Websites as educational motivators for adults with learning disability

Abstract Adults with learning disability pose an educational challenge for teachers and support workers. They frequently have limited skills in reading and writing, and may find it difficult to pay attention to topics of little interest to them. Nevertheless, they can be keen to use new technology, and often have hobbies and interests that are catered for on the Internet. This article describes a project aimed to highlight the advantages and weaknesses of web‐based learning for adults with learning disability, and to suggest improvements. Eight students with mild to moderate learning disability were helped to find websites related to their interests, and supported in creating multimedia work linked to those sites. Results showed the powerfully motivating effect of the websites for students, but highlighted the access difficulties posed by websites for such students. Further work in this area is needed, to develop strategies for exploiting the motivating effect of websites, and to improve the accessibility of sites for people with low literacy levels.