Hawking and high expectations (Week 14)

Andrew Beigel’s article about preventing the abandonment of assistive technology devices talks about the importance of the “human” touch in ensuring that a device reaches its full potential in helping a student. He notes that a student must feel “inter-personal, non-academic support” to continue using a device which means teachers have to have knowledge of how the device works and have high expectations of the students who are using them. If a teacher doesn’t call on a student who needs a speech aid, for example, then he or she is not getting the most out of his educational experience.

Beigel says that “learners who are not like their teachers face lowered expectations.” But just because a student has a speech problem or other disability doesn’t mean that they can’t grasp complex educational topics. Stephen Hawking, who has severe disabilities due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, is one of the world’s top physicists. He was in graduate school when diagnosed and had already proved his intelligence and aptitude in physics so it was probably easier for him to find teachers to push and challenge him, despite his physical difficulties. If he had developed his disability in elementary school, would he have been given the same opportunity to develop his talent?

http://www.washington.edu/doit/Faculty/articles?370

Universal Design: Can It Work? ( Week 13)

I agree that the concept of Universal Design is solid. As the authors of the first article note, who would argue against a plan to consider the needs of a wide range of students when designing instruction and curriculum? However I am concerned about implementation. Teachers who have students with disabilities should begin lesson planning with those students in mind, rather than just trying to modify existing materials, as discussed in the Spooner article. But I don’t know if it’s possible to design a curriculum that would really meet the needs of all students. Integrating flexibility into curricular design can help, but I think some students will always need special attention to achieve their full potential. I could see Universal Design being twisted into an excuse to devote less resources to those particular students.

The idea of assuring that standardized assessments are accessible to a wider range of students strikes me as a worthy goal, but how do you do it? Create a variety of assessments that can be used to pass courses? This brings to mind the portfolios that schools like School Without Walls use instead of Regents exams. I wholeheartedly support efforts like that.

AT Trial Periods (Week 12)

I work at a high poverty school in a district that can be slow to respond to students needs for assistive technology so I was interested in the abstract on recycling in the mini bibliography about writing on funding for AT for young children. I went to the source of the article http://www.fctd.info/resources/newsletters/upload/FCTD_May05_Issue38.pdf and found another topic that was also interesting --- the need for better trial periods. The Family Center on Technology and Disability was advocating for at least a two week trial period for the use of AT devices to ensure that they are a good match to the student. The typical couple hour period isn’t nearly enough. The article also talks about the need for districts to get adequate training for staff who are going to be helping the students use AT devices. Without adequate trials and training, useful devices can go to waste and students can be left floundering. That doesn’t make sense when there is such limited funding to start with .

http://www.fctd.info/resources/newsletters/upload/FCTD_May05_Issue38.pdf

Computers as Behavior aides (Week 9)

This article on the use of computer technology to help students with emotional and behavioral issues struck home for me because I had to do just that this year with one of my wild classes. Kids were showing up any time and not doing their work and my mentor teacher suggested that I use a computer based daily grading system so that students could monitor their progress and have something to feel proud about --- computer based positive reinforcement. Now I have the students “time stamp” to show what time they get to class. This computer log has helped combat lateness. Students can also see a log of their participation and grades, etc.

This article also brought to mind the growing use of Second Life, the virtual world, in educational settings. Schools like RIT are setting up virtual classrooms and virtual labs that allow students to do virtual experiments that would be too expensive in real life. For example, RIT has a virtual Tensile Tester that is in heavy use. But virtual classrooms can also help students who have social issues, giving them a chance to practice social skills and classroom participation without the anxiety of face to face contact. A person who is too shy to speak up in a classroom, might feel more confident in a virtual classroom or posting to a discussion board.

I was also interested in the idea that computers can be “non-critical” motivators.

Suing for Technology (Week 8)

The list of court cases in this article that illustrate how parents have sued to get better access to assistive technology and special education services for their children, was interesting to me because the Rochester School District is getting ready to revamp its special education system after a scathing audit of its services. 

Many Rochester students with special needs are currently being sent to schools outside of the district and the Rochester district pays these schools. Presumably these schools can provide technology and services that the RCSD does not have. Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard intends to curb this practice, bringing many students home. This has raised questions about how the district plans to provide the services these kids need and has prompted the threat of lawsuits. 

I wonder Brizard’s decision will result in extensive AT purchases and if not, will parents fight?

Federal Laws and AT (Week 7)

The list of federal legislation regarding Assistive Technology shows an increasingly expansive attitude towards what school districts must provide to help students learn.

