Activity 1.1 - Challenges for Disabled Students (Questions)

1. Disabled students are often encouraged to declare a disability so that they can receive appropriate support that might, among other things, help them to access online learning (e.g. training, assistive technologies).

• If a student declared a disability in your institution or work context today, what support would be offered to them?

As a main stream secondary education institution Learning Support staff are employed in addition to teachers to support students with specific learning difficulties. Physical impairment (visual, auditory, motor/dexterity) is less common and is dealt with on an individual basis for any student that requires additional support.

• What would be the costs and benefits to the student of accepting or using that support?

I'm not sure ... That's something I should go and have a chat about with the person in charge of social inclusion to find out more about the process. Here's what I do know. In school aged education children with specific learning difficulties e.g. dyslexia, attention deficit disorder and so on, are often still in the process of being diagnosed with thier conditions. This is done in a process of consultation with teaching staff, parents and external specialists. A similar consultation process is used for physically disabled students but the process may also involve the school nurse. The financial costs of supporting these students is likely to be higher (I am unsure if the school recieves extra funds for these students?) as they may need specialist equipment, for example a special lunch tray for the cafeteria, hearing loops, large print text books etc.


2. What technology or technologies do you use most frequently (i.e. on a daily basis or more) to assist in your personal, work or social life; for example a calculator or satellite navigation?

• How much help or support did you need or have to help you learn how to use this to its full potential?

I use spell check A LOT ... I think that fits the bill of an assistive technology and I don't remember being shown how to use it but it's fairly self explainatory. I do, however, remember being told to use it but that's another story.

3. Using the definitions of assistive technology provided in Chapter 3 and others that you come across in your reading, which of the following technologies would you consider to be an assistive technology and why?

• Mobile phone - Assistive Technology. At first I would have classed a mobile phone as primarily a communications technology, but with the increasing availability of internet access on phone handsets they are becoming multi-purpose mobile devices.
• A document folder placed on the desktop of a PC using the short-cut feature within Windows - Assistive Technology. It creates easy access to files which may otherwise have involved substantial navigation using a mouse.
• Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) - still thinking about this. I haven't ever really used one so I'm not sure if its an assistive technology or just a useful thing
• Google search engine - Google search engine makes searching for and retrieving information very easy. The results pages contain lists of links ... would this make it unfriendly for screen readers? Is it accessible? I would imagine it is but I am currently trying to find an accessibility statement or similar to confirm this in google's corporate information.

4. How helpful do you think the metaphor of a ‘level-playing field’ is in:

• persuading practitioners of the need for developing accessible elearning
• counteracting arguments against making adjustments for disabled learners on the grounds that it gives disabled learners an unfair advantage over non-disabled learners?

I think the 'level playing field' metaphor is useful ... but how many practitioners really need persuading of the need to develop in an accessible way? In terms of web content building an accessible website is often just a case of using compliant code and methods along with some common sense! From my industry point of view it is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the problem which causes issues rather than an unwillingness to develop with them in mind.