Special Education

The Bruce Street School for the Deaf is celebrating its 100th Anniversary and SAFARI Montage, along with its partner TechKNOW Associates, is proud to be part of the celebration.

This past year for the first time as a Library Media Specialist, I had the pleasure and privilege of teaching 4 different groups of students who are on the autistic spectrum. They ranged in their abilities. They also ranged in their personal preferences; likes, dislikes, expectations and routines. So far they sound like any other class but what made these groups of students unique was their ability to communicate.

Once considered a supplemental teaching tool, educational video is becoming an increasingly central resource for instruction. Video presents visual and audio information simultaneously, making it easier to reach students who learn best through different modalities and learning styles. A growing body of research supports the pedagogical significance of this important tool for the regular education classroom (Cruse, 2007). Video can also help to reach and motivate students for whom school and learning pose special challenges.

Without question, this generation truly is the media generation, devoting more than a quarter of each day to media. As media devices become increasingly portable, and as they spread even further through young people’s environments—from their schools to their cars—media messages will become an even more ubiquitous presence in an already media-saturated world. Anything that takes up this much space in young people’s lives deserves our full attention.
—Kaiser Family Foundation