Assistive Technology is largely seen as a necessity
for people with disabilities to complete activities of daily living.
In that way I suppose it could be called a lifesaver. I also view
it as a lifesaver because it has the ability to allow people to
preserve their dreams. The advent of document reading technology
into my life has allowed me to read text more easily and helped
to preserve my dream of pursuing a doctorate. I became actively
involved in providing assistive technology to students with disabilities
as a student
assistant in the Adaptive
Technology Lab at Southern Connecticut State University in
1989. I have had several professional
positions focused in the
area of Assistive Technology. Surprisingly,
it took me 17 years to realize how much the technology could help
me.
The coursework in my program has helped me to think differently
about providing assistive
technology. It is no longer just about getting the word
out and providing the technology to the students with disabilities. I
am now focused on understanding what policies
help to make the services work? What is effective and useful?
In my first class, Ways of knowing, EDUC 800,
I decided to explore how different professional disciplines viewed
the assessment process and prescription of assistive
technology. In a paper titled, Ways
of Knowing the Inform Scholarship: Rehabilitation Engineering as
a Discipline, I compared
the medical profession's "way of knowing" to the educator's "way
of
knowing".
This process helped me to think about assistive technology more
broadly and provided a stronger foundation for me to defend
what I believe is important when considering assistive technology
for individuals.
In the leadership
class (EDUC 805) I completed a literature
review on the effectiveness of universally
designed assessments. This was the first time I looked critically
at research; I found it difficult at first to accept the idea
that the technology was not always proven to be beneficial and
at times was detrimental. This challenged my beliefs, but
also fueled my desire to find out what does work and why. I also
reviewed an article from this literature review in relation to policy
implications in EDUC 871. The paper is titled, Universal
Design Principles Applied to Large Scale Assessments: Policy Implocations.
As the Coordinator
of the Assistive Technology Initiative I have implemented a project
to scan textbooks and other hard copy documents for students with
disabilities on campus. This effort began as a result of
a student in law school who was unable to turn the pages of his
books due to paralysis. An article was written about this
student and the technology available in the Chronicle
of Higher Education in 2004. The accessible
text project under the ATI has grown to serve students with print
related disabilities. It is one of the most used services provided
by the ATI. We
have now moved into providing text in MP3 format. Most students
believe this is the best thing since sliced bread. I question
whether it is truly effective. Can students absorb the text
while walking around campus with an iPod? Is
this something we should be promoting? In EDRS 810,
I wrote a quantitative
research method section designed to address this question.
I plan to take a critical look at the research available to
address whether or not assistive
technology is effective at the university level. The product
of this exploration is a PowerPoint presentation and discussion
in EDUC 872. It is not yet available as I will
be completing it on the day of my second portfolio review.
The daily activities of my job as the Coordinator of the Assistive
Technology Initiative remind me that being content with providing
the minimum of services required in the letter of the law is not
enough. People who implement
policy must look at the spirit of the law and even beyond to make
a difference. I have worked hard to do that with the ATI. I
remain unsatisfied with the services offered which is fine because
as long as I am unsatisfied I have the fuel to move forward and
think of new ways to make a difference. I believe this is another
quality of leadership.
Since we have been providing electronic
text to students I have been looking for ways to speed up the process.
Over the last year I have worked with the University of Virginia,
Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University and James Madison
University to develop a repository of scanned textbooks to help
us and other universities in Virginia share textbooks converted
into electronic
text. This project began from a simple conversation among
colleagues after a conference presentation. The project is
hosted at Mason as a blackboard site. I
have since presented our work at a regional AHEAD conference
in Virginia and recruited several more universities to share books.
The field of assistive technology is constantly moving forward. It is important to keep up with the advances in the technology. It is just as important to understand what policies need to be in place to ensure that the provision of that technology is effective. ![leadership icon](../images/paddle icon 5.gif)
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