I deal with a lot of people with "print disabilities." Typically, when we think of people with print disabilities, we think of people who are visually impaired or people with learning disabilities which make reading print difficult. However, part of the definition of a "print disability," includes difficulty physically accessing print. So if I can't turn the pages of a book, I'm also considered to have a print disability. Seems simple enough, right? And so does the solution. I can just grab my handy dandy tablet/Chromebook/laptop, some digital text, and I'm off the reading races! Unless. . . I don't tolerate digital text well. But that's easy too! I can just create audio files and then. . . hmmm, that's a problem if I'm not big on audio. So what do I do if I have trouble physically accessing text? I recently ran into this issue at work, and the solution was surprisingly. . . simple.
This is a plastic binding comb. I had seen them, but never knew what they were called. You might not have seen it separate or even outside of a Kinko's, but this is one. Here's a picture of one in place in a book.
To use the binding comb, we had the original binding cut off of the book. We usually do this so that we can scan a book when we can't get a digital copy of from the publisher or our usual sources (NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME. We only do this for a student who has purchased a copy of the book. Their copy is what we cut and scan). Once we've scanned the book, we have it prepared for re-binding with a binding comb. So what's so magical about this binding? How can it possibly be assistive technology for someone with a print disability? I recently worked with a person who has difficulty physically manipulating a book. We had provided him with digital copies of his books because of this. However, he began developing severe migraines after reading digital text for a while. Yes, even after using the Nook Paper White. The digital text was actually becoming a bit of an issue. A regular text book could work if. . . it would just stay open. Do you see where we're going with this? Light bulb moment hit yet? Well, since his books needed to be cut to be scanned anyway, we re-bound them with binding combs and suddenly, we had a book that would stay open without the student having to hold it open.
Just that simple thing of re-binding the book made the difference for the student in making the book usable.
In our high-tech age, we forget the power of a simple, low-tech solution. Assistive technology doesn't only have to be a tablet/Chromebook or on a tablet/Chromebook. There are a lot of great assistive technology devices that come in those flavors, but not all of them do. As long as it helps an individual improve or maintain their functionality, it fits the definition. In this case, it's the comb binding and the rebound book. The "K.I.S.S." (Keep It Smart and Simple) Principle is often forgotten in assistive technology in favor of "cooler or flashier solutions." We can't be afraid to embrace the low-tech solution. Start there and end where you need to.
I'm coming to you from sunny San Diego! The conference has been great. This year was a little different. I presented with Jason Carroll from TextHelp. Our presentation was titled, "Looking at Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education."
It was very well received by everyone in attendance. There wasn't any crowd surfing this time or beach balls going through the crowd, but everyone seemed to get a lot from it.
We had originally intended to have my tag-team partner, Rima Maldonado, beam in via a Google Hangout On Air. That's right, we were going to put on The Big Show LIVE! But alas, the conference Internet couldn't handle that much awesome so we didn't get to do it.
I've been hearing from folks who were rather bummed out about not getting to experience The Big Show. So I talked to my accessibility compadres and we've decided to get the band back together for one more show. That's right. We're doing it. We'll be presenting The Big Show, "Looking At Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education" as a Google Hangout Online. You'll be able to ask your questions and we'll do our best to answer them. There will totally be prizes! (There totally won't be any prizes) There will be cake! (There totally won't be any cake) There will be plenty of awesome as we intend to bring #AllOfTheAwesome. So stay tuned! Dates to be released soon via Twitter, here, and all of the usual places!
"Ten men can be sitting at a table eating, you know, dining, and I can come and sit down where they're dining. They're dining; I've got a plate in front of me, but nothing is on it. Because all of us are sitting at the same table, are all of us diners? I'm not a diner until you let me dine. Then I become a diner. Just being at the table with others who are dining doesn't make me a diner. . . ."
I hear people speak of accessibility often.
Very often.
Very, very often.
I hear people value it, are concerned about it, are keeping it in mind when doing X. I hear that a lot of people, a lot of organizations value it. However, I believe that a lot of those same people really have no idea as to what accessibility is.
So how do we get there?
The first thing we need to acknowledge is that accessibility is more than internet accessibility. The internet is just one facet of our world. While it’s arguably the quickest growing facet, it is not the only one. I like the explanations of accessibility offered by the BBC:
"Accessibility is the word used to describe whether a product (for example, a website, mobile site, digital TV interface or application) can be used by people of all abilities and disabilities.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/best_practice/what_is.shtml)
In their view, accessibility is a larger than just the web, which it is. Their best practices includes a more expansive view, but I think it can go a bit farther.
