The latest compilation from the US Department of Education (from 2010-2011) reports that about 13 percent of public school enrollment consists of students served by special education programs. That count has pretty much stayed the same for the past 13 years. What is different now is that, as technology pervades all aspects of the classroom, special education teachers need to make a decision about whether they're going to stay on track with specialized assistive technologies or adopt some of the mainstream ones that general education students are using. The latter approach appears to be winning right now. In many situations the mobile devices, apps, cloud based computing and flipped classroom approaches that are finding wide acceptance in general education are also finding a home among the tools used by special ed experts to help students succeed. Discussed in this article are ways in which special ed experts are leveraging main stream technical initiatives to benefit special needs students. Also included are advice to I.T. from special ed.