Merits of ICT in inclusive education

1. Dr. K.Suresh,
Post Doctoral Fellow of ICSSR,
Department of Education,
Central University of Tamilnadu,
Thiruvarur – 610 005.

2. “Students are not discriminated by any
means but the education stream
discriminated the students by means of
providing education as regular and special
schools; Inclusive education is a tool to
reform the discrimination and to cultivate
and maintain equality regardless of
discrimination of any means”
- Authors

3. We are living in the technological enabled
world and enormous information can be
transmitted one place to any other place of
this universe easily. ICT has enabled better
and swifter communication, presentation of
ideas more effective and relevant manners.
Most of general educational institutions run
for providing education to non disabled
students.

4. Some of the special educational institutions
are running for special children. Inclusive
education is an education system for
providing education to the students without
any background of discriminations. The
authors of the paper have presented the
uses of ICT in inclusive education in the
following passages.

5. Inclusive education means that all
students are studying in same
classroom regardless of their
strength or weakness or any
discrimination of any area. It is a
teaching or learning strategy which
allows the students learning like non
disable and disabled student in a
single classroom environment.

6. Kugelmass (2004) defined inclusive
education as “It is an education which
includes the children with disabilities
in the regular classrooms that have
been designed for children without
disabilities”.

7.  Braille Duplicator and Writer,
 Individual/Group Hearing/Device,
 Multi-Sensory Systems,
 Tactile Mathematical Device,
 Tactile Geographic Device,
 Tactile Science Device,
 Screen Readers’ and Magnifiers,
 Assessment and Evaluation Tool,
 Models, and
 Talking Calculator/Watch.

8. The Followings are the measures to
promote Inclusive Education:
◦ Information can be provided in dual
communication mode.
◦ Assistive devices to be adapted for
improving access of technology.
◦ Indigenous production of devices to be
taken up to increase the affordability by
persons with disabilities.
◦ The existing curriculum for persons with
disability to be expanded to include
information technology inputs.

9. ◦ Open learning system to be encouraged
to offer information technology oriented
courses for persons with disabilities.
◦ Some IT related jobs in public and private
sectors to be earmarked for persons with
disabilities.
◦ In order to promote information
technology among persons with
disabilities, the organizations working for
them should also inculcate the IT culture
in their activities.

10.  Independent usage of computers by the
students can improve the ability to access
education.
 ICT allows the students with special needs to
accomplish their task in their own space.
 ICT develops the communicate ability of
multi-learning difficulty students.
 It is useful to motivate the students in using
interment and develop confidence against
ICT.

11.  It provides an opportunity to access
information by the visually impaired students
alongside their sited peers.
 It is used to identify and bring the concise
subject concepts to the students easily
 It permits to select appropriate medium for
teaching subject concept
 ICT is simplifying the task of measuring
learning performance.
 It is used to the teacher who wants to modify
their teaching or communicating methods

12. Meijer (2003) identifies factors in
transforming classroom practice to support
inclusion.
 Co-operative teaching (support and
cooperation of professional colleagues within
and beyond the school);
 Co-operative learning (peer mentoring and
flexible pupil grouping);
 Collaborative problem solving (focus on
addressing behaviour issues);

13.  Heterogeneous grouping (but more
differentiated when required to meet diversity
of need);
 Effective teaching (high expectations and
individualized learning plans, with systematic
monitoring, assessment, planning and
evaluation of learners work);
 Home Area system (with fixed learning areas
supported by a team of teachers);
 Alternative ways of learning (learning to learn
and problem solving).

14. Based on the earlier Passages,
ICT plays a vital role in developing
communication skill among students of
inclusive classroom and having many merits
that already discussed above. Finally, the
authors of the paper have concluded that ICT
plays a vital role in inclusive education.