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teachers have found that using technology may help address students' specific learning needs.

three studies of 9- and 10-year-olds with severe spelling problems showed that these students' legible words increased from 55 to 85 percent, and their correctly spelled words rose from 42 to 75 percent.

"Students with writing difficulties are able to produce a text that looks good, and they can go back and fix things without introducing new mistakes."

students' disabilities ranged from speech and language impairments to mental retardation, and more than half were described as having a specific learning disability due to a psychological disorder.8 Children with disabilities vary with respect to the type and number of disabilities they have, and their disabilities vary in cause, degree, and the effect they have on the child's educational progress. Although children with disabilities are a very diverse group, data describing the demographic characteristics of students with disabilities suggest the following:   More than half of all students receiving special services are males. Most are in elementary or middle school. Most have no obvious disability; they have problems that are primarily academic, emotional, social, or behavioral.

Teachers have found that technological innovations can help level the playing field for special needs students and enable these students to succeed in the regular classroom.12 Technology for students with special needs is defined by federal law as “any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.”13 This broad definition encompasses a wide variety of both high-end and low-end technologies that have proven to be useful for improving educational options for students with disabilities. The following sections describe how various applications of computer technology can help meet the individual needs of students with disabilities and enable them to function effectively in the school setting.

Motivates students in their learning due to their enjoyment and ease of use with various technological mediums.Reaches students of various learning styles. Technology use applies to and compliments  Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences.Allows students to create and design their own unique products reflective of their personalities and learning needs/styles.Encourages students to manipulate media to construct their own meaning.Enables students to easy share their learning with teachers, families and peers.Gives students the chance to explore technological mediums which in inevitable increase job skills that employers look for in the workforce.

The City of Boston’s Department of Information Technology has partnered with a nonprofit called Open Air Boston to provide digital literacy training, subsidized netbooks or mobile devices and low-cost Internet access to low-income middle and high school students and their families. The city and Open Air Boston are using BTOP funding to bring the program – called Technology Goes Home – to 62 middle and high schools and 35 community sites. Technology Goes Home is equipping Boston teenagers with valuable digital literacy skills that will help them compete in a job market that takes these skills for granted. With training offered in Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali and other languages, the program is also bringing parents and other family members online. http://www.techgoeshome.org/

For instance, assessments of the ability of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disoder (ADHD) to function in a classroom have involved the use of virtual reality (VR) technology.6

Virtual classrooms allow for the simulation of the mulitiple concurrent demands of the classroom in an individualized assessment scenario.