Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Miami, Florida
Martha Berman, Educational Specialist

Miami-Dade strives for Inclusive Classrooms Throughout District

Over 50 Miami-Dade County public schools, including 485 classrooms, are incorporating IntelliTools hardware and software this year to fully integrate students with special needs into general education classrooms. Miami-Dade is the fourth largest district in the country.

Thanks to a grant from the Florida Department of Education, entitled “School Renovations, IDEA, and Technology,” Miami-Dade County schools purchased 485 copies of IntelliTools three multimedia authoring tools, including IntelliTalk®, IntelliMathics™, and IntelliPics® Studio software, plus IntelliKeys® USB keyboards and companion Overlay Maker® software. Also part of the purchase was IntelliTools® Reading: Balanced Literacy, a full-year supplementary literacy instruction program for the first-grade skill level.

Universal design is key

Martha Berman, Miami-Dade County’s Educational Specialist, managed the grant effort, using the Center for Applied Special Technology’s universal design for learning guidelines to create what she dubs “universal design for learning packages,” including IntelliTools products, for use primarily in elementary schools but also in middle and high schools.

“Our goal is to have exceptional students be able to participate in regular education classrooms throughout Miami-Dade County,” Berman notes.

She goes on to explain that many exceptional students can handle the same problems as their peers, for example, but cannot write, and need the IntelliKeys keyboard to be able to type, noting, “Now, everyone can participate!”

Over 120 educators have received extensive training from IntelliTools as part of the purchase, and trainings are ongoing.

A creative twist

Miami-Dade has added an innovative twist to its adoption: training high school students alongside teachers, to be an additional resource. As part of a classroom project, high school students are partnering with elementary school teachers in the district to help their elementary students.

The high schoolers plan to use IntelliTools software to create and customize classroom activities for the younger students, with the goal of improving the students’ performance at their teachers’ direction.

Response from Miami-Dade County teachers to Berman’s efforts has been strongly positive. In selecting IntelliTools’ products, Berman spent time with teachers and demonstrated how to use, for example, IntelliTools’ talking word processor, IntelliTalk II, to create English and math quizzes with locked text and answer fields. Teachers were shown how to print the quizzes and grade them as they do for regular education students, providing them a form of alternative assessment. “The teachers are so happy!” Berman notes.

"Our goal is to have exceptional students be able to participate in regular education classrooms throughout Miami-Dade County."
Martha Berman, Educational Specialist