Universal Access and Technology

Universal access means providing curriculum and instruction to virtually any student no matter his or her impairment. Students with disabilities should have just as much of an opportunity to participate in instructional classroom activities-both traditional and technology-based as their peers. Especially with the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act and the Enhancing Education through Technology Act of 2001 that goes along with it which states that all students with special needs are required to be technologically literate just as their non-special needs classmates (Jackson, 2004), it's important that educators take this issue into consideration in order to plan and provide instruction for all students.

In all honesty, because I do not currently have any students with disabilities and/or students with IEPs, I haven't given a whole lot of thought to this issue. I think it can be easy for this to happen for any educator because we are thinking mostly about the immediate audience to whom we'll be teaching: our students. This is especially so if the activity is of the more traditional type and will be done only within our classroom. However, if the activity is something that has been designed by a classroom teacher and has been published on the Internet for anyone to have access to such as a WebQuest, this is perhaps where teachers need to be more cognizant and educated. The keyword in the aforementioned sentence is "anyone" which could mean that a student with a visual impairment may very well be trying to view the WebQuest for class and would be expected to complete it. On the one hand, that particular student's teacher would first need to make sure that all of the students in her class could indeed complete the activity, but on the other hand, the teacher who created it should have first given this issue some thought and have made technological accommodations for accessibility so that an even larger audience would be able to view and make their way through the WebQuest. Not only that, but the creator of the technology-based instructional activity could have also suggested modifications for students with learning disabilities.

Although I've only incorporated a few things into my WebQuest to make it navigable, I now know there are some changes I could make to it to make it even more accessible for a wider variety of learners. What I did take into account was the readability. I wrote the text in a student-friendly format that was clear-cut and easy to understand; I was careful to stay away from using words the students might not understand and I tried to clarify what I was saying by including examples (especially in the "roles" section). Also, I used dark text on a light background and kept the information organized. The images I chose were chosen purposefully so that they might serve as little cues to what the information on the particular page contained. Lastly, I included links to the previous and next pages at the bottom of the pages, and embedded in the text in some cases, so that it would be pretty easy to navigate.

Now that I've learned more about universal access and the Universal Design for Learning, I know that I could incorporate a text-to-speech feature so that students with visual impairments and/or who are struggling readers could simply listen to what the quest seeks users to accomplish. Not only that, but the text-to-speech feature would guide users through the quest as well. As for meeting the overall expectations of the WebQuest, I could suggest accommodations to teachers such as writing half a page instead of one page once the students choose the decade they'd want to live in. Or, students could orally tell the teacher this information.

As I reflect on this issue more, I know that I will have one class out of six in which there are some students with IEPs. Most of these students have learning, emotional, and/or behavioral disorders. I will be having a co-teacher for this class and we will be co-teaching the class together. I know that the co-teacher and I will need to discuss modifications for the WebQuest so that all students in our class will be able to accomplish the goals of the WebQuest.

Although it seems that it can be easy to overlook issues of universal access, it is important to make educators aware of what the Universal Design for Learning involves so that when planning activities, teachers take this into account. Not only does it involve making accommodations to technology-based activities, but also, it involves creating activities in which achievable objectives can be met so that all students will be able to master the activity at-hand.

Resources:
Jackson, R.M. (2004). Technologies Supporting Curriculum Access for Students with Disabilities. Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum. Retrieved [17 November 2006] from http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_techsupport.html

Technology Standards for Teachers and Students: Are These Standards Within Reach or Beyond What We Could Achieve?

As I reflected on my posting regarding the "20 Skills Every Educator Should Possess", I had broken down the skills into three different categories: basic (ones that yes, every educator should have), intermediate (skills that most educators should have), and advanced (skills that might only pertain to instructors at the high school or university levels). I talked about how the skills a teacher should have should be relevant to the subject and grade level one teaches and should also take into account the number of technological resources an educator has available. For example, PDAs were put into the "advanced" category, and I said that I didn't feel it was necessary for ALL teachers at ALL levels to have knowledge of how to use PDAs in the classroom, simply because it's likely that not ALL school districts at the elementary and middle school level would have access to this technology. I personally think that this technological tool would have a more likely chance of being used in a high school, college, or university, which would mean teachers at these levels would need to have such skills in using PDAs for instructional purposes. Of course, it wouldn't hurt any educator to possess all 20 of the skills mentioned in the article, but it does not seem that it should be mandatory.

