Abstract:

This session will describe a study of digital note-taking with students with disabilities. The session will model and examine the degree to which this intervention can provide educational opportunities for students with disabilities with support for note-taking skills, to promote retention of material, and to provide opportunities to make use of universal design for learning (UDL) approaches such as integrating multiple means of representation and allowing for multiple means of expression. The study findings offer recommendations to researchers, teachers, parents and other stakeholders for ways in which existing features and uses of this technology can be improved and enhanced including improving digital notetaking and increasing participation in education by individuals with disabilities. The findings of this research suggest that the use of digital tools can increase the quality of student notes and note-taking strategies as well as richer involvement with instructional materials and with peers. Use of the digital notetaking is recommended for particular types of course activities for students with a range of disabilities including reading, language, and non-verbal learning disabilities.

Students with language-based disabilities are disadvantaged in our educational systems given the heavy use of text-based information. In order to combat these disadvantages, technological innovation should be investigated to level the playing field for all students and increase the inclusion of students with disabilities into educational environments. Use of the digital note-taking tool may allow students with learning disabilities to better use working memory, visuals and auditory learning capacities to complement information processing during lectures and review. Classroom interventions that make use of this particular technology may improve the quality of students’ note-taking strategies and also support student comprehension by encouraging multiple visits to the actual presentation of content. Previous studies in the aforementioned fields suggest that the opportunities for multiple revisits to written text may reduce the burden of comprehension and attention that is imposed on the student with learning disabilities in the typical classroom setting.

Findings indicate that the use of a digital note-taking pen significantly increased the quality of students’ notes in the areas of content and selectivity. These are particularly important findings, as students with disabilities may have difficulty in both content knowledge development as well as determining what the important parts of the class discussion or lecture. The observed quality of students’ notes did not vary significantly in terms of organization and potential, which indicates that the use of the pen did not seem to have a negative effect on these areas of note-taking. Findings from this investigation indicated that the use of the digital pens was helpful for many of the students, particularly those who were able to take more concise notes or those who used the playback mode to listen to a class lecture and then refine their notes This research project stressed the importance of audio playback as feature of the learning process.

Keywords:

Inclusion, technology, special education.