Web 2.0: A more collaborative world wide web

What does this mean for special education?
As technology shifts to become more accessible, it also enhances globalization and cooperation among all who browse. Thinking about this assignment, I wondered how can I attempt collaboration among the students with special needs if their needs are not the same? After reading the information in the text, I realize that is the beauty of the internet. If I have only one student with a Traumatic Brain Injury who needs a very specific educational plan that may not be suited to other special needs students I am working with, the internet is an excellent tool for continuing collaboration on a bigger scale.
Oh! Now we can apply it in this way:
Special education is a difficult field to have a lot of group work as each student has such specialized needs, but that is why the internet is a powerful tool for these students. VoiceThread is a site that hosts different types of media (voice, picture, video, documents) and allows comments to be posted in different mediums than the original poster. Therefore, the posters can be collaborative and creative and can post in the way that they feel most comfortable with and/or that is most effective. ELL students can conference with native speakers about their learning experience or material and learn from those native speakers, such as Palabea. For students to practice at home, there is also Language Exchange, where they can talk to someone who may be practicing their native language and they exchange tips on understanding their own native languages. Depending on the child's needs, there is a vast amount of teacher/student related internet tools that allow for collaboration. The trick is to know the student and understand how to best incorporate their needs and curriculum to be taught into an experience where they can engage in social and cooperative learning.
Conclusion:
These internet tools mean that the classroom is no longer restricted to the physical walls of the room. No student is doomed to be the only one with their specific disability and have no one who can relate or share learning or social tips with. The internet provides resources that contribute to the students feeling less alone and allow them to learn from peers outside their classroom. Along with standards such as critical thinking and digital citizenship, collaboration is an essential part of the new NETS-S standards (ISTE 2008), developed to take into account the new cooperative nature of our world and to teach students how to get along in that world.

Sources:

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). NETS For Teachers 2008. Eugene, OR. Retrieved June 16, 2011. http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx

Language Exchange Community. (2011). MyLanguageExchange.com. Retrieved June 13, 2011. www.mylanguageexchange.com

Palabea. (2009). palabea: the speaking world. Retrieved June 13, 2011. www.palabea.net

VoiceThread LLC. (2011). VoiceThread. Retrieved June 13, 2011. ed.voicethread.com .