The 1970s saw the inclusion of students with physical disabilities who don’t qualify for special education but might need various devices to help them participate in school activities.

The 1980s saw the inclusion of young students aged 3-5 and the Technology Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act.

The 1990s saw a flood of legislation that expanded people’s rights to assistive technology, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is all heading in the right direction but I wonder what percentage of students who need assistive technology are taking advantage of the laws. Some districts have been known to fight AT expenditures because of limited funding. I suspect that they might not offer the purchase of some needed devices to students whose parents aren’t advocating for them. In some cases parents may not even know of the devices that exist to help their children. I also wonder how much money has been spent fighting over these laws in court.

Ironic week for ESL discussion

April seems to be the month of crazies shooting people, forget poetry. The poetry exists in the fact that we as Americans continue to talk about these spectacles. On the way to work today I heard an NPR story "taking us there" into the hall of co lum bine. I won't even spell it out correctly because I don't want this word to be searched and brought to this blog. I don't want anyone to read anything more about this or any other single gunner massacre. It is NOT honoring the victims to recreate the scene or repeat video/photo images of the shooter's bio. I am not even going to provide the link because that story should not have been produced...Interviewing the principal of the school in the evening..."the halls were probably dark just like this..." B.S. you are just trying to up your ratings NPR.

I think they should put a big black page over the cover of Time Magazine, and then have only tears and images of the victims families.

Again a "crazy" Asian has struck, last time in veetechnology, this time in BINGcrosby Hampton. (hoping again to throw off any searches to this topic.)

I know this somehow relates. The man shot up an ESL school. Every time some Asian does something stupid it makes us all look bad. Soon after that Veetechnology incident happened last year, some kind of fire alarm was pulled on Naz campus and I just so happened to be walking across campus and the University Police cornered me, and questioned me. Who knows why they didn't question anyone else that was walking around campus?

I don't really care, given the years of being thought a terrorist following 9/11. I know they have security issues to deal with. BUT I do mind that the media sets up this trap for us.

They broadcast and sell more advertising and are parasites of tragedy. They turn real life into some CSI episode. It is messed up. Then people, average people extrapolate from there, subconsciously or consciously. A racial profile is set in place.

This dude was obviously messed up, why do we need to hear his story and see him? What is the point of that?

This dude was a nobody and now he is someone because of you CNN, because of you FOX News, because of you local news Channel 10, because of you Jack so and so who already bought the publishing rights to his biography. Some stories need to be silenced.

Week 5 reading: Accomodations for a Braile-Reading Student

"The Impact of Assistive Technology on Curriculum Accomodation for a Braile-reading Student" by Charles Farnsworth and John Luckner, shows how the right technology and willing educators can help improve the educational opportunities for students with disabilities. It seems clear that David benefited from having the Tiger Cub Jr. and BrailleNote devices. Why are they not in greater usage? An Internet search shows that the Tiger Cub Jr. costs about $4000, so it would seem that cost would prevent many students from getting them. The article states that districts may be wary of making large expenditures per individual student for assistive technology devices and I have seen that play out at my own school.

One of my students has a disability that makes him unable to use his hands to take notes. At the beginning of the year he needed an audio-to-text device but the district was slow to provide one. He was frustrated and his assistant took notes for him, but there was a lack of independence. When he finally got the device he was given a greater sense of autonomy and power over his education.

He has been in in a great mood now, ever since I brought him some chocolate chip cookies for his birthday. It is amazing how cookie technology can also influence a students motivation.

Speech-to-text software and word processing

"Voice recognition software can help students bypass their problems with lower-order writing skills by dictating their written work"
- Assistive Technology: Empowering Students with Learning Disabilities by Karen E. Forgrave

People with bad handwriting get worse grades. That lesson was instilled in us in elementary school and I have no doubt that it carried true through college, unless you had a professor with equally bad handwriting.

I think with each generation their will be some new tool that is introduced to shortcut a longer process that was once deemed as an all important process. For me it is math and typing. I believe that people need to know how to type and students should be able to do calculations in their head without calculator. The generation before me believed that spelling was important and that handwriting was an indication of careful thought.

As speech-to-text software is introduced first to students with learning disabilities then spreading to the general population, there will be more voices against the need for typing or even word processing - given the frantic progress of text messaging.

Who knows what important mental practice will be lost in all these fast changing processes of communication, and also what might be gained.

The Advantages of Bulk Purchases on Assistive Tech.