I do like the view taken by New Zealand’s Be. Accessible group. Be. Accessible states:
"Accessibility is all about our ability to engage with, use, participate in, and belong to, the world around us.
It's something that you mightn't even consider on a day-today-day basis, however for many of us, access to education, employment, and the community can be difficult and limited."
What I like about that definition is that it both encompasses the BBC view and expands it by relating it to important parts of our lives— education, employment, and community involvement. Instead of constraining people to think in only one set of terms, it provides a broader perspective.
Here’s a video from the Be Institute in New Zealand that further demonstrates this point.
The difficulty with a very broad view is that it can feel unsatisfying.
We want rules to work with.
We want guidelines.
A checklist would be nice.
The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t challenge us to think outside of our regular mode of thinking. It’s also a good way to miss things. There’s always something that’s not on the list. There’s always something that “we didn’t think about.” If we go by a list, we run into that problem. However, if we look a bit more broadly at principles and then try to apply those principles to different areas like Internet accessibility, construction, and product design. Within this bigger picture you can fit things like WCAG (http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag) and WAI-ARIA (http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria.php). Within this bigger picture, you can also fit the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, The Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA), the Assistive Technology Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Telecommunications Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Air Carrier Access Act, the Voting Accessibility of the Elder and Handicapped Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Civil Rights Act of Institutionalized Persons Act, the Architectural Barriers Act, and the myriad of state, county, and city accessibility statues I’ve definitely missed in this list. Even if we have to have a checklist, if it’s created with these principles in mind, we will end up with better lists than we currently have because we’re thinking more inclusively. We begin by including everyone instead of trying to figure out who we missed and then looping them back in.
The quote I started this post off with was from a speech by Malcom X. While the quote wasn’t necessarily written about people with disabilities, it certainly applies. We need to do more than be concerned with accessibility. We need to do more than just keep it in mind. We need to do more than make it our priority. We need to back those words up not only with deeds, but with a more clear understanding and better ideals. It’s not enough to have a space at the table for someone. You also have to feed them if you’re going to say they are diners the same as everyone else.
Since last semester, I've seen a lot of students needing help with note taking. I knew this was coming, so this happened before school started.
I got a lot of new Livescribe pens and notebooks to meet the demand for them. However, I'm finding that a lot of students are interested in using a regular digital recorder. I've heard people complain about having to listen to a lecture again, but some students are learning that recording the whole lecture doesn't mean you have to listen to it in its entirety every time.
One digital recorder I've made available to my students is really making a difference. It’s the Olympus DP-311 digital audio recorder, and it’s a great little powerhouse jam-packed full of wonderful features.
First, it has BIG buttons for the three major recorder functions on the front face of the device. There’s the “Play” button to playback recordings, the “Stop” button to stop playback, and the “Record” button to make a new recording. This has become a go-to recorder for my students who have a visual impairment. What they like is that the buttons are easy to find because of their size and because they are slightly raised. That’s big considering a lot of the digital recorders have very small buttons that can be difficult to see let alone feel. This recorder also has a speed control. Now this is big, especially for helping a student better understand what’s being said in lecture. If I use a recorder to help with my note taking, I can slow down and replay any section I didn't understand so I can make sure I understand exactly what’s being said.
But wait, there’s more!
The recorder also has a noise reduction feature. So that "hum" from the air conditioning unit or the lawn mower buzzing outside the window won’t show up as loud in the recording. This is important if the person using the recorder is easily distracted or has trouble focusing. It has an 81-hour battery life, 166 hours of recording time built-in, and a 2GB memory expandable by the SD card slot at the top. However, I wouldn't recommend getting an SD card bigger than say 4 GB. Why not? Well, a bigger card brings the temptation to not pull recordings off of the recorder. Why pull off the recordings? So you can keep them on some sort of computing device or cloud storage for use later (save them to Evernote or OneNote). Think about how often you offload the pictures from your phone. See? You want a way to get recordings off of a device, and this one uses an SD card, so make sure you have an SD card reader or you could be out of luck.
The only thing this recorder lacks is a USB port for quick connection to a computer. For that, you have to move up to the VN-722PC, which, while still a nice device, lacks the three large control buttons. You also get the ability to save your audio as an MP3 file or as a WMA (Windows Media Audio) file. For the extra money, having the ability to save all of your audio on a computer is definitely worth it, especially if you want to refer to past recordings.
How do I use it?
So when it comes to using digital recorders, folks who don't use them efficiently typically think that you have to listen to the entire recording.
