Reflections of Assistive Technologies

One of the first things we see in the first AT video is a college aged girl in an electronic wheelchair. Her story, compared to the others, helped me to understand the everyday working life of a person with a disability. She needed her chair and a laptop in order to function alongside the community without disabilities. Without her chair, she wouldn't be able to move around, so that seems like common sense to have, but without her cellphone, laptop, or voice recognition software she would not be able to communicate or participate with her peers. She had a special computer in the classroom that had the voice recognition software she needed to use to write papers and do assignments. It was hard to see that if she hadn't been able to find the extra tools and funds for the tools, she wouldn't have the opportunities that I take for granted.

I had never seen assistive technologies used in a younger or elementary classroom. I had honestly never even thought about it. In the first video, as well as Josh's Story, there were examples of AT being used at a young age, both to overcome physical disabilities and social anxieties. In Josh's story, it was inspiring to see that a tool they initially used to help him communicate basic needs and "smaller" things in the classroom was eventually used to help him gain confidence and skills and be able to read, unassisted, with his teachers and classmates.

Other disabilities we saw addressed were both physical and cognitive. A student who had limited development in his muscles and hands was able to play music because of a piece of assistive technology hardware that pressed the buttons for him as he controlled a joystick. A young boy who could not speak or move used an apparatus that responded to movements in his eyebrows so he could control his own learning. Other students had different types of hardware that allowed them to indicate their choices instead of voicing them, to assist them along their educational paths.

In each of these situations, the student would not have been able to participate at the level they were, if at all, without the technologies they had access to. Without the support of their educators, they would be lost and left in the dust by their peers.

Past and Future Technologies!

I always find it interesting to hear or see the predictions of the past for technology we are using in the present. Seeing shows like Star Trek set up what they thought were impossibilities and science fiction, and then having those things come to fruition in current technologies is amazing. The three videos provided were campy and acted poorly, but they were a great look into what people thought their futures might be like. Some things, of course, were wrong, but others were surprisingly accurate.

The teacher in the videos had a clicker to move between screens and what was on them and three large video screens for different assignments and aspects of her lectures. Her students sat, with no desks, in big chairs, and one was in bed at home with an injury. While we, now, would probably not allow a student to participate in class from their bed because that seems like an invasion of personal space and feels inappropriate, other aspects of it hit home. I know of students who often travel or can’t physically be in the classroom and video conference via Skype in order to work on group projects. The students having no tools or desks seems unlikely to come about, to me, because not everyone thrives in a digital learning classroom, but things like the teacher’s tools didn’t seem odd to me at all. We have slideshows now, our teachers have remotes to move between windows on the computer. We don’t need three different ones, and they are much more complicated than the ones in the video, but these are technologies we are comfortable with and use often.

Even the search methods of the student at home are similar to what we use now. While mine may not be voice activated (though I am sure I could download a program that allowed me to do so) I can search through libraries around the world to find what I need, just like the student in the video. I can work with classmates over a videoconference, and (via email or something like google docs) I can send them my work so that they can integrate it with their own.

I think that technology, especially for education, can only grow. I feel like it will depend on the economic situations of the country and will require stability in them, but I can see cellphones being used more as a tool. There’s very little chance of stopping students from carrying their phones, so why not use them to teach and communicate with them. Maybe alerts sent to them via text that remind them of large assignment due dates. I think, also, there will be a continued increase in the use of online programs to compose and turn in assignments. Schools might be able to save money by using Google Docs as opposed to buying all of their computers copies of Microsoft word.