"After evaluating various text-reader tools, the Kentucky Department of Education selected a software program called Read & Write Gold. Kentucky negotiated an agreement with Text HELP makers of Read & Write Gold to provide a discount for Kentucky schools. 95 percent of Kentucky's public schools ow have a site license for this product" (Hasselbring & Bausch, p. 74)

Critics of school consolidation, big school districts, and the cumbersomeness of state education bureaucracies should at least consider the potential savings that can be made and therefore access provided, under such large administrations. The bargaining power of an entire state ed department is tremendous and becomes a potent political force - which can actually bring about good things too. The Kentucky case serves as an example of this.

Assistive Technology for Literacy or “crutch”

“Supportive assistive technology approaches should work symbiotically with learning interventions. In an ideal situation, students can use an assistive technology intervention to continually improve their reading skills while at the same time taking advantage of reading support to provide the scaffolding necessary to read text at their grade level” (Hasselbring & Bausch, p. 73).

With any assistive tech. you have to distill the individuals gains from the weight carried by a piece of assistive tech. Let’s just break it down to a medical metaphor. Sometimes when an individual is sick and can’t support themselves independently, a doctor will induce a coma so that machines can run the person’s vital organs for a while. The plus is that the person stays alive and whatever part is overworked gets to rest and recover on machines. The drawback is that for every one day that a person is in an induced coma, the recovery time is 5 days times that. So if someone is in a coma for a week, it will then take them roughly a month to recover once brought back out of that coma.

As long as the technology can be orchestrated in a “symbiotic” fashion, where the individual is carrying its weight in growing in areas to compensate for the assistance in one, then overall positives will emerge. If the trend becomes that the assistive tech. piece is just keeping someone from sinking or becoming an academic crutch, that may actually impede the progress of that person intellectually and even physically.

To reference the case from my previous journal entry Assistive Tech. Specialists, Case In Point, the physical therapist was quite hesitant in rolling out any voice rec. software for this student because she figured the student's condition might get worse if he did not use his muscles as much as possible. In this case the physical therapist and tech. specialist, and of course the student using assistive tech. must have a serious conversation about the long-term pros and cons of such assistance.

Assistive Tech. Specialists and case in point

Assistive Technologies for Reading by Ted S. Hasselbring and Margaret E. Bausch

In this journal entry I will provide a quote from the reading, and then share my reflections.

“Regular education teachers appear to rely on specialists for information about assistive technology, reporting that they know little about available assistive technologies or how such tools can be used” (p. 73)

My experience supports this. I have one student in my class that caught some spinal illness a year ago. He uses a wheel chair and his use of his hands has become slower, impairing his ability to take notes. There was a meeting in which his physical therapist met with all the students teachers to coordinate assistive efforts. Turns out that this student has been asking for some voice recognition software from the school district but that there is a back log of orders and the assistive tech. specialists are to few to respond.

So what I did was let my student borrow my mother’s rather expensive voice rec. gadget until he was delivered his. Which reminds me I have to get that back from him. I didn’t have time to figure out how to use it, so handed him the box to figure out. He has a para that also helps him.

The district was able to provide for him the equipment within a month or two after his request, but a specialist delivered this and teachers at our school, including myself, don’t do much research in this area. Maybe a workshop is in order to provide information on assistive tech. to our school, school district.

An Anthropologist on Mars - Insight into Autism and Tourette's Syndrome

http://www.oliversacks.com/mars.htm

Okay this is what I will be reading next, when I get a next. Maybe this summer. I read the Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and saw him speak once in NY.

So I am finally catching up with grad work after a long weekend of moving and then preparing a lesson for my observation today that did not go so well.

I was really inspired by the first chapter of Thinking In Pictures by Dr. Temple Grandin. She writes, "Every design problem I've ever solved started with my ability to visualize and see the world in pictures."

A web site that kind of reminds me of how her mind works is http://taggalaxy.de/

Scrapping for wireless

So I have 9 minutes left at spin cafe. I have not even begun to finish or really start my hw for tonight and have no access to the internet at the new apt. So looks like I will be out in the cold scavenging for wireless access tonight.

I have been boycotting Boulder ever since their obnoxious "One City, One Coffee" ad program began a month back.

5 minutes left.

Again, municipal wi-fi would have been really nice right about now. It is only available in Pittsford. Thank you Frontier.

So rather than being with my wife that is one-month away from her due date, I get to spend the evening scraping at cafes that are about to close.

"One city, one wireless-less".

One minute