"Marvin, I don't have time to listen to the entire lecture again!" I know you don't. I'm proposing another way of using the recorder.
Suppose you are recording a lecture, and at times where you feel yourself getting lost or losing what's being said you wrote down the time on the recorder? Then, when you're going over your notes, you would see those different times written down. You could fast forward or rewind to that time and listen to the lecture at that point. Listen to as much or as little as you want or need to in order to get the information you need. It's all a matter of what helps you most. The most important thing is that you are functional with whatever technology you choose.
Something to consider as well is that these same tools can be used in the workplace, similarly to how they are used in school. In the workplace, people often take notes during meetings and presentations. If that same person had issues with taking notes in school, odds are those same difficulties will be present in the workplace. So instead of "moth-balling" that digital recorder after graduation, offload the recordings and get ready to use it at work. Do make sure you get the permission of the parties in the meeting to record it, especially if the recording will be shared. This can also be an issue in school, but it's not an insurmountable one. At the end of the day, what matters is that the person needing a digital recording as assistive technology can use it.
So in case you didn’t know, I've had a job change.
And a coast change.
I went from working with my previous state's “Tech Act” project to working in services for students with disabilities at a university in my new state. It's been a wonderful transition. I've noticed that there is a definite difference in the assistive technology climate between the K-12, Kindergarten thru 12th grade, environment and that of higher education. I know, it seems like a given that there would be a big difference because of a lack of IDEA or similar legislation in higher education.
But it goes beyond that.
The nature of how services are delivered is fundamentally different between K-12, higher education, and the work world. That’s where so many students and parents seem to have difficulty. They think the system that they’ve been in for the better part of the student’s lifetime will be the same after high school. It most certainly is not.
Now for simplicity's sake, I'm not going to go into the differences involved in the work world. For this exercise, we'll just look at the differences between K-12 and higher education.
In The Beginning...
When students are in the K-12 world, AT Services and Devices are typically brought to the student. An IEP (Individualized Education Plan) team looks at what's going on with the student and what the student needs to have equal access to the curriculum. During the IEP process, the team has to answer the very important question of “was assistive technology considered?” and hopefully it’s given a lot of thought and consideration. Also, when we provide students in K-12 with AT, we should be helping them understand _why_ they’re using what they’re using and _why_ it works.
Should be.
Now, I’m not suggesting we fully engage the 7 year old in a high-level conversation regarding the pencil grips she uses or the 9 year old in a discussion of dysgraphia and how it pertains to her using a tablet/computer/AlphaSmart (there are still some out there!). If the child can fully understand that discussion, more power to them. What I’m looking at is the graduating high school student who uses AT, and who doesn’t understand why she’s using it or really what about it makes a difference.
Because of how we provide AT in the K-12 world, students often aren’t involved in the AT consideration process, especially as they get older. Similarly, a lot of parents often aren’t involved. I’ve been in IEP meetings and have seen parents overwhelmed and not understanding what was going on. I’ve also been in meetings where parents know what’s going on and, in essence, they drive the IEP bus. I can’t say I’ve been in many meetings that have been between those two extremes. I don’t have an easy solution for that. It’s going to take time, communication and education to bring all parents and educators to Understanding Land’s IEP Ride.
Reaching Common (Higher) Ground
In the college world, students often face a very different reality. Unlike in K-12, the student has to seek out help. There isn't an IEP team. In fact, many parents and students are surprised to learn that the IEP a student may have had for years is no longer applicable in the college setting (Do note that this can be different in a community college setting). Typically, students need to seek out the campus office that serves students with disabilities. Not all of these offices are equal, so it's important that you take the services available to you into consideration when you're choosing where you will go to school. Instead of an IEP team, the student will usually work with a counselor who helps them find the accommodations that will help them throughout college. The student and the counselor will discuss previous accommodations and possible new ones in order to find the right mix to help the student.
Now, just like finding the right AT in K-12 was important, the same is true in college. However, I pose that it's even more so because once the student leaves the educational realm entirely, she's much more likely to face difficulty in finding the right AT. If the school doesn't have any AT to try, then your local AT Resource Center (previously mentioned in my post on AT Resource and Loan Centers) can really help by giving you a means to test drive different AT. Your local Centers for Independent Living can also help.
Besides finding the right AT, college provides a great time to understand _why_ that AT is perfect. What is it about your text-to-speech software that makes it work better than another? Why does that particular switch interface work best? What about the switches plugged into it? Is your screen magnifier the one that works best for you? Why? Why does app X, program y, or operating system Z work best for you? If you know why your AT works best for you, then you’ll know exactly what properties/functions you’ll need to help improve or maintain your functionality. Sound familiar? Sounds a bit like the definition of an assistive technology device:
"Any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.” Tech Act of 2008
"Any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a child with a disability.” IDEA of 2004
So What Does It Mean?
