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First, following is a review of what we do know about the difficulties which ADHD kids experience in a traditional classroom setting:

As a result of these behavior characteristics many complications follow for them in classrooms that are primarily teacher-directed with a heavy concentration on completing assigned tasks. Yet, what is being done educationally to help create positive, healthy, fruitful, and fulfilling ADHD graduates? NOT ENOUGH! Consider all their positive attributes that are acutely suppressed in traditional classrooms:

Creative Creators

Imaginative

Learners by Doing

Discovers

Independent

Non-Conventional

Divergent Thinkers

Inquisitive

Original Thinkers

Dreamers

Intelligent

People-Oriented

Energetic

Internally Focused

Problem Solvers

Explorers

Investigators

Self-Directed

Free Spirits

Leadership Skills

Visionaries

Yes, ADHD children have enormous positives about them! Unfortunately, for the most part, they are so silenced for not fitting into the established educational system, it causes dejection, confusion, and at times enormous depression in their young lives. Educators have to obviously share their part of the blame for this, because they have constructed only one primary pedagogical setting to learn in. This must not just be modified, it must be boldly and radically changed - making great use of innovative and creative ideas!

A new educational framework for ADHD students must be created which allows them great freedom to follow trails of self-interest; to make connections on their own; to reformulate ideas; to reach unique conclusions—even if they are non-conventional and non-conforming; to explore and discover new territories of thinking; to question without fear of reprisal; to reshape and transform ideas; and internalize information according to their needs and desires.

The Computer Project. In observing our 13-year old ADHD child, I have noticed that even though he finds it impossible to stay-on-task at school for a few minutes, he is able to sit at the computer and stay focused for hours upon end, being actively involved with computer game challenges.

Since our ADHD son is unable to stay focused in the classroom, he often acts out and becomes a behavior problem for his teachers and his classmates. He then gets sent to a separate room to serve an in-school suspension; and if his behavior is really bad, he gets expelled from school for a day or more. Assignments are obviously missed during this time, but he never seems to be able to make them up, producing low and flunking grades. This pattern has been going on since he began school, resulting in years of missed educational opportunities to learn and grow academically and intellectually.

The only year he has had a teacher who "really" understood ADHD children (as a result of having a nephew with ADHD) was when he was in the 1st-grade. This teacher had over 30-years of teaching experience and loved every child in her class. She told us many times that, from what she had observed, she thought our son had a genius mind, when compared to all the other children who had come through her classroom during her teaching career—even though the standardized tests were unable to measure his intellectual abilities and capacities because of their limitations.

There have been many times I have personally sat down with my ADHD son to help him complete his homework assignments. What should be completed in 10-minutes often takes him 1-2 hours to finish. By that time both of us are so frustrated we just want to strangle each other.

Having long believed that the computer is the ultimate educational instrument for ADHD students, I recently challenged our ADHD son to take on an extensive PowerPoint multimedia presentation project. He agreed. Although I had an idea of what the slide show should look like, I gave him total freedom in its theme and design.

Description of Activity. The objective of the project was to stimulate our ADHD son in learning extensive, hands-on hardware and software applications on the computer. The project’s goal was to not only familiarize him with sweeping ways of utilizing the computer and its peripherals, but also to incite his self-interest in using it for several educational activities, including a lot of Internet research.

PowerPoint was chosen as the main software application because of its ability to combine text, word processing, spreadsheets, desktop publishing, graphs, charts, audio, video, wave recording, pictures, clip art, word art, scanned objects, narration, colors, background, shapes, fonts, Internet links, etc. In addition, several supporting software packages were to be used in order to acquaint him with in-depth computer programs.

In regards to teacher assistance, every day I personally demonstrated how to accomplish each part of the suggested format for the project. Thereafter, I only made myself available to answer any questions he had.

The final form of his project was an impressive 18-slide PowerPoint multimedia presentation full of color, action, humor, and drama. The outcome was a grand achievement, exceeding my expectations! Over a two-week period, he spent a total of 35-hours on the project outside of school! One day I came home from work late and found that he had spent over 8-hours straight on the project that same day - without getting out of his chair!

What surprised me the most was the scant supervision he required on the activity. He seemed to be able to quickly find his way around all the toolbars with little direction. He had meddled around with PowerPoint on his own before, but this was his first real experience with it. In addition, as a result of this project, he now knows how to do thorough research on the Web, having bookmarked a couple-dozen sites in his Browser.

As I had anticipated, our ADHD son responded to the challenge of this project by using his creativity and artistry in remarkable fashion. To me this demonstrates that the computer has the ability to be the best scholastic prescription for ADHD students. With their active imaginations, creative and adventuresome energy, intellectual stimulation, exploring minds, and need for structure, challenging computer applications seem to bring out the best in them!

