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

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.

Automated summary

Many students struggle with written expression, but technology supports like speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and predictive text can help mitigate barriers. However, challenges remain in selecting the right tools, training educators and students on how to use them, and overcoming the time investment required.