I have been teaching in private schools for eight years now and am a strong advocate of technology use in my classroom, especially because I have always had a lot of LD kids who really take to it. However, there is always that one LD student who has difficulty focusing on the task at hand that makes me want to prohibit his use of computers during class.
Most LD kids love tech lessons, and have told me they love using the computers, but for some reason this LD student just can’t get focused no matter what the assignment is. We’ve tried several methods, upon which both teacher and student have come to an agreement, such as wearing headphones to listen to music so as to reduce distractions around him, and breaking down assignments into smaller more workable chunks. He always ends up doing something else on the computer other than what the task is at hand. He is always very apologetic once he is “caught”, but repeats the same behaviors time and time again.
Has anyone had a similar experience? What did you do to remedy the situation? Any stories and/or advice is appreciated!
Thanks,
Kindness
Re: Kids Driven to Distraction by Tech. Lessons
If I had a student like that, yes I would take him off the computer. He can write on paper with a pen, read books, and do math by hand.
That kid is playing you, and winning.
The students I know who have this issue have been put on AlphaSmarts or something similar. These can be less distracting and there aren’t the games and such available for them to play with. Another option might be developing a user profile for him that can only access the programs he needs to use.