In tying the 20 skills to the Technology Standards for Teachers and Students developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), I think that indeed, the standards are within reach of being accomplished. The standards do not specifically state what technological equipment or tools must be used to meet the different standards, rather they allow for different tools to be used – tools that are at the school district’s and the teacher’s discretion to use and ones in which the school district has obtained. My personal belief is that as long as a school district has, as one of its pillars of education, technology education for its students, that it will provide a variety of technological tools and resources for student and teacher use. If technology is emphasized in the curriculum and teachers are required to use it, then of course the technology standards will be met. Perhaps not all of the standards will be met but a good portion at the very least. Even if teachers are not required to use technology but are encouraged to use it, then I do see the standards on their way to being met.

At a minimum, students would learn social, ethical, and legal issues when it comes to using technology if for example they were conducting research for a research paper in their language arts class. I would hope that students would first be taught to cite the web page from which their information is coming and also that they would have the knowledge to evaluate a website for credibility and not just start jotting down information from any website. Just within these two tasks alone, students and teachers would have already met three of the standards: 1) using a technology-based productivity tool to complete an assignment, 2) understanding the social, legal, and ethical issues when using technology, namely, the Internet, and 3) being exposed to a learning experience and immersed in a learning environment where the use of technology is the main tool to accomplish a research-oriented task and hence, using technology as a research tool. This is only one miniscule example of the way in which the technology standards can be achieved by both teachers and students. Surely, there are a myriad of other ways to meet the standards as there are a plethora of technological tools available. Very important is the fact that it is not necessary for a school to have ALL of the latest and greatest technology-based tools to meet the standards. Teachers can use their creativity to find ways of meeting the technology standards using the tools and resources their school has available.

It is my belief that if a school district does not emphasize or even recognize technology as an important part of a child’s education and the overall school district’s curriculum, that unfortunately, the technology standards will be far beyond reach, unless the teacher herself is an advocate of using technology and of her own volition will use and implement it in the classroom, given she has the necessary tools and resources. However, if a school does not even have the required tools and/or resources to accomplish the technology-based tasks, then it is doubtful that the technology standards will be able to be achieved.

All in all, with the lightning-fast advancements in technology and the ever-so-rapid ways of daily life in today’s society, I feel that it would be in the best of interest of every school district to provide its educational community with at least some technological tools and resources. Surely, at least some of the technology standards would be achieved by educators and students if these implementations were in place and teachers took advantage of the available equipment. After all, some is better than none.

My Thoughts re: Copyright Laws and Fair Use

"Are we (educators) responsible users of technology?" That is the main question to ponder in this week's blog. Personally, I think that if the teacher is aware of the copyright guidelines herself, and is thinking about them as she is producing a lesson and/or teaching a lesson to the class, that she is more likely to be a responsible user of technology. It can be very easy to find information on the Internet, including text, pictures, graphs, etc..., and I think it can be easy to not give credit to where credit is due. We may have a tendency to take advantage of the fact that the material is so accessible that we may altogether forget to cite where it originally came from. However, I think that if a teacher is first aware of the fact that copyright guidelines do fall in place whenever borrowing or using another's work, whether it's a written work, a work of visual art, a song, or a graph, etc...then she will be more prepared to use it in a way that is fair and legal.

Once a teacher has this knowledge herself, she can pass it along to her students. There are times when students will cut and paste material directly from the Internet and put it in their work and act as if it is their own. Students do this to save time and to get the work done. What they do not fully realize though, is that this is against the law. Students need to be taught about fair use and copyright guidelines, just as we adults and educators do. Since we are their teachers, we need to set a good example. We need to make sure we cite our sources whenever we use them in the classroom if we are incorporating them into something we have created on our own. The students need to see this being done. I remember once when I made a class set of short stories which were taken from a textbook my school doesn't use, I cited the source information right on the bottom of the first page of the story. The students asked why I had written that there and I explained to them that it was taken from a book and I needed to give credit to it. I could not just make copies without citing where it came from. I told them they will need to do the same sort of thing when it's time to write their research paper. The students cringed at this, but at least they were learning an important, life-long lesson.

All in all, I feel that teachers are responsible users of technology. I think that a teacher who is more aware of copyright and fair use restrictions will make more of an effort to cite sources and only use material which is absolutely critical in going along with what she needs to present or teach, rather than a teacher who is not as aware of these restrictions. Therefore, the more education one has on this issue, the more careful and cognizant she is going to be when it comes to borrowing others' works.