Information Society Watch

Mariane Youness, Premier’s Special Education Scholarship

This piece provides a comparison of inclusive technology design for education between the United States, and New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The NSW Public Schools Strategic Direction aims to facilitate students’ access to appropriate ICTs for furthering their educational goals. The NSW policy uses the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) developed by the US-based Centrer for Applied Special Technology. UDL enables educational environments, curriculum and instruction to be accessible by all students, in which accessibility not only refers to physical access and use, but also to cognitive, communication, and social/emotional access. For the NSW Public Schools, the aim of integrating technology into the curriculum is to link software, media and technology tools with specific instructional objectives in ways that facilitate teaching and learning. With reflective and careful planning, inclusive technology can facilitate positive outcomes in order to produce the best opportunities for learning for students with disabilities.

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