The best thing you can do, if you’re considering college, is be as prepared as you can. Most universities and colleges don’t offer free learning disability assessments. That being the case, see if you can get another assessment before you graduate. You may be able to use your health insurance to get an assessment. Certain medical professionals can actually conduct the necessary assessment. The fine folks at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Disability Resource Center have developed a resource that gives some great guidelines for understanding who can and can’t diagnose learning disabilities and ADD/ADHD. You can find it at http://drc.calpoly.edu/content/eligibility/whoCanDiagnose.
Also, get informed! Find out if your state has its own particular laws regarding AT and education. You can check with your state’s Tech Act group. I also recommend looking into registering with your local branch of the Dept. of Labor’s Vocational Rehabilitation Program. If you’re registered with them, they can help you purchase any assistive technology that will help you with your studies.
So whether you’re going to a local community college or an Ivy League university, you need to make sure you’re prepared. The level of support will not be the same as it may have been in elementary or high school, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get the help you need to be as successful as you can.
Now you have an easier path to enlightenment! Well, maybe not spiritual enlightenment, but definitely assistive technology enlightenment! You can continue to reach this haven of AT goodness at www.assistivetechplayground.blogspot.com OR You can use the new magically magnificently shorter www.atplayground.com! Yes! Let the world rejoice, and everyone be happy!
Think about when and how you learned to take notes. Was it formal instruction? Were you in a class specifically addressing note-taking and/or study skills? Were you just told to take notes in class one day? How did you learn to take notes?
One of the most common things I have students report difficulty doing is taking notes. Taking notes can be difficult because of the very subjective nature of note-taking. Usually, when I'm taking notes, I'm writing down or typing those thing I find important to know. I'll write things that help me activate prior knowledge of a subject, and I'll write what I need to about the new material that help me learn that new material. If I have a learning disability or processing disorder that prevents me from being able to distil useful information from a lecture while writing or typing notes, note taking can become harder. Factor in the lack of "formal training" in note taking most students have, and the difficulty level increases.
Typically, students having trouble taking notes themselves will use a note-taker accommodation. Incase you don't know, a note taker is usually a student who takes notes for other students who need them. Depending on the campus resources, the note taker may be paid or otherwise compensated for taking notes. Although sometimes, the note taker is a volunteer. How the notes are disseminated to the students who need them can vary quit widely, so we won't look at that. We can't forget that note taking is a subjective activity, so it can be difficult for a note taker to get everything the student with the accommodation needs. Factor in a learning disability and it can be even more difficult to make those notes useful.
Options Abound!
Digital (audio) recorders. Audio recordings of lectures are an older tool in the note taking arsenal. Now with the proliferation of Smartphones and inexpensive digital recorders, it's easier for students to record class lectures and replay them whenever they want. I've heard lots of arguments against doing this from students and instructors.
Instructors usually have the argument that if they allow students to freely record their lectures, no one will show up to class. Interestingly, I have heard the same excuse reason given as for why instructors don't want to give students copies of their digital presentations. I haven't seen any studies looking into the validity of this claim, but I would certainly love to see something comprehensive so we can put this thing to bed.
There's an argument to be made for student responsibility. To illustrate this, I'll draw on the analogy of eating at a fine dining establishment. If I go to Chez Quis (thank you Mr. Bueller), order their most expensive meal, and then proceed to dump the meal in the trash without eating a bite, I'm not likely going to be asked to leave the restaurant. I will most definitely have to pay the bill regardless of whether or not I eat the food. I'm responsible for whether or not I eat the food I've purchased. If I throw it away and stay hungry, I have no one to blame but myself. The chef may be insulted by my disposal of his culinary masterpiece, but he'll typically return to the bottom line-- it's my loss. I've paid my money, and if I choose to pass on the meal, that's my responsibility. Similarly if I order the meal, but order it to go, it's my meal to eat whenever I want because I've purchased it.
Schools are the restaurants, instructors are chefs, students are diners, and lectures are the food. Instructors get paid by institutions and students pay the tuition and fees which go to pay those instructors. I understand class enrollment is important, but enrollment isn't the same thing as bodies in seats. I don't remember professors taking daily attendance. I do remember being responsible for material on tests, and I do remember tuition bills coming in the mail. If students are paying for the content, who are you/we to require that they consume it according to our rules? Let the students record the lectures. Heck, be proactive and publish the lectures as a series of podcasts that the students can subscribe to. You may be surprised by just how much better students do with the ability to have multiple exposures to the material.
