THE USE OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY BY VISUALLY IMPAIRED HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN INTEGRATED CLASSROOMS IN BANGKOK

摘要

This research analyzes the use of computer technology by students with visual impairments in the integrated classrooms in Bangkok. The purposes of the research are to acquire the real facts about applying computer technology in the educational programs by visually impaired students, and to identify problems and needs of the visually impaired students in the integrated classrooms. Data is collected through questionnaires and interviews from all the 56 students of population. The acquired data is then analyzed using the SPSS program in statistic terms of frequency, mean, and percentage. The findings obviously demonstrate that the majority of students employ solely screen reading programs and speech synthesizers. In addition, instructors teaching computer technology to the visually impaired students should be effectively trained to be more skillful and to understand limitations of the way those students learn and follow the instructions in a computer laboratory class. The expensiveness of the technology is also one of the problems that ought to be taken into consideration. Moreover, even though the lack of opportunities to apply computer technology in classrooms is mainly concerned, most of the visually impaired students still need to cooperatively enhance their chance through the universal design of computer technology with general students.