the same as in the real world because you would be looking maybe at the wall when you're looking down at the like actual arena of the coliseum.
Speaker 5:Okay. Alright. Did anybody else have a interesting experience looking at the Coliseum? Did you get scared? I didn't get scared, but it was just a weird thinking like wow, like I'm in the Colosseum in Rome. Yes. There's the looking at everything that's there and the Internet and the nice air can cause it gets hot over there. The nice air conditioning of your, your room, you get to go to the go wrong. You know, I went to Facebook to do some virtual reality work and uh, they put me in a room and we tested some stuff out. And so they kept running me through all these different virtual worlds. One Minute I was in Hong Kong, the next minute I was, uh, I was on a fishermen's boat and like Thailand. And then the next minute I was, uh, on top of the Empire State building, I'm afraid of heights. I started sweating and getting nervous and I told the guy, I'm nervous. I'm a little for you. Want me to turn it off? I go, no, it's okay. So when you're in the virtual world, you can actually get sensations that are equal to what you would get if you were actually there. That's a cool technology. I think you should use it more. And of course people with disabilities have to be careful because using virtual reality can sometimes be a trigger if you're playing games to seizures. So if you're looking at movies and looking and around the world is different than playing games. Did any of you have any educational games that you use or any educational learning tools? Quizlet. Quizzlet yeah. Oh, I like that. What's quizlet? Um, do you usually use it to like study words and figure like, okay, remember the vocabulary stuff? Um, and there's like different games like matching games or um, write the word before, like the definition falls from the screen. Beautiful. Whatever. Beautiful. I love it. Quizzlet that's something for parents out there. Any of you have that you think of any other games that you use to learn? If not, that's okay because I have a couple of more questions if you don't mind. Now I need to ask you guys, do you all like sports? I mean, I talked to Matthew, Matthew's an artist and so he's one of those elite minds and we'll come back to him to learn about the rd likes. But Christopher, what's your favorite sport? Um, video games. Video Games. What Video Games is the sport do you like? Um, four night. Oh, you mean actually playing video games as yeah, it is. Do you have any sports you'd like me? Yeah. Uh, a lot. You have a lot. So you like to play sports? Yes. That's cool. I like that. And then Dylan. Hey, what's your favorite sport? My favorite sports to play our football and basketball and sometimes frisbee[inaudible]. Does that mean you have favorite sports to watch? Did? Yeah, on basketball and football I usually love to watch. Right. Kayla, do you have a favorite sport? Um, I have a lot of favorite sports, but I don't like watching them. You don't have a lot of friends like Jay? Do you have a favorite sport? Yeah, basketball and Frisbee. Basketball. Frisbee. What's your, what's your favorite basketball team? Oh, no worries. No worries. Okay. And we've got a good room here so far. All right. So when you guys start thinking about, we've talked about technology, we've talked about inclusion, we've talked about how inclusion and technology work together. We're starting to cover a lot of territory. Is there any other thing you want to talk about or tell me about with regard to inclusion and why? It works or why it's good. Anything else in your mind? You don't have to. That's fine. How about hope technology school? Can you tell me why hope technology school is so unique? Any of you tell me that. Why is it so unique? Why is it so special? It's small. It's small. So small classrooms, I assume that makes it easier to learn. And also it makes it easier to like get to know everyone. Oh, so that didn't, and that increases inclusion. So one thing you can learn about if you can keep those classrooms small, makes inclusion easier. Any others?
Speaker 7:I think as a school and coming from, I taught in public school and now I'm here at hope technology school. I've seen how the whole community wants to include how, it's kind of a mindset of everybody that can, what are you talking about? So the teachers, the students, the parents, everybody wants to work at including, it's actually part of our school rules, but it's also something that I think people come to school desiring. So you get students, I mean I see on our class during recess is or during break, like they're playing games together so they love card games or like it's the goal of everybody to be a part of the conversation or to be included. If someone doesn't know something, there's a responsibility on the students in on the teacher, but I see it on the students to make sure that other student knows what to do or knows what the next step is in the instructions. It's not like one person's responsibility. It's kind of everybody's
Speaker 4:you're saying is it hope technology is more than a classroom. It's a community and as a culture and they getting that culture and getting that community in requires that not only do you have students that include, but you have to have teachers and parents who believe in inclusion and that that's what makes tech hope technology school so powerful. Well, you guys have been great today. It's been great to spend some time with you on the digital scribbler podcast and we thank you for all your insights, your smarts, and sharing with all of our listeners what it takes, not only to use technology in the classroom, but to build an inclusive environment. Make sure if you're out there listening, that you check out our website@ww.digital scribbler.net that you subscribe to our channel. If you like it, give it five stars. If you don't like it, give it five stars either way. And, uh, if you are looking for a great school that practices inclusion, don't forget to check out hope technology school, www.hopetechschool.org is the website for hope technology school. If you want to check it out, have a wonderful week. And we thank you from hope technology school on location.
Speaker 3:[inaudible].