So let's look at some tools!
Livescribe Smartpens.
Livescribe has been making high-quality Smartpens for some time now. How do they work? Well, they use a special paper and a special pen. The pen has a microphone to record the audio it's near. So if I'm in a meeting or lecture, the pen will record what's said. Now remember that special paper I mentioned? Well, the pen has a camera close to the tip that records what you write on the special paper. So, when you are going back over your notes and you can't remember exactly why you wrote something down, just touch the pen tip to what was written, and the pen will play back the audio it recorded when you wrote what you touched with the pen. I know. Sounds a little complicated? Well, check out this video which explains how it works pretty well.
Now, the pen works great if you can take some notes and you need a little prompting to help them have more meaning for you. This isn't necessarily the tool you want to use if you need to re-listen to the whole lecture. This also might not be for you if you can't take paper notes. If that's you, you may be better off using a digital recorder and recording the lecture so you can listen to it later.
Tablets/Laptops
Some people prefer to type their notes to writing them. I'm one of those people. Some people have to type their notes because they're not able to write or because their writing isn't legible to them. If this is the case, tablets, laptop computers, and even smartphones become viable options for typing notes. Yes, I said smartphones. We'll come back to that later.
With a computing device, I can type into any number of note taking applications. I'm not going to list them here because there are so many with so many different features. Also, what you use should be greatly influenced by your needs. You could use anything from Word to Pages, Evernote to Notability to OneNote. You could even just use the simple Notepad in Windows or Notes in Mac OSX. The only thing that matters is that the application meets your needs.
Similarly, the hardware should meet your needs. If you can do what you need to do on a laptop and you have a laptop you can take and use, by all means do so. If you have a tablet and that works for you, enjoy. If you need external keyboards or other peripherals, definitely use those. As long as the system works for you, go with it.
I mentioned smartphones earlier. They can actually be as viable as note taking devices as tablets. More often than not, they can run the same programs tablets can run, so they can be used in much the same ways. I know the screens are smaller than tablet screens, but for some people, this is a good thing. I once worked with a woman who had great difficulty writing and typing. She was able to text with her thumbs fairly easily. So when we were looking at options for her to take meeting notes, her smartphone was a no-brainer. She used notes at first and then switched to Evernote so she could sync her notes in the cloud and have access to them anywhere. So don't count out those smartphones or iPod touches just because they have smaller screens.
As an aside, there was a recent study that looked at typing notes vs. writing them, and the results showed that written notes were better. However, there are some things that the study didn't take into consideration like typing as a means of writing for people with disabilities. The study does bring up some good points about "typers" doing more transcription instead of note taking (processing the material and writing clear and concise notes). If you're interested in the study, you can find it at http://goo.gl/iZr1r9.
Sharing is caring!
Whether you are using audio recordings, typed digital notes, Livescribe pen notes, or even written paper notes, having the ability to share those notes with others can be a very powerful thing. That's where a tool like Evernote pulls ahead of the pack as a highly functional note taking tool. With Evernote, you can have a notebook for a class and have multiple people sharing that notebook so they can a all access the notes at the same time. This is handy if you have multiple students needing note takers for the same class. Instead of having multiple note takers or students waiting for faded copies of the notes, the note taker can use Evernote to distribute the notes without having to really do any extra work. If we're looking at paper notes, the note taker will need to scan the notes to make them digital, but once that's done, they can be shared easily. If the note taker records audio notes, the audio file can be uploaded to Evernote where it can be shared to the notebook subscribers.
Where this becomes truly powerful is when you have multiple note takers in the same class or meeting sharing their notes in a shared notebook. Then, everyone with access to the notebook has access to all of the shared resources. If I have three people typing notes, one person recording audio, and someone taking photos of the slides/ whiteboard and they are all sharing that information, they have access to their own notes and to the materials of their peers. If you missed something, odds are someone else picked it up. By using the shared notebook, I don't have to schedule meetings to exchange notes. I just access the notebook, and I get everything.
Bringing It Together
Taking useful notes can often be the hardest thing to learn. Some students are fortunate enough to get formal training throughout their educational careers. Sadly, many others, aren't so fortunate. If you add in the effects of a learning disability, you can end up with students not able to access useful notes in a reasonable time if at all. By embracing the many technology options available to us, we can significantly decrease that difficulty. Students can have access to notes in a format that is most useful to them and place learning center stage instead of struggling with the tools of learning.
