Various technology-based interventions exist to support writing for students with learning disabilities (LD). However, it is not enough to simply provide access to technology. How it is implemented by teachers may affect student outcomes. In this study, three special education teachers used a technology-based graphic organizer (TBGO) with embedded…

This study investigated the writing results from an existing data set of 36 students who performed braille writing dictation through the repeated writing activity in the braille writing app. The data was the writing results of students between the first and the sixth grade levels. Results were categorized into types of errors, the most common…

The goals for engaging students in peer learning range from positioning students as knowledgeable others to promoting social-emotional learning goals to providing contexts in which students can articulate and compare their thinking to supporting opportunities to cogenerate solutions to complex problems. There are a number of complexities…

Increased attention to Data-Informed Instruction (DII) and learning analytics has not been accompanied by a commensurate base of theory or evidence showing how practitioners successfully enact DII, or illustrating what the difficulties and contextual particularities of doing so involve (Coburn & Turner, 2012; Little, 2012; Spillane, 2012).…

Sixth grade language arts teacher Julie Ramsay was disheartened at her students' lack of interest in writing, so she began looking at what they were doing online to see if she could bring some of those experiences to the classroom. She saw that students enjoyed having opportunities to share their experiences with an audience and receive…

Previous studies have proposed that the grammars may serve as a rule-based scaffolding to facilitate story comprehension in storytelling activities. Such scaffoldings may inform students of crucial story elements and possible transitions among different elements. However, how these scaffoldings may influence story creation/writing activities is…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how engagement, mood and number of assignments completed on computerized differentiated homework using an iPad in a one-to-one mobile device environment influenced the growth index and normalized gain in reading literature benchmark assessments of students in grades five, six, and seven. Furthermore,…

Beginner students often have difficulties using adjectives when they write descriptions in English. This article focuses on the procedures used to help my sixth grade students understand and use adjectives in the correct order by using a blog. To achieve the objective of the project I decided to implement an innovation in and out of class…

The Common Core State Standards produce a need to understand how digital tools can support literacy instruction. The purpose of this case study was to explore how a language arts teacher's integration of computers and iPads empowered and constrained her and the resulting classroom instruction. Constraining factors included (a) inadequate…

The present study investigated the effects on learning in a sheltered Internet environment using so-called WebQuests in elementary school classrooms in the Netherlands. A WebQuest is an assignment presented together with a series of web pages to help guide children's learning. The learning gains and quality of the work of 229 sixth graders…

Two major pieces of legislation, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001) mandate that students with disabilities be placed in the Least Restrictive Environment and have access to the general education curriculum. To provide access to the general education curriculum, inclusion in general…

In recent years researchers in educational technology have begun to look closely at the complexity of integrating technology in K-12 classrooms. The development of the notion of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) provides a useful theoretical framework to explore the requisite forms of teacher knowledge required to effectively…