This trial computer application project demonstrates that ADHD children are able to stay-on-task for long periods of time on a computer—if the software is interactive, challenging, and interesting to them!

The Solution. Imagine that you are a ADHD student in the 10th-grade, and you have just entered into your first classroom of the day at school. You joke and kid around with your classmates for a few minutes until the last bell rings. When that happens you don’t wait for the teacher to tell you to sit down and open your textbook to so-and-so-page. Instead, you walk over and sit down at your own personalized computer that you have nicknamed, The Hummer. You then type in (or speak) your password, log onto the Internet, and proceed to your highly interactive chemistry lesson plan at www.bigeducationalsoftware.com/chemistry5/lab/.

It is lab day and you have chosen your own specific chemical solutions for mixture. It is very dangerous because you are trying to make gasoline. Even though everything is simulated, you still put on your white lab coat to feel the part. Today, you only blow yourself and your class up twice as a result of mixing wrong solutions together. Oh well, it was better than last week. And you did learn what not to do next time, although you are starting to have more empathy for Tim-the-Tool-Man-Taylor.

Your next class is history. Again, you go to your personalized computer workstation when the bell rings. Today, you decide that you want to learn more about the Civil War, so you log onto www.bigeducationalsoftware.com/battleofgettysburg/. You have decided to visit this educational site because the Battle of Gettysburg has just been released in Virtual Reality.

To gain more from this learning experience, you have brought army clothes and boots from home which you have put on during the 10-minute class break. You have noticed some other students in your class getting ready to visit the same Website that day, because they are also wearing army paraphernalia. But desiring a more realistic educational experience, you have planned ahead so that your fatigues literally have the smell of gunpowder on them.

After putting on your headset, you begin your Virtual Reality session—but you quickly become very mournful because of the sadness of so much unnecessary killing. You can only stand 15-minutes of the battle because the reality of war is so real. You fast forward to President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. When he finishes his speech you realize that there are tears in your eyes and that you are deeply stirred emotionally. Being a little embarrassed, you try to keep your face hidden from the others. After class you seek out the school counselor and discuss the experience you just had.

This type of interactive, self-learning encounters continue for the rest of the school day in similar fashion. Thus, this model creates the kind of positive environment that can accelerate the education process for ADHD students!

What if you get sick, or are suspended from school for a few days? Will you get behind on your studies? No way. You simply log on the Internet at home (or from a local library), type in your password for educational access, and attend school as though there in person. No more going back to school depressed by all the piled-high homework needing to be made up.

Would this type of self-directed educational setting be to the liking of an ADHD student? Without a doubt! Since they are so good at exploring and discovering places no one else has been, they would probably be constantly sought out by fellow-classmates and asked, "How did you do that? How did you find out about that site?" In this environment all the gifts of ADHD children—creativity, exploration, imagination, investigative pursuits, inquisitive nature, intelligence, problem solving—are freely allowed to be used as they desire. Instead of being the bad kid in class who can’t keep his/her behavior in check, he/she is now considered the smart one. What a turnaround!

Technology and Teachers' Role. So what is the solution to the question, HOW SHOULD WE BEST EDUCATE ADHD CHILDREN? Answer. Change the role of the instructor from teacher-directed to student-directed with heavy use of the computer and the Internet—where the teacher is the guide, mentor, and coach. As much as possible, allow the student the freedom to direct their own path of learning based upon their own interest. Instead of using CD-ROM’s or DVD-ROM’s for software, use educational Internet sites (as they become available) loaded with learning software having vital links to everywhere around the globe.

However, if classrooms are equipped with a computer at every desk with Internet access, teachers shouldn't wait for educational software companies to develop lesson plans for them. They should formulate their own Web-based courses. For example, under the leadership of educational technology specialists, the more talented and capable 4^th grade teachers in a certain school district could divide up the tasks of writing flexible and multiple-faceted lesson resources on a particular subject. Instead of paying software companies big bucks to develop educational material for the web, do it yourself, and pay these innovative teachers extra for their hard work and resourcefulness. A technology specialist could then convert all their work into a Web page, and place it on one of the school's server in the district, accessible to all the classrooms in the district (and beyond). Then, after the students try these lesson plan ideas, the teachers can immediately edit and perfect them accordingly to the feedback and responses they get.

