Robert M. Hensel once said "I choose not to place "DIS", in my ability." These are words that are spoken by my students each and every day. Despite their motivation, they need additional supports, and technology has proven to be the greatest asset; it can help them all meet their individual goals.
My students are AMAZING.
They are high schoolers empowered to do their best, but are limited by their intellectual, or multiple disabilities. My class is enrolled in a NYC Specialized School in a high poverty area of the South Bronx. They face cognitive, physical, and emotional challenges that many of us will never have to encounter, everyday. They are brave, resilient, eager to learn, and come to school with a positive attitude each and every day.
As students with disabilities, they require multiple means of representation in order to grasp new concepts, read, write, and perform mathematical computations. Although they are similar in age, their levels of disability vary tremendously. I have students who are reading at a third grade level, and students working on letter identification. There are students who can perform complex math computations, such as the volume of a cylinder, and students who are working on how to count to ten. Their varying disabilities require individualization.
My Project
As I have witnessed through previous successful campaigns on this website, technology makes a world of difference, especially in special education. Despite their low cognitive abilities, my students are well aware of how to navigate different features of a computer. When we are able to access the computer lab in our school, or utilize our interactive whiteboard, the Internet makes my students' education come to life. The trouble we are currently having, however, is constant access to differentiated and individualized Internet-based content. With Samsung Chromebooks, my students can access the internet during the time of day set aside for working on their individualized goals.
With the support of individual chromebooks, my students can access our class subscriptions to 'raz-kids,' 'vocabulary a-z,' the New York Public Library and various math websites, at their own pace and at their level.
With limited time throughout the day to focus on individualized education goals that will foster success across all academic domains, access to individual Chromebooks will provide for ten-fold levels of progress.
My students are comfortable and more motivated to meet their goals through technology and at their own level and pace. Providing these for my students would make the world of difference. Thank you so much for your support and generous donations to our classroom!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Fargnoli and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