Grading should be done on a qualitative (conceptualization) basis versus quantitative (number of right answers to wrong answers). The learning process should be subjective (student constructed) versus objective (object of learning teacher constructed). Here it is in chart form for more clarity:

Textbooks	Computer [on-line]
Teacher-directed	Student-directed
Teacher-led	Student-led via the Internet and real-life problems/applications they seek out
Complete specific tasks	Construct learning process based up on self-interest
Limited time frame for task completion	Structured time frame–but very cautious about setting minimum and maximum time limits
Objectively graded by third party where specific learning is rated and judged by objective right and wrong answers	Subjectively graded according to self-directed efforts and accomplishments based upon every students' IEP

To make a very clear distinction, I am not suggesting schools completely disband the traditional method of teaching. Many students will perhaps continue to learn better using conventional techniques for teaching/learning. However, for the majority of the divergent-thinking students who learn better by being self-directed with minimal guidance, we must create an educational environment similar to the one I have proposed above.

Background Research. Restating what I mentioned earlier, "During my extensive Internet research on this subject this semester, I have discovered that even though there is a lot of information relating to the distinguishing characteristics and distinctive needs of ADHD children, the subject of educational solutions specific to their unique personalities is greatly lacking. However, I have found some educational software and Internet learning applications currently available which can be used for designing a fantastic learning environment for ADHD students."

I then e-mailed a request to the customer service/sales section of each of these educational publishers, as well as to another of the largest in the international educational market—Addison Wesley Longman. I inquired if any of them had 100% interactive software available, either in CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or via the Internet that could take the place of classroom textbooks. I was very surprised to find out by their replies that few of them did.

Addison Wesley Longman directed me to their Internet site that listed all of their educational software available. There I found several supporting educational titles available, but none that could replace their current classroom textbooks with 100% interactive software.

Glencoe McGraw Hill had so much educational software available that they had to send me their Media Technology magazine in the mail. After examining it cover to cover, in my excitement I realized that I might have finally found a company which had such a broad array of interactive educational software available. A student could come close to literally getting a 6-12 grade education without ever leaving the computer. Not only did they offer software in all the core subjects (science, mathematics, social studies/history, language arts, health), they also offered supporting titles in foreign language, art, computer education, business education, family and consumer sciences, career education, consumer education, and adult learning.

Of all the major educational publishers mentioned, these two companies were the only ones to offer exemplary software for classroom consideration. However, all the educational software these two companies currently had available was only obtainable on CD-ROM, and not yet accessible via the Internet.

Educational Websites. It appears there are now dozens of Websites which provide teacher assistance for supplementing their lesson plans with Internet learning experiences. One of the best is Teaching With the Internet: Make Your Lessons Memorable Learning Experiences (Teaching with the Internet). This site provides step-by-step Internet lesson plans which are subject-specific by grade level, complete with student handouts, on-line projects, and classroom group activities. Needing little preparation or planning, all the classroom teacher has to do is "follow the instructions."

One of the better comprehensive Internet educational supplements for teachers is NewsDEN in the Classroom which comes out of British Columbia. NewsDEN has eight basic teaching aims for students (A Teacher's Guide to Using NewsDEN in the Classroom):

NewsDEN also offers many other subject-specific sites such as WritingDEN (Improve your English with WritingDEN) and MathDEN (MathDEN). NewsDEN sites offer perhaps the closest online educational software I found which fits my educational solution proposition for ADHD students. Not only are these sites colorful and informative, they also have challenging interactive questions. The related Internet links they provide are also perhaps the most extensive I have run across in my research.

Another Internet supplemental aide for teachers which NewsDEN provides is their TestDEN (TestDEN). For a fee of $69, TestDEN TOEFL Trainer allows you two-months of unlimited access of test training on any subject which is given by the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

Another great Website for supplemental educational software which is subject-specific comes out of Tazmania, Australia. As with British Columbia, these are both sites where distance between schools and homes are far apart. Tazmania's state library (State Library of Tazmania), supported by Tazmania's Department of Education, offers several full curriculum subjects for distance students.

A site with numerous Internet Lesson Plans for teachers, and which is also subject-specific, is Classroom Connect (Classroom Connect). I downloaded several of their free lesson plans and found them to be very simple to use as well as superb learning opportunities for students.

Perhaps the largest Educational Software site on the Internet is BizWeb Category: Educational (BizWeb Category). They list and link literally hundreds of addresses for educational software companies. Though not as exhaustive, Suite101.com also gives some beneficial educational software links with companies (Suite101.com).

What if you want to learn more about the computer, computer-programming, business software, networks or servers? Where do you go? Do you go to some local university? Ziff Davis University offers over 100 instructor-led courses and over 150 self-study courses over the Internet for the High School and Post High-School learner (ZDU).